KEN REID'S DARE-A-DAY DAVY (GUEST-STARRING NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.) - PART ONE...

POW! #1 January 21st 1967

Here are three DARE-A-DARE DAVY strips from POW!, first published back in 1967.  Drawn by the irrepressible KEN REID in his usual manic style, these pages are a visual delight to the eyes and deserve to be collected in a deluxe hardback book for posterity.  In fact, I believe someone did that very thing a few years ago, but the limited print run has long sold out, so you've had your chips, chums.

I have all the Davy strips in some form or other; I've virtually a complete set of Pow!, although some of them are in a bound volume and therefore difficult (if not impossible) to scan.  In such instances, if I ever post any more of the strip, some instalments will be from black and white reprints and others will be from the original issues.  I'm sure you'll be equally appreciative regardless of the source.

POW! #20 June 3rd 1967

The above strip probably wouldn't be allowed now in a comic for kids because of Davy's reference to him committing suicide.  To me, it seems that Davy actually means that the nature of the dare is 'suicidal' rather than the intent, although the result is likely to be the same.  The result in the 'real' world of course, but this is comics.  However, the wording isn't clear on the distinction, so if it were to be reprinted, the speech balloon would probably be changed. 

(Funnily enough, it's rumoured that Ken actually pitched the idea of a strip about a character who tries to kill himself every week, but it was rejected, no doubt on the grounds that it would be regarded as being in bad taste.  Years later, someone with no such sensibilities produced a strip on the theme for VIZ comic (thanks, McScotty), but as it's not a mag I buy, I can't show you an example.  (Phew!)

POW! #33 September 2nd 1967

As you can see, MARVEL's NICK FURY makes an appearance in the above strip (in what looks like a TV21 DALEK spaceship, no less), which was perfectly natural as Pow! reprinted Nick's adventures inside the comic.  (As the pair were stablemates, why not have a little fun with them, eh? )  I doubt it was ever regarded as 'the team-up of the century' or 'the battle you demanded', but it was actually quite significant in its way, in that it was one of the earliest inter-company crossover examples in comics history.

Note also the suggestion that Nick Fury is British (unless, of course, he merely means that his current mission concerns the U.K.).  All American references were usually deleted and revised in the pages of Pow! (and its companion papers), so young kids were probably unware that the reprint strips were originally set in the States. 

Want to see more of Davy?  Dare me!