Daredevil is a 1964 comic book series from Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, with artistic input from Jack Kirby and Wally Wood. Daredevil was an attempt to recreate Lee's earlier success with the archetypal "everyman" hero Spider-Man, this time with an adult central character and a somewhat Darker and Edgier tone. The new character first appeared in Daredevil #1 (April, 1964)
At a young age, Matt Murdock is blinded by a radioactive substance whilst rescuing a blind man from the path of an oncoming truck. Growing up in Hell's Kitchen, Matt was supported by his father, boxer "Battlin' Jack" Murdock. However, desperate to make ends meet, Jack turned boxing under the Fixer, a known gangster, and the only man willing to contract the aging boxer. When Jack refuses to throw a fight because his son is in the audience, he is killed by one of the Fixer's men, leaving Matt orphaned. Working his way to graduating law school and becoming a lawyer, Matt is joined by his best friend Franklin "Foggy" Nelson and their secretary/Matt's love interest Karen Page. Desperate to avenge his father yet having promised him not to use violence to deal with his problems, Matt gets around that promise by adopting a new identity who can use physical force, donning a costume to fight crime as Daredevil.
Notable storylines created during this run includes:
- Born Again (1986)
Daredevil (1964) provides examples of:
- Issues: Daredevil #1-71, Annual #1
- Writers: Stan Lee, Roy Thomas
- Artists: Bill Everett, Wally Wood, Jack Kirby, John Romita Sr., Joe Orlando, Gene Colan
Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, alongside Jack Kirby (who designed Daredevil's billy club). The first issue established his origin and status quo: the son of boxer "Battlin' Jack" Murdock, Matthew Murdock was blinded as a child when he saved the life of an old man from being hit by a truck containing radioactive material. The radioactive substance that blinded Matt, however, also enhanced all of his other senses as well as giving him a sixth "radar" sense. Growing up to become a lawyer, Matt was joined by his best friend Franklin "Froggy" Nelson and their secretary/Matt's love interest Karen Page. Lee grounded the book by setting it the small Manhattan district called Hell's Kitchen, although Matt would venture out to other parts of New York City. When Matt's father is killed by the Fixer for not throwing a fight (ironically because Matt is in the audience at the time), Matt decides to don a costume and fight crime as Daredevil.
Daredevil's first costume was yellow and red, but starting with issue #7, artist Wally Wood redesigned the costume to make it all red, which is the costume that Daredevil has pretty much stuck with up until the present day.
Some notable villains introduced in this include the Owl (Daredevil #3), the Purple Man (Daredevil #4), Mister Fear (Daredevil #6), Stilt-Man (Daredevil #8), and the Gladiator (Daredevil #18).
One issue where Daredevil met Spider-Man had long-running consequences: after befriending Spider-Man, Spidey left a letter for Matt that accidentally revealed his secret identity to Foggy and Karen. Instead of telling them the truth, however, Matt decided to trick them by revealing that it was his twin brother Mike who was Daredevil and not him. This led into the "Mike Murdock" plotline, where Matt would occasionally pretend to be his fake twin brother in order to throw his friends off the scent, until eventually Matt began forgetting he wasn't Mike, causing him to "kill" Mike Murdock and tell everyone that Mike had trained a replacement to be Daredevil. Comics are weird.
By this point, Gene Colan had become the de facto Daredevil artist and Roy Thomas took over as writer in issue #51 and made a few changes. Matt finally told Karen that he was Daredevil, but due to the stresses of dating a vigilante, Karen decided to break up and move to Hollywood. Nothing much happened after that until Thomas decided to leave the book and new writer Gerry Conway decided to take the book in a completely different direction.
Tropes from the Lee-Thomas era:
- Artistic License – Law: Despite the protagonist being a lawyer, the portrayal of legal matters was often haphazard. As an example, an early issue has Matt conclude that the Purple Man can't be prosecuted, because there is no law against him asking people for things. However, many of the things Killgrave has at that point asked people to do (give him money from a bank's register, beat up Daredevil) were themselves illegal, meaning it should have been possible to bring him up on charges for incitement or conspiracy.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Most of Daredevils foes during this time were pretty silly, but that's not to say they were all harmless.
