
Matt Murdock was an ordinary child, getting into all types of mischief. His transition into Daredevil is fitting to his behavior as a child. In his “Man Without Fear opening,” he is shown wearing a ski mask and being chased by a cop on his skateboard. Matt’s father, Battlin’ Jack Murdock, was one of the greatest local boxers of his time, but he was also into shady dealings with some dangerous people. Matt’s mother, Maggie, had left them causing Jack to become an alcoholic, trying to fill the void and ease the pain. Some nights, Matt would have to help him into bed, as Jack was too drunk to move on his own. Although Jack was a great boxer, he didn’t earn much money for his fights and couldn’t adequately provide for Matt. Knowing this, a man named The Fixer sent his goons after Murdock to offer him a proposition: if Jack would be the new muscle and collect debts of the people who owed him, The Fixer would pay him handily. At first, he didn’t accept, and the Fixer’s goons viciously beat him while Matt looks on in hiding.

At this point, he had been observed by Stick without his knowledge. Little did Stick know that he would later have more in common with Matt that he imagined. Their relationship would go from watcher and subject to master and student shortly. One night on his way home from the gym, Matt pushed a blind old man out of the way of an incoming truck and in the accident, the radioactive waste the truck was carrying was dumped into his eyes. Later at the hospital he and his father would learn that he is blind and will never see again. At this point we first meet Mother Maggie Murdock, Matt’s mother, now a nun, who would come see him in the hospital.

This is where Matt becomes a vigilante. With his father killed, he vowed to get revenge on the men who had been responsible for his father’s death.
With his senses heightened and now a student of Stick’s, Matt makes a red and yellow costume out of his father’s boxing robes and tracks the Fixer and his men down to a subway station. There, he easily lays waste to The Fixer’s men and gives chase to the Fixer himself, who died because of a heart attack. Although he did not kill them, he did kill someone that night. In his haste to get away, he was attacked by a woman whom he killed by accidentally launching her out of a window. When this happened, Matt was seen as a failure to the Chaste (Stick’s Clan) and as a result they didn’t want to use him because of his sloppiness.

Daredevil’s first appears as a playful trickster of a character. Without much fighting skill we see him usually using his acrobatic ability to thwart enemies. While taking out bad guys as Daredevil, Matt still studied hard in college along with his roommate, best friend and future District Attorney, Foggy Nelson. He often had to lie and trick Foggy when he had been missing for long periods of time. Those lies and tricks had come easy since no one would suspect a blind man to be the Daredevil. Honoring his father’s wishes, Matt along would graduate with a PhD in law at the top of his class despite his dual life. Daredevil’s time spent at the gym helped him hone his boxing and wrestling skills, which became key for him along with his acrobatic ability against larger groups of thugs he had to engage. It was also at this time that Daredevil’s incredible accuracy was developed with the use of his signature weapon, the Billy Club. He is also shown using a tire as a sling shot with a car engine as ammo which he used to stop a truck. His abilities to use acrobatics to dodge bullets and heightened reflexes to swat bullets were also apparent by this time.
In the arcs following “Daredevil Yellow”, Daredevil began wearing his famous red costume. The name Scarlet Swashbuckler comes from Stan Lee’s narration of his early books. The name appears to come from the level and style of the adventures he had become involved with at this point. Daredevil stepped away from the street level a bit and began to go on full blown adventures. He even found himself in the Savage Land a few times. In the first red costume issue (Daredevil #7), he faces the Prince of Atlantis, Namor. This is just one of many encounters he will have against Namor himself and powerful characters like him. Daredevil’s character style seems to follow the circus performer trend in (Daredevil #9) when he makes his daring escape from Killer’s Castle. It would seem that Stan Lee was now working a Harry Houdini angle by pegging Daredevil as this amazing escape artist.
