Torpedo, Away

 

If you weren't much of a Daredevil reader in the mid-1970s, you may mostly remember the adventurer known as the Torpedo from the farce three-part Defenders story occurring a few years later which featured a plethora of Marvel's characters showing up on the non-team's doorstep to join their ranks. It was no one's finest hour that day, much less the Torpedo's:

Created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Bob Brown, the character's debut in the pages of Daredevil provides a generous two-issue appearance which from glances at their covers would lead us to at first believe there's a new, ruthless villain in town.

But "appearance" has always been part of the problem for me with this character, whose super-suit makes him, as intended, a human torpedo, a description that serves only to cement in the reader's mind that this character's main claim to fame is to streak through the air like a you-know-what--which in a way stacks him up right next to Nova (debuting the following year), who also failed to pique my interest. Maybe something more provocative for this character's name--e.g., as long as we're being direct in his description, "the Blue Streak," a handle another character would lay claim to a few years later.

The Torpedo's first time out of the gate, however, leads to his death when DD goes after him for theft. But the twist that Wolfman introduces for the character inadvertently becomes the only aspect of the Torpedo that I cared for: the fact that the man's corpse would yet serve a purpose for another to step in and adopt a sense of responsibility for what his predecessor set out to do.

(While Mr. Wolfman may have fumbled the ball here, his artist indeed proved that DD wasn't too weak or tired to move and instead ducked the Torpedo's death blow, setting up the scene as plotted.)

And so we now have Brock Jones, insurance company V.P. and former NFL superstar, assuming the role and the mission of the Torpedo--two things that DD is unfortunately unaware of when the dust settles.

As we've seen and will continue to, the Torpedo's suit and accessories provide him with abilities beyond mere projectile-speed; yet while his suit may be bullet-proof, at first glance there's no explanation for how it protects his all-too-human form from concussive-force punches that bring down opponents or, more to the point, stone and steel structures. The information we need, including just what led the first wearer of the suit to don it, comes our way by means of a running fight between the Torpedo and Daredevil--a tortuous explanation that would test the attention span of even the most attentive and engrossed reader.

If Daredevil is indeed battling a suit that is far more durable than that of Iron Man's, it's no wonder that scene after scene of DD scoring solid hits against the Torpedo have no discernible effect. But combined with the origin essay we waded through, it hasn't done the Torpedo any favors either insofar as raising the character's appeal, even in light of Jones' motives and the fact that his life has pivoted in an entirely new direction.

Of course, if you're looking for even more scenes of Daredevil giving it his best shot and getting absolutely nowhere against this foe, Mr. Brown can accommodate you:

Not even Daredevil--Daredevil, of all people--was mindful of this battle endangering the lives of the family whose home he and the Torpedo have crashed through, a development which provides a sobering ending to this story and redeems it to an extent.

As for the Torpedo, apparently there was little to no interest in his being picked up for a series of his own, leading Wolfman and Brown to reunite two years later to pitch the character once more in the pages of Marvel Premiere where he battles a rocketeer militia under orders of a secret group bent on world domination. Jones would in time eventually meet his end at the not-so-tender mercies of the Dire Wraiths, but his relatives would go on to enjoy stints in the New Warriors as the hero named Turbo.

Which as far as I'm aware sums up the Torpedo's career, his chances for appearing in a solo series effectively being...

... wait for it ...
TORPEDOED.

BONUS!
Whether "Torpedo" or "Turbo," neither has any relation to this guy,
a hitman of the racketeer (not rocketeer!) known as Crime-Wave.