- Yes, the Stilt-Man's shtick is ridiculous. He still gives Daredevil tremendous trouble every time they fight, since attacking his mechanical legs does nothing and swinging up to attack his actual body gives him a chance to take aim... and unlike a lot of gimicky supervillains, he tends to have a gun.
- The Jester is a failed actor in a clown getup and seems anything but threatening... except, he has worked hard to master a number of fields like fencing and acrobatics in preparation for the big roles, making him dangerously skilled in every area except acting.
- Disability Superpower: Pretty much the Trope Codifier for superheroes.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The yellow-and-red costume. It also only had one D on the chest, instead of two. As soon as Wally Wood introduced the new, all-red one, the yellow costume never made another appearance (aside from Daredevil: Yellow).
- Fake Twin Gambit: It's fun to point out that Matt made up a fake twin in order to have someone to blame for Daredevil, but this actually had far-reaching consequences.
- Technician Versus Performer: Parodied with the Jester. He wants to be an actor, but he thinks he's such a natural talent at acting that he doesn't need to study or practice. This makes him a terrible actor, something he refuses to admit. However, he has trained hard to make himself a master athlete so he could do his own stunts, making him an extremely skilled and dangerous thief and fighter and implying that he could have mastered acting too if he'd just learned the ropes. In other words, he's a Technician who thinks he's a Performer.
- Wolverine Publicity: The first-ever issue featured a pretty blatant case of this trope, where a quarter of the cover page was dedicated to the likes of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Marvel's most popular characters at the time... who didn't appear in the story at all. The use of those characters was meant to set Daredevil up as a Marvel hero worthy of being compared to them, although it doesn't make the trope's usage any less shameless.
- Issues: Daredevil #72-91, Daredevil and the Black Widow #92-107, Daredevil #108-150, Annual #2-4
- Writers: Gerry Conway, Garry Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman, Jim Shooter
- Artists: Gene Colan, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Klaus Janson, Gil Kane
The first thing Gerry Conway did when he took over with issue #72 is turn the sci-fi scale up to eleven. One of Conway's long running plots was the manipulations of Murdock & Nelson by "Mr. Kline," who turned out to be MK-9, a robot from a dystopian future intent on making sure its future never came to be. MK-9 hired various supervillains (and created robot duplicates of supervillains) to attack Daredevil and Iron Man before he was unceremoniously killed by two other random people from the future in issue #84.
One interesting storyline that happened was Matt getting together with Natasha Romanov the Black Widow. In issue #87, they decide to move in together in a house in San Francisco, essentially moving the entire comic over to the West Coast. This was later compounded by the book changing it's name to Daredevil and the Black Widow with issue #92 (although the indices would still refer to it as Daredevil). In fact, because Matt and Natasha were an unmarried couple living together, Marvel was forced by the Comics Code to have them exposit that they actually lived on separate floors in the house and there was no hanky-panky involved. The title change only lasted until issue #108 and Matt and Natasha broke up in issue #124 when Marv Wolfman took over the book and decided to move Matt back to Hell's Kitchen.
Wolfman introduced a brand new love interest, Heather Glenn, to the book, as well as a brand-new villain called Bullseye, but he ended up leaving after only twenty issues. The book then was handed over to Jim Shooter, who introduced the Paladin, but Shooter ended up having trouble keeping up with the schedule and decided to hand the book over to another writer.
That writer was Roger McKenzie, who took over in issue #151. McKenzie was much better known for writing horror comics (like Warren's Creepy and Eerie) and he ended up bringing that aesthetic over to Daredevil. The Man Without Fear was about to get a lot more scary.
Tropes in Black Widow/San Francisco Era:
- Genre Shift: Gerry Conway really leaned into the sci-fi aspects of the Marvel Universe.
- Name and Name: Daredevil and the Black Widow.
- Take Over the City: The plan of long-running Big Bad Kerwin J. Broderick. He was already wielding considerable clandestine influence over San Fransisco, but after getting his hands on some alien technology, he decided that he wanted to literally make himself king.