In this era, Daredevil’s books were mostly villain based. Everything that would happen in the book seemed to be driven by the villain that would be appearing in the book that week. There was either a new incredible trap or plan set up by some mastermind or a new hardened villain or criminal popping up in every issue. New rouges like Gladiator, Frog-Man, Stunt-Master, Jester, The Ani-Men, Tri-Man, Stilt-Man, Mr. Hyde, and the Trapster were added to the gallery. This is where the idea of gangs headed by villains in Daredevil’s comics started. A modern reader may more know that to be an aspect of what the Kingpin brought to the table as a Daredevil villain but characters like The Owl, The Plunderer and the Masked Marauder were doing it in Daredevil’s comics early on. Daredevil also found himself in combat with such villainous gangs as the Emissaries of Evil, getting closer to the modern era, Matt’s problems had become personal. He was exposed as Daredevil by the Jester and later framed by the Jester for his death. Several times Spider-Man and Black Panther had to dress up as Daredevil so that he can be seen in a place opposite Matt Murdock. He used this tactic once more in the Brubaker era when he was exposed. As Daredevil became bigger as a hero he began to encounter characters like Captain America and the Fantastic Four. He even worked a case for the F4 as a lawyer to help them work things out with the Baxter Building. It was revealed during this period that the Man Without Fear does fear one thing, and that one thing is having the people he loves hurt because he was Daredevil. He frequently had to cover the backs and rescue Foggy Nelson and Karen Page.
In the 70’s, Matt Murdock moved to San Francisco where he met the beautiful Russian mistress and future accomplice, Natasha Romanova, whom he would later come to know as the Black Widow. Matt’s womanizing habits start to come out around this time. He had already been romantically linked to Karen Page who would be his off and on girlfriend and would continue on…a long list after Black Widow. Matt’s relationship with Natasha would see many wrong turns and problems, but most notable was a visit from Hawkeye (Natasha’s ex-boyfriend). Daredevil defeated Hawkeye in combat but Natasha had no intention of being with Hawkeye. The partnership of these two heroes would later be acknowledged by Marvel when the title of the book went from “Man Without Fear–Daredevil” to “Daredevil and the Black Widow”. The two defeated many foes together, the most formidable of which was the villain called the Dark Messiah but they parted ways when Matt moved back to Hell’s Kitchen and the comics’ name was changed back. Shortly after they became reacquainted, changing the comics title again.

In this one-shot, Daredevil, Black Widow and Nick Fury investigate the murders of several S.H.I.E.L.D agents. The investigation leads Black Widow to a ruthless murderer named Rose and her Henchman, Charlie who capture her along with S.H.I.E.L.D agent Bancroft. Despite her efforts to break escape, Black Widow was mortally wounded by Rose. Daredevil works with Fury to try and find Natasha. It is later revealed that Rose has some sort of telepathic abilities and gives some incite to her crimes as she orders Agent Bancroft to kill himself by carving up his own chest, leaving Black Widow alone with her captors. However, Black Widow had a tracker in her bracelet allowing Daredevil to find Rose’s HQ where Natasha is being held. When he arrives, Matt is attacked by Charlie but the hero easily managed to beat him but was knocked out by Rose. When Daredevil is dragged into the cabin, Natasha escapes and a fight ensues with Black Widow stabbing Rose in the chest.
At one point in Matt’s early career, he had gotten himself into legal trouble. He was exposed as Daredevil by Jester. So with everyone thinking he was Daredevil he pretended to go out of town and lived his life as Matt’s twin “brother”, Mike. His soon to be girlfriend and co-worker, Karen Page had become increasingly worried about Matt, but all the while had become infatuated with Mike.
When Matt wanted to return, he faked the Death of Mike and his character returned to Hell’s Kitchen. In this arc, it seems that Daredevil took more of a Superman style persona. As Clark Kent is only Superman in a business suit and classes, Mike Murdock is only Matt in a wig in clothes unlike what Matt would wear. The nature of the comic really allows you to understand the time period in which it was created. The lack of attention to detail in this arc was reminiscent of a comic wide trend that just didn’t appear in Marvel Comics but in all comics. In light of that fact the comic was still able to maintain the balance between the hero and it’s alter ego as Karen became attracted to Mike despite her recognition of his childish attitude. This arc plays on yet another aspect of Matt Murdock’s character though. It shows his uncanny ability to manipulate people and disguise himself. This later becomes more dominant with his persona as a “ninja style” character but it seems to start here with Mike as he has everyone convinced that Mike is his twin.
When Frank Miller takes over the book, he begins to explore things about Matt Murdock and Daredevil that we had not known before or wasn’t explained in great detail. His radar sense was shown and used before but never explored. An arc where Daredevil loses his radar sense reveals that it was Stick who actually trained him to use it in the first place. Miller also explores the fact that Daredevil’s radar sense not only gave him a general sense of his surroundings, but also allowed him to understand anatomy so he could strike weak spots in the human body in order to take down tougher opponents.

