Silver Streak Comics #7
Silver Streak Comics #7 (on sale November 1940, cover-dated January 1941) is the opening chapter of one of the Golden Age's first extended multi-issue superhero sagas: 'Daredevil Battles The Claw,' a five-part serial that ran through issue #11 and transformed both characters from supporting players into headlining stars. In this issue, Jack Cole overhauled Bart Hill's Daredevil root-and-branch — restoring his speech, redesigning his costume in the now-familiar red and blue, and introducing his girlfriend Tonia Saunders — then pit him against The Claw in a pulp-scaled assault on New York City, demonstrating that a serialized superhero vs. supervillain conflict could sustain reader interest across months. The runaway reader response to this arc directly precipitated Daredevil's promotion to his own title (launching as Daredevil Battles Hitler in mid-1941) and caused Silver Streak Comics to accelerate from bimonthly to monthly publication, making #7 a measurable inflection point in early comics publishing history.
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The issue went on sale November 19, 1940, under the indicia publisher 'Your Guide Publications Inc.' — the imprint through which Arthur Bernhardt and Morris Latzen distributed the title before full Lev Gleason control — with Lev Gleason credited as editor and Jack Cole listed as Editor in the Statement of Ownership printed inside the issue. Cole had already written and drawn the lead Silver Streak strips for the title; after Jack Binder introduced a mute, darkly-costumed Daredevil in issue #6, Cole seized the character in issue #7 and refashioned him as a speaking, brightly-uniformed hero whose redesign proved immediately and decisively more appealing to readers. Cole was simultaneously working across multiple Gleason features, and the concentrated energy he brought to this opening chapter of the Claw saga — with its subterranean tunnel from Tibet to New York and skyscraper-melting supervillain — set the visual and narrative template for the remaining installments.
Trivia · 8 facts
- On sale date: November 19, 1940; cover date January 1941; published under the 'Your Guide Publications Inc.' indicia with Lev Gleason as editor.
- Contains Part 1 of 'Daredevil Battles The Claw,' the first confrontation between Bart Hill (Daredevil) and The Claw — a five-part serial that continued through Silver Streak Comics #11.
- First appearance of Tonia Saunders, Daredevil's girlfriend and a recurring character throughout his subsequent adventures in Silver Streak Comics and beyond; she learns Bart Hill's secret identity in this very issue.
- Daredevil's significant visual and narrative retool: Jack Cole dropped the character's original muteness and introduced the now-classic red and blue costume, replacing the darker look from his debut in issue #6.
- Jack Cole is credited as both the writer/artist of the Daredevil lead story and, per the Statement of Ownership inside the issue, as Editor of the title.
- The serial's popularity caused Silver Streak Comics to shift from bimonthly to monthly publication beginning with issue #8, a direct editorial response to reader enthusiasm for the Daredevil/Claw clash.
- The Daredevil story from this issue has been reprinted at least three times: in The Golden Age of Comic Books (Random House, April 1977), in Gwandanaland Comics #1377 — Daredevil and the Claw: Volume 1, and in Dark Horse's Silver Streak Archives Featuring the Original Daredevil Volume 1 (June 2012).
- The issue is an anthology containing multiple features beyond the Daredevil lead, including Silver Streak and other short-lived backup strips; at 68 pages, the Daredevil/Claw chapter occupied a full 16 pages — the most prominent real estate in the book.
Cast · 4 characters
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Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Mortimer Skinn has watched his two brothers murdered on their birthdays as well as other family members.....now Mortimer's birthday has come and he is scared to death and demands Police protection. Dickie discovers that the villain is a blind member of the family, whose brothers had attempted to kill him, but he beat them to it! Now the professor operates on Dickie and turns him into a willing accomplice for crime!
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).