- Issues: Daredevil #151-233, Annual #5-7
- Writers: Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Dennis O'Neil, Harlan Ellison
- Artists: Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, William Johnson, David Mazzucchelli
McKenzie introduced a much darker tone, as well as chain-smoking reporter Ben Urich to the cast. About seven issues into his run, McKenzie brought in a new artist to the book called Frank Miller who changed up the art style to make it look more noir.
Matt's relationship with Heather Glenn took a turn for the worst as he revealed his secret identity to her and then accidentally caused the suicide of her father. Then Daredevil faced off against the supervillain Death-Stalker, who was trapped on another plane of existence, before he ended up materializing in a gravestone and dying, something which his mother later blamed Daredevil for and which resulted in Daredevil #208, one of the best issues of Daredevil written, surprisingly, by Harlan Ellison.
Miller, however, disliked McKenzie's scripts, so editor Denny O'Neil fired McKenzie and had Miller write and draw the book himself. This resulted in a drastic shift, furthering the book's dark tone and setting off a number of creative decisions which revamped the book and the character forever.
Miller's first issue as writer (issue #168) introduced Elektra, Matt's college ex-girlfriend and current assassin for the Hand, while his second issue re-introduced Bullseye, this time as a dangerous sociopath who loved killing. His third issue re-introduced the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, smarter and more dangerous than ever, revamping him to eventually become Daredevil's main nemesis. The ensuing storyline saw Fisk consolidate power among the gangs of New York, hire Bullseye as his bodyguard, and hire the Hand to kill Daredevil. This storyline also showed that Matt was actually trained in a ninja fighting style by Stick, an old blind member of the Chaste, a secret group that stood against the Hand. Eventually, Bullseye figures out Daredevil's secret identity and goes after Elektra, killing her with her own sai.
This storyline is normally what people think of when they think Daredevil.
Subsequent storylines had Matt reteaming with the Black Widow to try and stop the Hand from resurrecting Elektra as their assassin (she ended up being resurrected by the Chaste instead) and Matt going off the deep end and throwing Bullseye off a building. Although Bullseye didn't die, he was paralyzed and Matt ends up sneaking into his hospital room and playing a game of Russian Roulette with him (although the gun ended up having no bullets). This issue, #191, was Miller's last for a while and the book ended up being taken over by Denny O'Neil. Longtime inker Klaus Janson became the new penciler and O'Neil generally continued the storylines Miller had introduced, including Matt's toxic relationship with Heather Glenn and the Kingpin's slow takeover of the city. Heather eventually commits suicide in issue #220, causing Matt further angst.
With issue #206, David Mazzucchelli became the new artist for the book and would stay on when Frank Miller came back to do his greatest storyline Born Again, issues #227–233. Karen Page returns, only to reveal that she's become a junky and sold Daredevil's secret identity for a fix. The Kingpin, having finally confirmed the identity of his enemy, proceeds to tear Matt Murdock's life apart and then try to kill him. But Matt refuses to die. Matt saves Karen, fights the insane super soldier Nuke, and, with the help of Captain America, reveals the Kingpin's crimes to the world. The story ends with Matt and Karen rebuilding their lives together.
Tropes in the Frank Miller Era:
- Aborted Arc: Near the end of Miller's run, Stick revealed to Daredevil that his super senses were not unique. In the past, every one had the same senses he does, they just lost them over time. The radiation only unlocked his senses, it didn't create them. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a wounded Black Widow, and Stick dies soon afterwards. Sadly, no other writer picked up this thread.
- The Alcoholic: Heather Glenn and, whenever he appears in the book, Tony Stark.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Chaste vs the Hand. An ancient conspiracy of ninjas.
- Bad Guy Bar: McKenzie and Miller introduced Josie's Bar.
- Big Bad: Miller basically turns the Kingpin into the Big Bad of the entire book. Even when Miller leaves, the Kingpin stays as Daredevil's ultimate nemesis.
- Broken Bird: Heather Glenn and she becomes more broken over time, until she eventually kills herself.
