Cover art by Chris Samnee
Although attorney Matt Murdock – the acrobatic Marvel Comics superhero Daredevil – is best known for his adventures in New York City, he briefly moved to the West Coast and called San Francisco home on two separate occasions. The first occurred in February 1972 when the “Man Without Fear” headed to California with Natasha Romanoff – aka the Black Widow – while the second took place decades later, during the early part of the twenty-first century.
“I’m not a total stranger to San Francisco,” the superhero reflects in the premier issue of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee’s Daredevil in March 2014. “I actually lived here for about a year. But that was a long time ago, and it’s changed. A lot. I really need to reacclimate myself since it’s my new home and all, but now isn’t the time.” As he rescues a small child by maneuvering high above the streets, he then adds, “Dear City Planners, try putting your buildings a little closer together, okay?”
Before leaving New York City, Matt Murdock had revealed his secret identity as Daredevil, precipitating his move from east coast to west. Just as the Big Apple served as the background for his previous heroics, the same held true for the City by the Bay. While his lack of eyesight may have hindered his ability to go on traditional sightseeing tours, he visited many of the iconic locales within San Francisco nonetheless, making Daredevil the ideal superhero tourist guide for the Northern California enclave.
Amongst Murdock’s clients at his new law firm in San Franciso is an old foe named George Smith, better known as the Stunt-Master. Smith retired from criminal life and became a professional stunt cyclist in Hollywood, but too many injuries eventually took their toll. In addition to again being forced to retire, the company that Smith sold the merchandising rights for the Stunt-Master name has hired a new Stunt-Master. The replacement is now using San Francisco as one giant publicity gimmick, making the original obsolete.
“Live from Fisherman’s Wharf,” a news reporter announces to her television audience. “Where we are being promised a motorcycle feat for the ages – the longest leap in history – as the Stunt-Master prepares, impossibly, to jump from shore to Alcatraz Island, over one-point-two miles of the deadliest, most impassible water on Earth!”
Fisherman’s Wharf sits along the northern edge of the city and overlooks San Francisco Bay, in the middle of which sits the rock-shaped island of Alcatraz. Seafood restaurants and souvenir shops extend along Jefferson Street, which is likewise frequented by a genuine San Francisco cable car. Various piers jettison into the bay, with docked boats filling the water. Arguably the most famous pier at Fisherman’s Wharf is Pier 39 – the wooden docks have become home for a sea lion colony in recent years, with dozens of them lying in the sun while those awake make barking sounds, much to the joy of eager tourists snapping photos.
The Stunt Master is able to make the jump from Fisherman’s Wharf to Alcatraz with the aid of a malfunctioning Navy helicopter, using it to springboard safely to the island instead of crashing into bay. The “rock” was named Alcatraz by a Spanish naval lieutenant in 1775 because of its multitude of pelican inhabitants, then went virtually forgotten for 75 years before the U.S. military realized its strategic value. It was abandoned in 1934, the same year that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover decided to create a “super-prison” to detain the country’s most dangerous convicts.
Before once again being abandoned in 1963, the prison on Alcatraz housed some of the most infamous American gangsters, including Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud, better known as the “Bird Man of Alcatraz.” In 1969, a group of Native Americans “invaded” Alcatraz Island and occupied it for the close to two years as part of the decade’s Native American Movement. It was then transformed into a national park and popular tourist attraction, with over 1.5 visitors each year.
Although the lawsuit that George Smith wants to file against the new Stunt-Master is a non-starter – he willingly sold the rights to the name years ago – Matt Murdock finds himself in a similar situation when he discovers that the new Stunt-Master is marketing himself as the “Man Without Fear.” Murdock initially brushes it off, believing that the Stunt-Master is just trying to bait Daredevil for added publicity, but his attitude changes when Smith commits suicide.
“Showtime, folks,” the new Stunt-Master tells the crowd. “Get those cameras ready. You’re about to witness not just a stunt but an event. A moment in history. You’re about to see me become the first cyclist ever to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, not on pavement or asphalt but solely on its suspension cables. That’s right! Cables so narrow, slipping one inch to the left or right will send me plummeting over a hundred yards to a watery death. A feat not even Matt Murdock would attempt. Proof that I’m the world’s greatest daredevil!”
The strait between the northern tip of the San Francisco peninsula and Marin County separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. During the nineteenth century, ferries were used to travel from one end to the other. Building a bridge that extended 6,700 feet across water that was 372 feet deep – to say nothing of the swirling tides and strong winds – was deemed impractical. That changed in the twentieth century with advancements in suspension-bridge designs, however, and the Golden Gate Bridge opened to the public in 1937.
The American Society of Civil Engineers considers the Golden Gate Bridge one of the “Wonders of the Modern World,” while Frommer’s Travel Guide named it “the most photographed bridge in the world.” Upon its completion, the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest and tallest suspension bridge ever built, holding the title until 1964 for longest and 1998 for tallest. Approximately 112,000 vehicles cross over the bridge on any given day, as well as numerous pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Stunt-Master isn’t the only Daredevil foe from the superhero’s New York days to show up in San Francisco. Big Apple crime boss Leland Owsley, better known simply as the Owl, was kidnapped and held hostage on Alcatraz Island during Matt Murdock’s second stay in San Francisco. Daredevil teamed with the Owl’s daughter, Jubula Pride, to find the criminal mastermind, a trek that took the pair to Ghirardelli Square and Marina Boulevard before reaching their final destination of Alcatraz Island.
Originally a chocolate factory built by Domenico “Domingo” Ghirardelli in the nineteenth century, the building was turned into a collection of stores and restaurant after the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was sold in the early 1960s. In 2017, the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum relocated from the Yerba Buena Gardens cultural district to a mere block from Ghirardelli Square. Founded in 1984, the non-profit regularly offers new exhibits based on all forms of cartoon art, including animation cells and original comic book drawings.
“Soft, almost unfelt, the bay breeze moves through the city like some silent specter,” the opening page of Daredevil #87, published in May 1972, begins. “Where it touches, tree leaves rustle. Bits of sidewalk paper spin and dance – and in the morning air, San Francisco comes alive. He turns his head slowly, sensing the shape and size of the buildings around him, ‘seeing’ the streets that drop away on the hills about them. Almost imperceptibly, a smile forms on his lips, and Matt Murdock knows for an instance at least, that at last, he’s found a place he can truly call home.”
With its rolling hills, famous neighborhoods like the former hippie enclave of Haight-Ashbury and the North Beach frequented by the Beats of the 1950, Presidio national park, and the slim Coit Tower sitting on top of Telegraph Hill, the California city of San Francisco is a place that travelers can likewise “truly call home” if only for an “instance,” regardless of their superhero status.
Anthony Letizia