Daredevil: The Pill Popper Without Fear!
It's well known that when asked by the government in 1971 to do an anti-drug story for Spider-Man, Stan Lee obliged and released the comics without the Comics Code approval, because the Code did not allow for any portrayal of drugs, even negative. In the story, Peter Parker's roommate Harry gets addicted to pills first abusing amphetamines and barbiturates and then getting pills from a dealer to make him feel "on top of the world."
However, Daredevil and drugs started much earlier. In Daredevil Annual #1, published in 1967, while battling Electro and his Emissaries of Evil, Daredevil stops and opens his billy club to pop a pill into his mouth. The dialogue says those are "nutrient capsules" that fill his stomach since he doesn't have time to eat. It seems to be a cross between vitamins and appetite suppressants and maybe the chewing gum in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was supposed to feel like a full course meal, but just turned Violet Beaureguard into a blueberry. When I first read this in high school, I thought it was a nice touch, because we don't really see superheroes stop and do mundane things like eat to keep their strength up.
However, if you are familiar with the Marvel Method in the 1960s, the story was drawn first with dialogue added later. Artists would draw the story based on a written plot or conversation with the writer. This depended on the artist being a good storyteller because the stories had a proscribed Procrustean length of usually 20 pages.
The artist of this Daredevil story was Gene Colan (1926-2011), who was known for cheekily adding things. Take the cover of Daredevil #48 where the words "ass pain" appear.
Colan admitted in an interview that he used amphetamines in the 1970s to make deadlines for Doctor Strange. His use of speed could have started earlier in the 1960s since he was usually penciling two or three comics a month for Marvel.
When looking at the panels of Daredevil popping a pill into his mouth before his fight with the bad guys, it brings to mind the chemical Hit Girl uses before the fight with the gangsters that killed her father, which Kick-Ass seems to think is cocaine. It seems to make sense that Daredevil is giving himself a boost before he fights five supervillains at once. Colan had to draw a complicated fight scene and needed to give himself a little boost. Because of the Code restrictions, Stan Lee was not going to have a hopped-up Daredevil and changed it to "nutrient pills" that help him fight the pangs of hunger.
Of course, this is all speculation, but combined with Colan's admitted drug use and the odd verbiage in the comic makes it seem likely to me.
This post was brought to you without the aid of any stimulants or sedatives.
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