Daredevil (1964 series) #239

In the basement of an industrial warehouse, a deranged man called Rotgut calls up a pregnant woman, spouting all kinds of vile things. He tells her that he knows she’s sick and that she’s killing her baby with her smoking. She demands to know why he’s calling, and he just tells her that she has to be purified so that she can’t spread her filth to others. Meanwhile, on a Hell’s Kitchen roof, Daredevil comes across a bunch of kids skateboarding. The kids taunt him, not caring for his presence, and to diffuse the situation, he grabs a skateboard and shows off for the kids. He skateboards acrobatically for them and afterwards they think that maybe he’s not so bad! Not long afterwards, Matt walks around, enjoying the sensations his radar gives him, and meets up with Karen, taking her in his arms! The two of them walk to an abandoned car lot where a homeless man named Vegas resides. He serves them lunch and all of them bask in the warmth of the little community they’ve found with each other.

Elsewhere, Rotgut walks around, taking in all of the horrors of the world as he sees it. Rotgut views everyone as deformed, with sicknesses and defects only he can see. He derides a homeless person, feeling they just spread disease, and follows an Asian woman, thinking that foreigners come here to infect and pollute America’s gene pool! He catches up to the woman and soon scares her off, making him think about how everyone runs away from him, everyone except his mother. He then thinks back to when he was a child, when his mother caught him watching TV and eating a burger. She warned him against poisoning his mind and body with the wrong things and compares a person’s body to the plumbing, telling him he doesn’t want bad plumbing. She told him how much she loves him and that she just wanted to protect him from the world.

Outside a lecture hall, the Black Widow finishes up a press conference on her recent “superheroes against drugs” campaign that went under. She runs into Matt and admits that maybe the whole thing was a bad idea, since a lot of people don’t even look up to superheroes anymore. Some even call them a virus, inviting the violence just by their existence! Matt theorizes that Natasha is really trying to make amends from the Jack Hazzard incident (from Daredevil #236) and tells her that she should go after the doctor who messed with Hazzard in the first place. Matt then heads to his job at the diner, passing by a freshly ended wedding. As the new bride and groom head to their car, they’re spotted by Rotgut, also nearby, who can only focus on the bride’s birthmark, an imperfection that he’s sure she’ll defect her children with! At the diner Matt works at, Rotgut freaks out the waitress, telling her that she’s infected and asking her to come home with him. Matt confronts him and he goes on a tangent about plastics and storms out!

Outside, Matt finds Rotgut soliciting a prostitute and changes to Daredevil. He tries to talk to Rotgut but the girl’s pimp chases him off. Knowing that Rotgut hasn’t done anything illegal, Daredevil ponders what to do. He decides to at least head back and eavesdrop a little, while at the same time Rotgut kills the prostitute! Daredevil heads back and is immediately ganged up on by the prostitute’s guys. Since her final word was “Daredevil”, they think he did it and pile on him. Daredevil throws them off and fights back while Rotgut escapes. He finally takes care of all of them, briefly wondering how much he has to hurt people in order to help them. Daredevil determines to track Rotgut down, while Rotgut decides he’s going to clean up New York! To be continued!

Characters: Daredevil/Matt Murdock, Rotgut, Karen Page, Black Widow,