Next, Miller introduced ninjas into Daredevil’s storyline and began to explore his fighting skill more. The Hand was later introduced as a significant nemesis for Daredevil. He became more of a street level hero – characters like Spider-Man, Iron Fist, and Power Man (Luke Cage) began to appear more and Daredevil took out more villains with his skills and not just his intelligence. Elektra, Matt’s old college girlfriend, has become a freelance assassin and came into conflict with Daredevil many times until she learned his secret identity. They would then become allies and team-up to fight the Hand and Daredevil’s foe, Gladiator. Elektra would later become the Kingpin’s top assassin. Enraged since Kingpin was his old employer, Bullseye escapes from jail and challenges Elektra in combat which ends with Bullseye killing Elektra by stabbing her in the heart with her own Sai. As she is dying, she managed to gather enough strength to crawl to Matt’s home where she died in his arms. Matt’s love for Elektra caused him to lose his mind – he became overly aggressive against enemies and depressed when not in combat. Bullseye would discover Matt’s identity as Daredevil and attempts but fails to kill him in civilian clothes. He later attacks Matt in his home but Matt foresaw his attack and placed a dummy in his place, (fooling Bullseye that Murdock and Daredevil are not the same person).

Daredevil later had a run in with who would become Lady Deathstrike, which led to an altercation with Lord Dark Wind and other samurais whom he easily defeated with his sword skills. Little did he know that Lord Dark Wind would be the one who offered adamantium to Bullseye to fix his spinal cord after Daredevil paralyzed him in combat in revenge for Elektra. With Elektra gone, Black Widow came back into Daredevil’s life. She frequently appeared in his story arcs, but his interest in Karen Page remained on his mind. Karen Page was attracted to Matt but she was really interested in Daredevil. When her father faked his own death to become the villain called “Death’s Head”, Karen started an investigation and was followed by Daredevil. A fight ensued between Daredevil and Head who was about to kill Matt with molten cobalt but once he realized that Karen was endangered, he sacrificed himself to save them both. After Karen’s father’s death, Matt revealed his identity to Karen who was confused with the fact that both men she liked were actually the same person. Eventually, Matt and Karen fell in love and started dating. Despite that she was always worried about Matt’s safety, she knew that he would never stop his vigilantism. In the end, Karen couldn’t take it anymore and ended her relationship with Matt and left for California to pursue an acting career.
Mother Murdock saves Karen had left for Hollywood to pursue an acting career but things didn’t go as planned and she ended up being addicted to drugs and becoming a porn star. In a desperate state, she sold Matt’s secret identity for a shot of heroin. The Kingpin eventually got his hands on this information and used it to make Matt’s life extremely unbearable. Using his vast connections, he had the IRS freeze Matt’s accounts and the bank foreclose on Matt’s house. He even manipulates police lieutenant Nicholas Manolis into accusing and testifying against Murdock for bribing witnesses, thus ruining his reputation as a lawyer. Despite managing to avoid imprisonment, Matt was barred from practicing law. At first, Matt thought that he was just unlucky, not knowing that the Kingpin is responsible for this until the crime-lord has Matt’s house destroyed and driving Matt into a mental breakdown. He becomes delusional and even thinks that his friends Foggy Nelson and Glorianna O’Breen were conspiring against him. Matt’s friend and Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich attempts to investigate his friend’s situation and tie it to the Kingpin. However, Kingpin discovers of Ben’s plight and hires a “nurse” to kill Ben’s source and violently intimidates Ben into keeping quiet.

In the end, Matt reunites and settles down with Karen and reveals to her that he now enjoys the new path his life has taken despite losing many advantages from his past life as a successful lawyer.

While still dating Karen, Matt met and was seduced by a young and seemingly innocent woman named Mary Walker and started having an affair with her. When Karen discovered of this affair, she broke up with him. However, it is revealed that Mary is mentally ill and suffers from a split personality disorder. He other personality, Typhoid was a violent assassin hired by the Kingpin to kill Matt Murdock. She proved to be a formidable foe, using her telepathic and pryokinetic powers as well as her impressive hand-to-hand abilities. Even after these attacks, her ability to change her scent, voice, looks and personality were able to fool even Daredevil’s enhanced senses. Although Matt suffered from severe injuries and sickness after her attacks, he managed to survive long enough to participate in the Fall of the Mutants story arc, an X-men crossover event in which the Homo Superior race was persecuted by the government with the “Mutant Registration act”. Daredevil enters the story arc when Apocalypse attacks New York by sending his Horsemen. Hell’s Kitchen had become riddled with criminals, riots, and looters. With the help of Black Widow & Wolverine, Daredevil helped restore order.
