Daredevil: 1940, Silver Streak #6 (Lev Gleason). Daredevil is a hard character to pin down, due to various reasons. Chief among them, to do the character justice, you have to not start with his first appearance (which we'll later show to be incongruous to the character he's remembered being) but several issues earlier and a different strip.

It was in the first issue of SILVER STREAK that readers met not Daredevil nor even the hero Silver Streak but the villain the Claw. The Claw started off mundane enough, a despotic ruler with a piracy ring. Visually he was obviously the product of the genius of Jack Cole, absurd to the point of parody, huge with fangs and claws, the epitome of the racist tones of the yellow peril menace. As this isn't about the Claw, we won't go too much into him except for the one flaw in the character was he didn't have a hero to oppose him.

The Jack Binder studio contributed to issue 6 a story about a hero named Daredevil in a bi-lateral costume consisting of the colors blue and yellow!! Daredevil started off as Bart Hill who was orphaned when crooks killed his father and then they tortured him, leaving him with a boomerang scar on his chest. The trauma also renders Bart mute but he silently vows that he will avenge them. He trains himself in top shape and masters the boomerang. While he doesn't speak, we do get to see his thoughts.

In the following issue, Daredevil's costume was the familiar blue & red and the addition of the spiked belt and Jack Cole regaled us with the adventure that pitted Daredevil against the Claw and they clashed over the course of 5 issues. And it apparently cured him of his muteness. When the Claw teamed up with Hitler, Daredevil and the heroes Silver Streak, Dickie Dean, Cloud Curtis, Lance Hale, and the Pirate Prince stood against them, mostly individually teaming up with Daredevil. While this wouldn't be the end of either villain, Daredevil moved on to other adversaries leaving them to be opposed by other heroes.

While early in his career, he was associated with Tonia Saunders, in issue #13, 1942, he would meet The Little Wise Guys. Two adventures later, one of them, Meatball, would be killed and you'd think that would be a good indicator of the wisdom of kids teaming up with mystery men. But, the gang consisting of Pee Wee, Jock, Scarecrow and Curly would hang out with him for years.

In 1943, we'd also find out a new origin behind Daredevil, finding out his skills and costume came from being raised by Australian Aborigines!

In another story in 1942, Bart Hill relates to a gang of kids and a bully a story that has its beginnings when Bart was a junior in High School! Don't know how much of that story is true and compatible with his later origin (as he wasn't mute and fairly well adjusted, it is clearly not compatible with his first origin). However, this story relates how Daredevil met Tonia Saunders. Several years later after he had become Daredevil, a crook knocks her out and kidnaps her to use as a hostage while he effects his escape along train tracks. The crook gets his foot caught in the tracks and Daredevil only has time to rescue one of them before an oncoming train runs them down. Upon rescuing her, he is smitten by her beauty.

Eventually, Daredevil took a backseat to the kids, sometimes hardly appearing in costume. Later, he'd just introduce their stories and then faded from the scene completely. Maybe, he finally decided to settle down and marry Tonia. By the time the comic bearing his name ended in 1956, he'd not been spotted since a couple of times in 1951. NOTE: Daredevil was a memorable character though, partly through the work of Jack Cole and others in his battles with the Claw, as well as the solid writing and sometimes art by Charles Biro during the Little Wise Guys years. And then there was his costume. He was never long forgotten. The design of his costume would be adapted by Peter Morisi for Peter Canon: Thunderbolt at Charlton (while borrowing the origin of Amazing Man). Variations of him would appear under other names, Double Dare in Roy Thomas' Alter Ego, and when Fem Force needed help against the Black Shroud, he'd show up as Red Devil and more recently as Death Defyin' Devil for Dynamite and under his own name as a guest-star in Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon.. His record clashes with the Claw would be reprinted several times.

Detecto: 1940, Wham Comics #1 (Centaur). From the comic: "To describe 'Detecto' the Wonder Beam would be impossible beyond the fact that it consists of four unlimited powers. 1. it can receive and send short wave radio calls. 2. It can stop any motor. 3. It can set up a resistance beam through which bullets cannot penetrate. 4. It paralyzes all living things it touches. The discoverer of this marvelous beam is Jack Strand, young scientist who specializes in radio." There was also a Jack Strand that had a magic gem and opposed Psyk in Amazing Mystery Funnies but the characters otherwise don't really appear to be the same, just the company/creator re-using the name.

Dynamic Man: 1941, Dynamic Comics 1-3, 8-24 (Harry "A" Chesler). Dynamic Man was one of several characters with an inconsistent history. He started off as an artificial man created by scientist Dr. Moore who was killed as Dynamic Man was reaching completion. This story is remarkably similar to Timely's Dynamic Man with a change to the name of Professor Goettler to Dr. Moore (and later, Doc Stahl). Of course a reason for that is the Timely Dynamic Man was created for Timely by the Chesler studio and then refurbished when he launched his own comic book line.

In issue 11, he's Bert McQuade, a high school basketball coach and has a brother in Ricky who has the same powers and helps out as Dynamic Boy. Their powers seem to be less than before and in issue 16, it is said that they got their powers through a series of complex electronic treatments by Old Doc Stahl, now deceased. The FBI know how to contact him, but not too surprising as they don't take pains to disguise their features.

NOTE: It is not difficult to reconcile the two versions of Dynamic Man, actually. For in the origin story, Dynamic Man is not directly referred to as an artificial man. While it is definitely implied, Moore referring to his "creation" and a "life-giving switch", it is possible that Dynamic Man was always Bert McQuade who hovered near death and Moore took the opportunity to give him fantastic powers while resuscitating him, the end result of a superman for justice being his creation. Indeed, when the villain the Yellow Spot sics his enslaved on the hero, he tells them to "drain his blood."