File:Marvel Team-Up Vol 1 56 001.jpg

Description
Early one morning, as Daredevil swings by an alley, he feels the temperature suddenly drop, and then his radar-sense picks up a man with a heartbeat so slow that he should not even be alive. In front of the man is a wrecked Daily Bugle truck covered in ice. Daredevil hears him say that that was the last shipment and that the Bugle will not be delivered this night. When the figure says, "We have succeeded," Daredevil realizes that there is a conspiracy afoot, and he slams both feet into him from behind. As the man stands up, Daredevil senses that the man's heartbeat has slowed even more, and that his blood pressure and body temperature are decreasing. With surprising swiftness, Blizzard peppers Daredevil with ice darts, which he creates by freezing the moisture in the air near his fingertips. Daredevil dodges the darts and kicks him in the face. But Blizzard turns the ground by Daredevil's feet slick with ice, so that Daredevil's momentum carries him into a fire hydrant. Rendered brittle by the cold that Blizzard generates, the hydrant shatters. The shock of being drenched with ice-cold water stuns Daredevil, and by the time he clears his head, Blizzard is gone. Soaked to the skin, Daredevil reads the headline on one of the newspapers from the truck with his fingertips, trying to find out why Blizzard would go to all this trouble to keep the paper off the stands. The triple-banner headline reads, "HELP IS ON THE WAY / BLACK SAYS, BUT / MAIL STRIKE CONTINUES" At first this seems innocuous, but then he becomes suspicious. He telephones the police for assistance for the driver of the truck, and then he heads for the Daily Bugle. Meanwhile, Peter Parker rides up the elevator at the Daily Bugle building to the publisher's office. Peter thinks something strange is going on, because Gloria Grant, Jameson's secretary, called him and told him not to come in today. Ordinarily, he muses, he would comply, but today is payday and, as usual, he needs money. As Peter steps out of the elevator, his spider-sense tingles a sharp warning, and when he walks through the office, he sees well-known thugs and criminals stationed at nearly every desk. Peter approaches Gloria's desk and asks her what's going on, and the man standing there tells her to answer. Peter can see that the man is hiding a gun under his Jacket. Then Peter cautiously approaches Joe Robertson's office. The two men at the door say that the city editor is going to be out to lunch all day, but Peter can hear the sounds of a struggle in the office, and he tries to enter. The criminals push him away and knock him down, but he does not fight back lest they guess his secret identity. One of them orders him to wait in the mailroom with the other employees. The corridor to the mailroom has no exits, so the criminals let Peter leave unescorted. But the corridor passes by the back door to Jameson's office. Hearing Jameson inside, Peter quickly climbs up to the transom to eavesdrop, and when he looks in he sees Electro at Jameson's desk with Blizzard standing beside him. Jameson himself is held captive in a chair by two gangsters. Blizzard tells Jameson that he is to do exactly as he is told for the next few hours. Electro pretends to be annoyed with Jameson. He brought his men to establish a "nice, friendly business relationship," he says. They even allowed him to publish a morning edition as a gesture of good will. But Jameson double-crossed them, and now they may have to take more unpleasant measures. As Peter continues to listen, two more gangsters bring in Barney Bushkin, the editor of the Daily Globe. The Globe is the Bugle's chief competitor, and Jameson immediately gets into an argument with Bushkin. Electro orders them to shut up. Jameson tried to get out a plea for help, says Blizzard, and this act of defiance requires a lesson in obedience. Jameson says he doesn't know what Blizzard is taking about, but Electro points out the initial words of the three lines of the Bugle's headline, which say, "HELP BLACK MAIL." There is no "Commissioner Black," says Electro, and there is no "mail strike" either. Someone certainly would be able to figure out the real message in the headline, he continues. Fortunately, Blizzard caught on and stopped the deliveries, for otherwise they might have had to contend with an army of police. Blizzard says that he owed that one to Electro, recalling how, when Electro tried to escape from prison, a blast of electricity penetrated the wall of Blizzard's cell and energized the cold-pack that he had constructed