Daredevil became more of an Avenger of the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, infiltrating the Underworld and going after villains like Calypso, Surgeon General, Tombstone, and the new additions to the Hand’s roster. He also had several run-ins with the Punisher whom he had to face in combat for his persistent attempts to murder villains. Matt’s boxing prowess is later re-explored when he gets amnesia, believing he is his father Jack Murdock. He then further becomes a champion of the streets. He becomes romantically involved with a woman he saved from thugs named Nyla Skin, and she accompanied him frequently when taking out bad guys.

In this story arc, Daredevil gets beaten up badly by his villains and decides that he needs a new more protected costume. Using biometric materials and a small amount of adamantium, he makes a new Red & Black protective armored costume that becomes his regular costume for a time. When he is outed by the press as Daredevil, Matt fakes his death without telling his friends and assumes the identity of Jack Battlin (in honor of his father’s in ring name “Battlin’ Jack Murdock). With a new identity and costume, Daredevil continued his vigilante activities but his sanity was being somehow affected. It’s in the Fall from Grace arc that Elektra returns, recovered by Stone, the last of the Chaste. There was also an attempt to retcon Miller’s work. Pretty much everything that happens from here until issue #350 was overturned.

Aside from Fall of Grace this is one of Daredevil’s largest major story arcs since the writings of Frank Miller fully molded Daredevil. It begins with the supposed Death of Matt Murdock and the resurrection of Hellspawn (Daredevil’s evil Doppleganger).On the streets, Matt plays it more aggressive than ever supposing a “New Daredevil”. At this point Daredevil is seeks the Knowbot. The Knowbot is a rouge piece of technology that has been hacking government computers. Daredevil and Captain America become reacquainted when they cross paths going after the Knowbot. When the Knowbot downloads the government files. His keeper, Kilobyte who was protecting him destroys it’s equipment so that Cap and Daredevil don’t discover the rouge tech’s client. A young hacker by the name of Sinclair Spectrum witnesses all of this was able to slip away from the seen unnoticed. In the wake of all this emerges Baron Von Strucker and Hydra and the soon to be notorious internet crime syndicate, System Crash. Elektra also appears in this arc and is rejected by the Chaste because at her resurrection she was recognized as tainted for disrespect of the dark forces that brought her back.

Under the writing of Joe Kelly, Daredevil got back to his roots. The fun loving, sometimes joke cracking street level hero just went back to solving crimes, winning cases, and making a name for himself. After Matt had reunited with Foggy Nelson he and Matt were hired at a law firm run by Foggy’s mother, Rosalind Sharpe. Before all of that Daredevil has frequent run ins with the murderous criminal, Bushwacker a character who’s villainy was more dominant in the Punisher comics. The story arc Humanity’s Fathom aided the return of the Kingpin as a dominant villain in Hell’s Kitchen. Like with the other resurrections of Daredevil’s character he got back to frequently fighting new villains that he hadn’t before. Most memorable may be the bout that Daredevil had with Absorbing Man where Daredevil displayed his uncanny ability to use his radar sense to find the weak spots in the unique anatomy of objects and anomalies. Here Daredevil also has his first run in with Mysterio who will later become a one of his deadliest foes in the Guardian Devil arc at the top of the second volume.
In this miniseries, Daredevil takes the time to reflect on his father and tries to come to terms with his death. He also reflects on all of the things his father taught him and applies them to his principles as Daredevil. A dangerous serial killer emerges and Daredevil took upon himself to take himself from the lawyer role to the detective role. The murderer known as Johnny Sockets, later turned out to be a woman with whom DD sought to help get out of an abusive situation. DD also comes in contact with a rival group known as the Santerians.
At some point in his career Daredevil renounced his roots as a Ninja. The miniseries “Daredevil: Ninja” kicks off with Daredevil sleeping in his home. He’s awakened by the someone stealing Stick’s staff. This is the first time we see Daredevil show any real affection or appreciation for Stick’s training. The stealing of the staff was actually a trick set up by Stick’s late comrade, Stone whom sent his right hand, Trahn and another Ninja to steal the staff. After doing battle with them to get the staff back he begins sleeping with the staff. The next time the Staff is taken from him he wakes up in Japan. This is much like the first time the Chaste needed Daredevil to help against the Hand. Stone needed Daredevil’s help to ward off the hand but he declined requesting it because knowing he denounced his Ninja roots, Stone knew he would have declined.
