Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Bob Montana, Bob Wood, Charles Biro, Dick Briefer, lev gleason
Biro’s Daredevil Comics #11 in the Crime Does Not Pay Era, at Auction
Released the same week as the debut of Crime Does Not Pay, Biro’s bizarre Daredevil #11 cover helps signal the arrival of the Charles Biro & Bob Wood era.
Article Summary
- Daredevil Comics #11 hit in April 1942, the same week Crime Does Not Pay debuted, marking a pivotal Lev Gleason moment.
- Charles Biro’s startling cover and lead story, The Phantom of Notre Dame, show Daredevil Comics taking a darker turn.
- Bob Wood’s Claw story, Dick Briefer’s Bronze Terror feature, and Pat Patriot’s finale pack Daredevil Comics #11.
- With its bizarre Biro cover and key Golden Age timing, Daredevil Comics #11 has gained popularity among collectors.
Daredevil Comics #11 reached newsstands on April 28, 1942, according to copyright records, the same week that publisher Lev Gleason and the same editorial team ofCharles Biro and Bob Wood released Crime Does Not Pay #22, the comic book that turned true crime into a major genre. This is still a superhero anthology, not a crime comic book in disguise. Daredevil fights a bell-tower phantom, the Claw builds an impossible war machine, and Dick Briefer sends the Bronze Terror off on a movie-industry plot. But the issue has an edge that wasn’t necessarily there at the beginning of the series, as it repeatedly turns outlandish threats and punishment into spectacle. Biro’s cover makes it clear that Lev Gleason was shifting into a different era.
Beyond the cover, Biro wrote and drew the 13-page lead story it represents, “The Phantom of Notre Dame.” Its title is obviously inspired by Victor Hugo, but the action begins at a Hollywood studio, where Daredevil has been called to an Academy Award presentation. A disguised figure swings from a bell rope above a huge soundstage recreation of Notre Dame, turning the soundstage into a weapon. Dick Wood and Carl Hubbell‘s “Sniffer Joins the Army” gets its regulars, Sniffer and the Deadly Dozen, into uniform. Bob Wood’s “The Claw’s War Machine” has one of the Golden Age’s best supervillains building a mobile fortress the size of a city block in Colorado while America fights on multiple fronts. Dick Briefer writes and draws “The Bronze Terror Movie,” in which a producer buys screen rights to the hero while an impostor exploits the results. Briefer’s ability to move among superheroes, comedy, horror, and self-aware storytelling is prominently on display here. Bob Montana contributes two short features, while Lin Streeter draws Pat Patriot’s final appearance.
This issue has been on the rise recently, on the strength of that incredibly bizarre Biro bondage/torture cover. As a whole,Daredevil Comics #11 captures Charles Biro and Bob Wood at a time when their storytelling instincts were about to reshape the field. For collectors interested in a classic Biro cover released at a moment when Lev Gleason was on the threshold of changing the comic book industry, there’s a Daredevil Comics #11 (Lev Gleason, 1942) CGC FN- 5.5 Cream to off-white pages up for auction at the 2026 August 13 Golden Age Century Comics Showcase Auction V #40377.
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