Masked Marauder

The Masked Marauder is a villain in New York City. He wears a dramatic purple helmet and costume with a green cape, and uses an "opti-blast" (sometimes called "visi-blast") attack from his helmet to temporarily blind his foes.

Biography

Facing Daredevil

In 1966, the Masked Marauder and his minions attacked the World Motors Building but were quickly rebuffed by Spider-Man. Marauder hatched a plan to pit Spider-Man and another hero Daredevil against each other, disguising his underlings as Daredevil and sending them after Spider-Man. They successfully antagonized him, and soon the real Daredevil showed himself and the two heroes fought. Their battle garnered the attention of the police, and Marauder put his plan into motion, invading the World Motors Building while the heroes and police were occupied. His minions successfully stole secret plans for a device known as the XB-390. This successful theft further sowed distrust between the two heroes, each believing that the other was working with the Marauder. Later, J. Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle reported on television that the Marauder had failed to capture the fuel formula necessary to operate the XB-390. This naturally drew Marauder's attention, and he planned an additional attack the following night. The broadcast had in fact been orchestrated by Daredevil in order to draw both the Marauder and Spider-Man to the World Motors Building. The Marauder and his minions landed on the roof of the building in a blimp disguised as a WM advertising vehicle, and Spider-Man was there to face them. Marauder disabled Spidey with his opti-blast, but Daredevil soon joined the fight and proved immune to that attack—secretly because he was already blind. Daredevil took him down along with the blimp, but Marauder managed to escape on foot in a police disguise. At street level, he overheard Karen Page ask Foggy Nelson if he was Daredevil, and Foggy gave her a suspicious non-answer. In truth, their colleague Matt Murdock was secretly Daredevil, and Nelson was simply letting Page believe that he was instead to impress her.

Alliance with the Gladiator

Frustrated with his underlings' failings, Marauder instead recruited a group of more standard New York underworld criminals to serve him. Soon after, another Daredevil foe called the Gladiator claimed from jail to the Daily Bugle that Nelson was indeed Daredevil's secret identity. Marauder sent his men to free Gladiator, springing him with a daring tear-gas attack. Marauder meant to use Gladiator as a lackey, but Gladiator's ego matched his own—Marauder used an opti-blast to try to keep him in line. He sent his goons off to Nelson's apartment to take him down, with the caveat that Marauder would have the honor of the finishing blow. Gladiator soon recovered and fought back, but their clash was interrupted when one of the criminals returned. Upon arriving at Nelson's apartment, Marauder's goons were attacked by the real Daredevil. With the hero's identity again obfuscated, Marauder and Gladiator were back to square one—but now encouraged to well and truly combine their efforts against their nemesis.