In this arc, after Daredevil saves a young girl’s life from a group of thugs, the girl comes to Matt and reveals that she knows his secret identity. She also tells him that she had a vision that her baby is the world’s savior and leaves it with him in order to protect it and disappears shortly after. Not knowing what to do with the baby, Matt leaves the child in the care of the Black Widow while he goes to the office to investigate the baby’s true origins. There, he meets a man named Nicholas Macabres, who claims that the baby is the bringer of destruction and malice and leaves Matt a cross which he sees as a calling card. Not knowing what to think, Matt takes the baby from Black Widow and throws it out of a window but Natasha managed to save the child and take it with her. When he returns, a conflicted Matt is confronted by Karen Page who reveals that she has AIDS from her time as a porn star. He also discovers that Foggy is accused of rape and murder of a woman he has been having an affair with. When Rosaline Sharp, Foggy’s mother who runs their law firm, told Matt to stand down and not represent Foggy, a disgusted Matt decided to quit from the law firm. While clearing his head, he stops a mugging but it turns out to be a trap and he is knocked out.
He makes his way to a church and passes out. When he wakes up, he is greeted by his mother who deals with his current crisis and takes care of the baby for him. He is later confronted by Karen who tries to convince him to give her the baby. Matt never told Karen about the baby and realizes that Macabres has gotten to her. She was convinced by Macabres that misfortune follows the baby and it’s the reason she is suffering from AIDS. Matt tells her that her problems are not the baby’s fault; they are caused by her past mistakes. In order to clear his mind, he goes to see Doctor Strange who reveals that the cross Macabres gave him contained a drug that made him hostile and unable to be logically reasoned with. Strange then summons Mephisto and asks him if the baby is a bringer of either hope or misfortune. Mephisto reveals that the baby is neither and that the church Matt was at is being attacked.
When he arrives, he sees Bullseye who has murdered most of the nuns and injured Matt’s Mother, is about to kill the baby.
The Kingpin has returned and attempts to once again ruin Matt’s life by manipulating a young woman named Maya Lopez into thinking that Daredevil killed her father. Knowing that Matt is lonely after Karen’s death, Kingpin arranges for Maya to meet Matt in order to determine his weaknesses. While not knowing of Matt’s alter ego, Maya falls in love with Matt, since they found common ground with the fact that Maya is deaf. However, while dating Matt, she came up with the moniker of Echo, and using her photographic reflexes and fighting prowess, she hunted down Daredevil and attempted to kill him many times. Eventually, Daredevil recognized Maya by her scent and revealed his own identity to her. Though at first confused, Echo was convinced that Matt couldn’t have killed her father because then he was still in elementary school.
A rogue member of Kingpin’s organization enters the FBI’s witness protection program and reveals to the federal agents Matt Murdock’ secret identity. However, the agents ignored this revelation and vowed to keep it to themselves. All except one, who sold the information to the Daily Globe. Now Matt is outed as Daredevil and is being hounded by the press. At the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson orders his reporters to find everything they can about Murdock but he is interrupted by Ben Urich who tells him that it isn’t true and backed up by Peter Parker who tell Jameson that they know who Daredevil really is but refuse to tell despite being threatened of unemployment. Mr. Hyde attacks Murdock at his home but he manages to defeat him with the help of Spider-Man. When he arrives at his office, Matt is confronted by Nick Fury who offers him a place in S.H.I.E.L.D as a way out but Matt declines. He is also offered the Avengers’ political help by Captain America but he also refuses. Matt publicly denies that he’s Daredevil and eventually files a case against the press which he and Foggy later won. He would also meet a woman named Milla Donovan who was, like him, blind and would later become Mrs. Milla Murdock when he secretly marries her in the story.
