Biography of Daredevil, 1966

The following is a biography of Daredevil in the year 1966.

Biography

Plunder family drama

Cruise to the Savage Land

Resigned to being forever detached from Karen and Foggy, Matt decided to take a cruise to the other side of the world to clear his head and plan his future. The cruise ship, the Odyssey, was soon attacked by a gang of pirates led by the infamous Plunderer—strangely enough, they were armed with ray guns. The Plunderer's crew quickly took control of the Odyssey, but Matt suited up as Daredevil and fought back. He soon got the upper hand, but the Plunderer threatened to send the ship's crew overboard in shark-infested waters, forcing Daredevil to surrender. The pirates took Daredevil hostage from the Odyssey as their only bounty. The Plunderer explained that he was in fact a noble named Lord Parnival Plunder who possessed both a yearning for the sea and a gift for engineering. He took Daredevil captive on his schooner and demonstrated its many technological wonders, including its ability to smoothly transform into a submarine.

Plunder explained that he essentially pirated to spite those who had mocked his dreams of building exceptionally advanced ships like this one. He sought not wealth, for he had plenty, but "pride and revenge." Plunder gave Daredevil the ultimatum: by the time they reached Skull Island, he would join the crew or be killed. Skull Island was in the Savage Land, a mysterious realm found beneath Antarctica which Plunder had found while searching for Atlantis. The submarine traveled for thousands of miles through a vast undersea channel until it finally surfaced on the shores of Skull Island. To Plunder's surprise, the island was in flames. The swamp men of the Savage Land had rebelled against Ka-Zar, the land's mighty champion and de facto leader.

The swamp men had left the island since the attack. Plunder led his crew ashore and they began unloading supplies—the excitement of the situation deemphasized Daredevil's ultimatum. Plunder's crew were suddenly attacked by Ka-Zar and his saber-toothed tiger Zabu. Daredevil tried to convince him that he wasn't an enemy, but the musclebound Ka-Zar beat him down all the same. Ka-Zar used a rock to knock the Plunderer's blaster shot astray, striking and detonating a cache of explosives and forcing Ka-Zar and Zabu to flee. Daredevil slowly came to and realized that Ka-Zar's beating knocked his radar sense out of commission, rendering him well and truly blind. He tried to escape, but shrapnel from the explosion struck him in the arm and took him down. Recognizing that Daredevil was costumed similarly to the X-Men, who had helped him previously, Ka-Zar took Murdock's helpless body to his cave home. He left to retrieve some healing ju-ju berries from a ravenous plant creature, but in his absence, a huge ape man named Maa-Gor entered the cave.

Family heirlooms

Deprived of his radar sense, Daredevil was forced to rely on his wits and combat training to supplement his human-level senses against the colossal, bestial foe. Despite his best efforts, Daredevil was soon all but defeated, but the Plunderer and his crew arrived, and the captain sent Maa-Gor running with a shot from his blaster. It soon became clear to the crew that Daredevil was blind. Plunder had come to the cave looking for Ka-Zar, but brought Daredevil along anyway. Parnival also let out an offhand comment that Ka-Zar was his long-lost brother. They found Ka-Zar and Zabu in the wilds, and Plunderer showed Ka-Zar a cracked silvery medallion he possessed. Ka-Zar revealed that he had one just like it, and the two fit together to form one perfect medal, proving that they were brothers. Ka-Zar held his own half of the medal dearly as Plunderer trapped him in an elaborate metal cage and took him aboard the submarine. The Plunderer apparently desired the completed medallion for reasons yet unclear, but would wait to retrieve it until he had more of an advantage over the mighty Ka-Zar. Ka-Zar managed to hand off the ju-ju berries to Daredevil, who felt his powers slowly returning to him.