in the prison machine-shop. The electrical energy was so powerful that it actually fused the cold-circuitry to Blizzard's body. After they escaped, Blizzard and Electro decided to join forces. Jameson demands to know what Electro wants with the Bugle, and Electro replies that in a few minutes, the bank will be delivering the Bugle's payroll—to them. From now on, he says, the Bugle will pay them to leave the newspaper alone. They have proved, he continues, that they can wreck the place any time they like. Then Electro tells Bushkin that his newspaper is next. Suddenly, Daredevil smashes into the office through the window and slams Eleciro's face into the desk. The gangsters draw their guns and Blizzard fires ice darts at the costumed crimefighter. But Daredevil evades the darts and begins battling the gangsters. Jameson shouts that they are wrecking the office. Still listening at the transom, Peter starts to change into his Spider-Man costume, and as the gangsters try to flee out the door, he knocks them out while he changes. By the time he finishes putting on his costume, only Blizzard and Electro remain. They, too, flee through the door, but when Spider-Man drops down to battle them, he is accidentally knocked over by the pursuing Daredevil. Daredevil tells Spider-Man that it is now up to them. The police outside stand no chance against the criminals' superhuman powers. After Daredevil and Spider•Man race away, Jameson and Bushkin climb out from under Jameson's desk. Let them kill each other, says Jameson. it will be good riddance. But Bushkin points out that Electro might win even against the police and Daredevil, so Jameson says they must unite to safeguard their common interests. As he and Bushkin head down the corridor, Bushkin wonders whether Jameson would say the same thing if this were happening to the Globe. When Electro and Blizzard emerge from the staircase, they find themselves in the basement press room rather than on the street floor. Electro miscounted the levels on the way down because Jameson had the lights turned off to save money. Blizzard says anxiously that they are trapped, but Electro replies that being here might after all be to their advantage. When Daredevil comes down the darkened stairway, says Electro, his eyes won't be used to the light, and they will be able to ambush him. Unfortunately, Electro does not realize that Daredevil is blind, nor does he know that Daredevil has been joined by Spider-Man. As Electro and Blizzard crouch behind machinery, Jameson and Bushkin cautiously creep up behind them. They took the freight elevator to the basement and entered the press room by a different door. As quietly as they can, they pick up chairs with which to hit the two criminals, but just then Spider-Man and Daredevil arrive. Electro is delighted to see both of his most hated foes before him, because it is a perfect opportunity for him to gain revenge, and he shouts to the Blizzard to strike. So sudden is this onslaught that Jameson and Bushkin accidentally smash their chairs together, and as the battle begins they flee from the room as fast as their legs can carry them. Daredevil dodges Blizzard's initial cold-blast, and Spider-Man evades Electro's bolt of electricity. Spider-Man is puzzled that they chose to hide in the basement instead of escaping. Then Daredevil slams into Blizzard, Spider-Man punches Electro, and a ferocious battle ensues. Electro severs Spider-Man's webbing to make him fall into a printing-press, but Daredevil lures Blizzard into hurling a cold-blast at him that jams the press with an ice-sheet. As Spider-Man thanks Daredevil for the rescue, Daredevil is barraged with hailstones. Spider-Man covers Electro's eyes with webbing, and when Electro tries to burn it away, the criminal finds it more resistant than he remembers. Frustrated, he blasts Spider-Man with electricity, keeping him from helping Daredevil, whom Blizzard has pinned down. Blinded, Electro tries to track Spider-Man by his voice, and the crimefighter lures him into hurling a bolt of electricity at Blizzard Just as he is about to freeze Daredevil. The electricity turns Blizzard's ice to steam, which turns to frost and quickly immobilizes the cryogenic criminal in a casing of ice. When Electro finally tears the webbing off his face, he sees Daredevil and Spider-Man swinging toward him. Their double blow knocks him into the press, and he bounces off into a wall, unconscious. Spider-Man asks Daredevil to keep the two criminals company until the police come. He wants to leave before Jameson blames the entire incident on him.