In the story arc called “the Murdock Papers”, the Kingpin, who was in jail, offers the FBI the Murdock Papers which as he claims, contain indisputable proof that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, in exchange for his freedom. This led heroes, villains and federal agents searching for these papers including Bullseye, Elektra, Black Widow, Spider-Man, the Hand and others. In his haste to find the papers, Bullseye engages both Daredevil and Elektra in a vicious and bloody battle in the streets where he is defeated and placed under arrest. However, the Murdock Papers do not exist and the Kingpin manipulated everyone in order to lead Daredevil to a trap where he is shot in the shoulder by Paladin who was working for the FBI. Knowing that the heroes will take Daredevil to the Night Nurse to heal him, Fisk confronts Ben Urich and forces him to reveal the Nurse’s location. While with the Night Nurse, who couldn’t do anything to help Matt, Elektra, who had become the leader of the Hand, insisted that her ninjas use their techniques to save him which they did despite Black Widow’s protests. The clinic was then raided by FBI agents and a fight ensued between the heroes, the Hand and the FBI operatives. In the end, Matt stops the fight and he is arrested. The Kingpin thought that he had won but the FBI betrayed him and placed Fisk in the same prison as Matt Murdock, hoping they would kill each other. Matt discovers that Bullseye, Punisher and Kingpin are also spending time in the same prison. When Foggy and private investigator Dakota North visit Matt, Foggy is brutally attacked by a group of inmates and Matt, unable to save his friend, is forced to listen to Foggy’s heartbeats fading away. When he is taken to the hospital, he is announced dead.
Matt returned to his life in New York and reunited with Foggy and Milla and moved his law firm to a new location, joined by Becky Blake.
Gladiator was accused of murder in the mental institution he was being kept at. Blake wanted to represent him but Matt initially opposed the idea because he did not want villains’ cases interfering in their new law firm. However, when he confronted Potter, he discovered that he never killed anyone and decides to represent him until Gladiator commits several murders, escapes the institution, dons his costume and goes on a killing spree. When Gladiator attempts to kill Milla, Matt saves her and realizes that he is being mind-controlled. It is revealed that Mr. Fear had given Potter a special kind of drug that made him apparently fearless and drove him insane. In an attempt to ruin Matt’s life, Mr. Fear poisons Milla with the drug, having her placed in a mental institution. Daredevil tracks down Mr. Fear and easily defeats him since the drug doesn’t work on him and attempts to force him to give him the antidote but Fear reveals that there is no antidote, forcing Matt to accept the fact that he ruined Milla’s life while Fear, who surrendered and was placed in Ryker’s, builds an impressive reputation as a criminal in the underworld.
Daredevil wasn’t really a part of the Secret Invasion storyline. His only attachment was The Hand & Elektra who was revealed to be a skrull earlier when she was killed by Echo. Without Leadership, the Hand became rogue and fought amongst each other for leadership. Lady Bullseye at this time emerged and would later become the leader of the Hand. She was ordered to kill everyone in Matt Murdock’s life but she first framed Daredevil for murdering Dakota North whom he had been having an affair with. This later becomes a problem for him when pictures are produced by Lady Bullseye of the two together to Milla’s parents who were fighting Matt over custody of her. All of Matt’s accomplices accept Master Izo and Iron Fist were killed and became members of the Hand when recovered, including White Tiger and Black Tarantula. It’s later revealed that all of Daredevil’s emotional connections were supposed to be destroyed by Lady Bullseye for the Hand so that he could become the new leader. When Lady Bullseye heads to Spain and kills Wilson’s Fisk’s girlfriend and her kids, he returns to New York to begin a war with the hand. Daredevil and the Kingpin join forces to take out the Hand and The Owl comes along. With Daredevil’s erratic behavior, Foggy becomes suspicious and discovers he is working with the Kingpin which leads to Foggy firing Matt from the Law firm.
Norman Osborn, now in charge of the world’s security and peace keeping task force, sees Daredevil as a threat and places him as one of the items on his list he needs to eliminate. When Lady Bullseye, following the orders of the Kingpin, dressed as a Hand ninja, kills Osborn’s associates, the former Green Goblin assigns his Dark Hawkeye, who is really Bullseye to eliminate his old foe. As the leader of the Hand, Matt is subjected to a series of torture trials to reveal his worth as leader and when he is asked to complete his final trail which is engaging and killing the Hand’s champion, a trial he refuses, Bullseye appears with a team of H.A.M.M.E.R agents and a battle ensues between H.A.M.M.E.R and the Hand in which Osborn’s agents are captured and put in what would soon become Shadowland. During the battle, Bullseye mocks Daredevil with the fact that he has banned killing but Daredevil responds that Bullseye is an exception. When the assassin attempts to escape, Daredevil gives chase and is led to the rooftop of a condemned building which contains many protestors. However, before Matt can finish their fight, Bullseye detonates the building while mocking Matt, who barely survived the explosion, with the fact that he could have saved all those people if he had killed him when he had the chance before. As Daredevil blames himself for the death of 107 innocent people, he realizes that the rules have changed and decides to send a message and places all the surviving H.A.M.M.E.R agents in the prison that later becomes Shadowland.