The Plunderer's ship traveled to his castle in the British Isles, where his crew enjoyed a bountiful feast in celebration of his victory. By the time they arrived, Daredevil's powers were mostly functional, but he continued to play blind to maintain his tactical advantage over Plunderer. Plunderer took Daredevil into the dungeon where Ka-Zar was held, explaining that he would take the medallion from the Lord of the Jungle. Plunderer explained the nature of the medallion: his father, the first Lord Plunder, had discovered a slab of strange ore in the Savage Land during his globetrotting adventures. The ore, when struck, could produce catastrophic vibrations that destroyed metal objects around it. Lord Plunder carefully chipped off a small piece of the ore and forged the medallion into two halves, storing the central piece in a large vault that could only be opened by the medallion's vibration. Lord Plunder gave the two halves to his sons Parnival and Kevin—Ka-Zar—with the intent of keeping them close and loving. This tale revealed that Parnival's initial claim of searching for Atlantis was a lie.

The Plunderer pushed Daredevil into Ka-Zar's dungeonous pit, demanding that he retrieve the medallion or die. Daredevil let him do it, to get time to devise a plan of action. An enraged Ka-Zar attacked, but a fully powered and prepared Daredevil managed to bound off of Ka-Zar's back and leap out of the cell, kicking Plunderer down. He then helped Kevin out of the pit with his billy club, and Ka-Zar was pleasantly startled at the use of his British name. The two were attacked by Parnival's underling Slagg, who was soon betrayed and killed by the butler Feepers, whom the heroes took down easily. The simpleminded jungle lord dove from the nearest window, intending to flee back to the Savage Land. Daredevil ran after him, knowing he would only get into trouble on his own.

The Plunderer attacks

As Daredevil and Ka-Zar made their escape, they were blasted by an unseen stranger with a grenade rifle, knocking them down. Ka-Zar was rendered unconscious, but Daredevil's keen senses allowed him to remain awake. The man, calling himself Boswell, stole Ka-Zar's medallion half and radioed to Feepers his progress. Daredevil trailed Boswell's car back to the Plunderer's castle, where he witnessed Parnival confronting the traitorous Feepers. Boswell burst in and tried to shoot Plunder, but he dodged and Feepers took the bullet instead. Plunderer knocked out Boswell and took his medallion half, completing it with his own. As Plunderer made his way to the dungeon, Daredevil confronted him, but the police soon arrived with a bound Ka-Zar, accused of Slagg's murder. Daredevil made good his escape through the window as the police split up to find him and imprison Ka-Zar.

Matt recognized that Plunderer now had both halves of the medallion and a malicious desire to use them, but knew that he had to free Ka-Zar first. To truly be exonerated from the crime of which he was accused, Ka-Zar would need to stand trial. With no time to defend him himself, Matt contacted Foggy by cablegram to request his services—and to let him and Karen know he was alive following the attack on the Odyssey. Daredevil returned to the castle and trailed the Plunderer, with a new costume and a group of henchmen in tow, to the submarine landing site. The Plunderer had used the Savage Land ore, which he called the Plunderstone, to craft a "vibra-ray gun" that would atomize metallic objects. His followers wielded weapons that would be unaffected by the vibra-ray. While one guard was briefly separated from the group, Daredevil took him down and donned his costume as a disguise. Plunderer took his sub to a missile base in the north Atlantic, which he and his men conquered in a matter of minutes.

Examining the weaponry, Daredevil figured out that they were plastic, and radioed reinforcements telling them so. He attacked the Plunderer and his men, keeping them busy until American forces arrived with plastic weaponry to subdue Lord Parnival. Defeated, he confessed that Ka-Zar was innocent of Slagg's murder. Ka-Zar's trial had since begun, but it ended early and abruptly when the savage Ka-Zar broke through his bonds and was taken down with gas shells. Matt visited the unconscious Ka-Zar in the hospital, where he met with Foggy and Karen. They were overjoyed to see him, and he likewise. Matt mused that he had "gotten wiser in the past few months" and agreed to come back to work at Nelson & Murdock.

See also

• Biography of Daredevil, 1964-1965