The Final Hour of the Assassin!

 

We've been looking at the roughly six-month period of stories from 1971-72 which introduced the figure-in-shadows known as Mister Kline, whose agenda was to disrupt the lives of both Tony Stark and Matt Murdock for reasons unknown. To that end, he involved a number of criminal operatives to do his bidding, until finally turning to more dependable androids of his own construction--at which point Kline himself pulled back the curtain to reveal that he was also an android, in the service of another figure who was just as mysterious in regard to their ultimate goal.

And now, we come to see the situation somewhat resolved in the pages of Daredevil (the key word here being "somewhat"), where writer Gerry Conway brings an anticlimactic conclusion to this storyline that mostly fast-tracks closure for the character and story of "Mister Kline" (now designated "the Assassin" by his superior, Baal) by way of a bare minimum of explanation which may nevertheless satisfy those readers who are ready to move on. Oddly enough, it's made clear by story's end that those sentiments are also shared by Daredevil and the Black Widow.

By the time we reach this point, a new if indirect development in the story of Mr. Kline has taken place in the Sub-Mariner book (also written by Conway), where an unconscious Namor is approached by two figures who bear a resemblance to the Assassin, if far removed (further than we know, as we'll later see). It becomes clear as they probe Namor that they have knowledge of Kline--and for some reason we cannot guess, they oppose him.

Despite their closing words, however, we would not see this pair again until this issue of Daredevil, where things at last come to a head. For the time being, though, we'll have to focus on Matt Murdock, who has come to a ski resort in the Swiss alps at the request of the Widow and is introduced to Dr. Emil Borgdsky, a man who has reached out to the Widow with an offer to use a new surgical approach to cure Murdock's blindness.

Unknown to either Murdock or the Widow, Borgdsky is actually the Assassin in disguise, though initially Murdock is on his guard around the man for different reasons after adding up clues in the States that showed Kline abandoning his Long Island base and likely relocating to Switzerland. DD's suspicions of Borgdsky prompt him to follow him to a structure where DD eavesdrops on the man now revealed to be the Assassin (née Mister Kline) communicating with his master, Baal, and learns that both are androids from 12,000 years in the future who have been manipulating events in the 20th century to prevent a coming catastrophe which in some way DD, Tony Stark, and Franklin Nelson were separately responsible for (if we're to believe Baal).

Baal, then, is the sole occupant of the future Earth of which he speaks, its destruction imminent unless Stark, Murdock and Nelson are taken out of the picture. DD, of course, is more concerned with staying alive as the Assassin continues to lash out at him--but in addition, he's incensed at the discovery of the depth of the Assassin's interference in his life, which marks the turning point of this battle.

I don't know, Widow--if you have your opponent on the ropes, is it customary to simply leave before making sure his threat is ended? And at the very least, don't you have questions about this foe's machinations that need answering?

But for us, the departure of the Widow and DD cue the appearance of the Final Sons Of Man, our pair from earlier who now reappear to wrap up the story of "Mister Kline"--beings who apparently are an extension of the human race who somehow lived on after the explosive cataclysm which claimed both Baal and Earth and who now make sure that Baal's plans come to naught in order to preserve their own timeline. (Which ultimately means curtains for the future Earth, but that's how it is.)

Two confused humans, and a lot of confused readers who might have felt a little short-changed at the seemingly deus ex machina role of the Final Sons, Mr. Narrator. In addition, there are the wacky years to account for in regard to the Final Sons and Baal. For instance, if Baal was all that remained of life on Earth before he and the planet met destruction, there could have been no "final sons of man" to emerge and execute the Assassin; and if these two were from thirty centuries in the future, my math puts them at only 3,000 years ahead of DD, whereas we've learned earlier in this story that Baal hails from 12,000 years ahead, a discrepancy that throws a wrench into the works here.

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Even after the story of Mister Kline had been put to rest and readers had left the Assassin, Baal, and the Sons to the tender mercies of the timestream, a couple of stragglers arrived late to the party. Our first guests are Mister Hyde and the Scorpion, whom Kline had captured and replaced with androids which didn't fare well after separate encounters with DD and the Widow. Five months after this final story sees print, they both escape their confines and speculate on just who captured them and why--leading to a final bow for Kline in the form of an unashamed teaser for readers* of Captain America and the Falcon:

*"Scrupulous Stan" has his facts a little skewed, in that Kline wasn't at war with Earth... and it was the Final Sons of Man who were from thirty centuries in the future, rather than Kline.

Secondly, we bring things with this character to an end with the 1970s installment of the Marvel Legacy handbooks from 2006-07 which provides a profile on Mister Kline, its writer(s) seeking to bring order to chaos by connecting this story's dots with the addition of information not previously conceived or divulged.