Lord Daredevil Daredevil rules his new found team with pride and honor. His two right hand men, Black Tarantula and White Tiger are always by their masters’ side. Daredevil has ordered Black Tarantula to take over his post in Hell’s Kitchen while he and White Tiger travel to Japan to unite the 5 Daimayos (the Hand’s continental leaders). As Master of the Hand, Daredevil will bring the world to peace or die trying.
After the destruction left by Bullseye, he decided to have the Hand become an army of protectors. He builds an impenetrable fortress over the remains of the building destroyed by Bullseye. When he returned from Japan, he returned a changed man. Despite attempting to change the Hand for a force for good, it seems that the Hand has changed him, having him push his limits to keep the peace. The sudden appearance of Shadowland has raised many heroes’ concerns, especially Luke Cage, but the Avengers and Iron Fist are confidant that Matt is doing his best to help people.
Powers & Abilities
POWERS
- Superhuman Sense of Touch: Daredevil’s sense of touch is so acute that his finger can feel the faint impressions of ink on a printed age, allowing him to read by touch. The rest of his skin is equally sensitive, enabling him by concentration to feel minute temperature and pressure changes in the atmosphere around him. Even with his senses of smell and hearing blocked, he can feel the presence of a person standing five feet away from him simply by his or her body heat and disturbance of air. A side effect of his sense of touch is Daredevil’s ability to manipulate his muscles and internal organs. The sense of touch is not just external, but internal too (central nervous system), thereby giving him the ability to have total body control, increasing his strength and reflexes to near peak human levels and increasing his agility to enhanced human levels. Daredevil has also demonstrated a strong ability of feeling being able to feel the presence of beings in his general area.
- Superhuman Sense of Smell: Daredevil’s sense of smell is so acute that he can distinguish between identical twins at twenty feet by minute differences in smell. He can detect odors of an atmospheric concentration of thirty parts per million. Further, his ability to remember smells enables him to identify any person he has spent at least five minutes with by smell alone, no matter how he or she might try to camouflage his or her natural odor. His powers of concentration are such that he can focus upon a single person’s smell and follow it through a crowd of people at a distance of fifty feet. With the use of his sense of smell Daredevil once smelled gunpowder from a sniper rifle of a gunman in a window almost 3 blocks away. He did this in time enough to move him and his wife Milla before the shot was fired.
- Superhuman Sense of Hearing: Daredevil’s sense of hearing enables him to detect an acoustic pressure change of one decibel at a pressure level of seven decibels (whereas the lowest threshold for average human hearing is twenty decibels.) He can hear a person’s heartbeat at a distance of over twenty feet, or people whispering on the other side of a standard soundproofed wall. Through practice, Daredevil is able to control his hearing acuity, mentally blocking out specific sounds like his own breathing and heartbeat, all ambient sounds to a normal human level of perception, or all sounds but a particular sound he is concentrating upon. If taken by surprise, Daredevil can suffer more distress from a painfully loud sound than an ordinary human would. Also, beyond a certain size, crowds of people tend to create too many sensory impressions for him to sort through. Daredevil’s hearing is so acute that he claimed against Kirigi that he could hear his muscles tense up before he attacked which allowed him to adequately defend himself.
Lie Detection: Daredevil can tell whether a person is lying by listening to changes in his or her heartbeat (though he can be fooled by a pacemaker or those able to control their own heartbeat. He can also smell their sweat when the pressure is on them which allows him also to know when someone is lying. - Person Identification: Daredevil can identify people by the specific patters of their heartbeats and by their scents. Because Daredevil cannot see no matter what a character is wearing or doing they cannot disguise their presences from Daredevil.
- Superhuman Sense of Taste: Daredevil’s sense of taste is based on memorization and detail more than anything. He can tell how many grains of salt are on a pretzel and identify substances even in the air through taste.
- Superhuman Sense of Balance: Daredevil’s equilibrium is on par with that of Spider-Man which contributes to his strong sense of balance and acrobatic abilities.
- Radar Sense: Daredevil’s Radar sense is something like Sonar. It helps him mentally map out his surroundings increasing his reaction time and awareness. Daredevil has been known to use his radar to find weak points in the anatomy or humans and other beings.
- Telepathy: Due to Stick’s training Daredevil has displayed minor telepathic abilities. He can telepathically speak with people of with the same telepathic abilities as him. Mostly the Chaste.
- Intimidation: In Daredevil Redemption and other arcs, Daredevil was proven to have the ability to change people’s actions and attitudes by way of intimidation. His appearance and even the though that he might appear has stopped certain crimes.
- Gifted Intellect: Matt has a high IQ; he’s an accomplished strategist as well as an expert in interrogation, disguise, medicine, science and detective work. He has outsmarted the likes of Spider-Man, Reed Richards, Dr. Doom, & The Grandmaster
- Expert Detective: Daredevil has shown to be an expert detective using his intellect to figure out complex problems and hyper-senses to find clues and evidence to crime scenes.
- Expert Tracker: With the aide of his hyper-senses Matt is able to track objects and people from miles away with ease.
- Interrogation Expert: Matt uses many different interrogation methods to extract information from criminals. His knowledge of criminology and torture is unerring and often overwhelming.
- Professional Lawyer: He is a skilled lawyer, specializing in criminal justice. He has a PhD in law.
- Master Acrobat: Daredevil is classed superb-Olympic athlete, gymnast, acrobat, and aerialist due to constant training and exercise. His reflexes and agility are equally remarkable and are on par with the finest human athletes.
- Weapons Proficiency: Thanks to his martial arts training, Matt is proficient in wielding various different weapons. Since Ninjutsu is the only identified martial art that teaches weapons, it would indicate he is trained in the use of katanas, spears, naginatas, kusarigama, knives, and projectiles. He is also skilled in weapons related to the staff and including the staff it’s self.
- Expert Marksman: He is very accurate in throwing projectile like weaponry along with his billy clubs. He is also a superb archer.
- Master Martial Artist: Daredevil has also been trained in the ninja arts by Stick, a master and member of the secret order The Chaste. Nick Fury, former director of S.H.I.E.L.D, commented that there are only a handful of individuals that know what Matt Murdock knows, referring to the Chaste. Stick helped Daredevil control his powers and taught him valuable fighting techniques with ninja-stealth, ninja-vanishing, to even life-energy (chi/ki) control. Matt uses a variety of pressure points as in paralyzing an entire body or certain parts of the body. He’s disabled eye sight, speech, induced pain, and even has knowledge of death pressure points. Daredevil’s fighting style blends American-style Boxing, Ninjutsu, Judo, Aikijujutsu and various other martial arts, most notably Staff Fighting with his acrobatic ability. His skills have proven sufficient to allow him to defeat, or at least hold his own, against some of the greatest fighters on Earth. With the use of his Ninja techniques he has done things impossible for most humans and superhumans such as vanishing in thin air in front of gunman, jogging up walls, resurrecting himself from the dead and so on. His skills have taken him to facing such skilled opponents as Captain America, Black Widow, Taskmaster, Wolverine, Elektra, Bullseye, The Avengers, and Echo.
PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES
- Intelligence: Gifted
- Strength: Olympic Level (Has flipped a full limousine, bent steel, and broke bricks)
- Speed: Olympic Level
- Stamina: Enhanced Human
- Agility: Peak Human
- Fighting Skills: Master (Level 5/extensive training/master of Ninjitsu, Aikido, Boxing, Wrestling & Aikijutsu)
- Reflexes: Peak Human
Daredevil’s superhuman senses render him extraordinarily vulnerable to excessive sound, odors, etc., which can temporarily weaken his Radar Sense. If he is bombarded by too much sound at once, Daredevil can easily be immobilized which causes him great pain and leaves him disoriented. Due to his blindness He is unable to discern pictures or video images, and he can only guess at colors based on the amount of heat they are absorbing or reflecting. Also, Daredevil is as susceptible to physical injury and disease as any normal human.

for the love of…..GOOD NIGHT!!! this is a well thought out and thorough post!
I love this character and I'm super excited to see him as our January Character of the Month.
Haha, I'm glad someone appreciates it! TOok me two weeks to put this thing together!
Yeah, this is so good it should get it's own catgory. If anyone needs a crash course in Daredevil I now know where to direct them.
What an epic Daredevil piece! Great way to kick off the new year and our first Character of the Month. Cheers!
i had so much fun reading you think that all superheroes are like spiderman that they are good and stuff but it was fun to read how daredevil went through so much heartbreak etc idk i just loved reading this so much i wish that i had all the daredevil comics good job