- Darker and Edgier: Daredevil was a grittier character even before Frank Miller took over in the 80s. Since then, he's been one of Marvel's grimmest (out-grimmed only by The Punisher), to the point that Mark Waid's purpose statement for the new series is that he wants to read a Daredevil story that didn't drive him to drink.
- Gratuitous Ninja: A major part of Frank Miller's makeover of the series consisted of turning Matt into this trope, as well as using it as a reoccurring theme.
- Malevolent Architecture: Daredevil #208 ("The Deadliest Night of My Life" by Harlan Ellison, Arthur Byron Cover, and David Mazzucchelli) is all about Daredevil being tricked into a mansion filled with death traps. The entire issue is just him escaping one after the other until the entire mansion explodes, which he barely escapes. It is considered one of the best issues of Daredevil.
- Mob War: "Gangwar!"
- Retcon: A pretty minor one, all things considered, but Frank Miller retconned what age Matt was when his father was killed. Originally, he was already in college. In Frank Miller's miniseries, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, Matt is younger, and is instead in 12th grade. So instead of his father pressuring him to be important and Matt studying and then enrolling in law right before his father died, Matt was pressured to study and picked law... but didn't necessarily have to follow through, since he had already acted as a vigilante at the time and his father was dead.
- The Rival: Frank Miller brought The Punisher in for a story arc, highlighting the vast differences in the methods, personalities, and ideologies of the two vigilantes. The relationship stuck and they often show up in each other's series, usually as an antagonist but occasionally as an ally. In an aversion of the usual arc, at first Punisher took a liking to Daredevil and considered it an honor to meet him, but over time grew less and less tolerant of him, going from tolerable ass to intolerable ass.
- Russian Roulette: Between Daredevil and Bullseye. Played with, however: the gun had no bullets, but Bullseye didn't know that.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Matt got this a lot during the Miller era, particularly for things like making an alliance with the Kingpin and ruining his girlfriend's career.
- Issues: Daredevil #234-291, Annual #5
- Writers: Ann Nocenti
- Artists: Barry Windsor-Smith, Louis Williams, John Romita Jr., Lee Weeks
Mark Gruenwald and Danny Fingeroth wrote single issues before Ann Nocenti was asked to write an issue. Her issue, "American Dreamer," illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith, was so well-received that she was asked back to become the regular writer. Nocenti would then become the sole writer on the book for over four years, the longest of any Daredevil writer at the time.
Nocenti's run became notable for a number of different things: her long-running attempt at deconstructing Daredevil, asking if he actually changes things with violence or if he is caught in an eternal cycle, and very strange and esoteric stories to the point where she had Daredevil actually go to Hell and confront the Devil. Her stories were also intensely political, having themes of feminism, drug abuse, nuclear proliferation, and animal rights. They also tended to be caught in whatever Crisis Crossover that Marvel was having at the time, although Nocenti made it work for her. Her second story was set right after the "Mutant Massacre" and one of the most notable was the tie-in to "Inferno," where the aforementioned confrontation with the Devil happened.
Nocenti also introduced Typhoid Mary as a recurring villain/love interest for Matt. Matt and Karen Page have rebuilt their lives and started a new nonprofit drug and legal clinic, but Matt is tempted to cheat when he meets the kind and innocent Mary Walker. Meanwhile, the psychotic and pyrokinetic Typhoid Mary goes to work for the Kingpin — and when Matt finally does cheat on Karen with Mary, she reveals that she is Typhoid Mary and that Mary Walker was another one of her personalities. Then she gives Matt a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, leaving him in a coma...just in time for New York City to go to Hell.
In the aftermath of his beating, Karen leaving him, and confronting the Devil, Matt ends up leaving Hell's Kitchen and becoming a drifter in Upstate New York, helping anyone who needed help. Eventually, this led him into the crosshairs of Doctor Doom during the Acts of Vengeance crossover, when Doom constructed Ultron 13 to kill Daredevil. Ultron 13, however, falls in love with a young superhuman woman traveling with Daredevil called Number Nine and then Ultron 13 goes a bit crazy. Yes, this is the story where Daredevil beats Ultron and yes, it's awesome.
Nocenti eventually ended her run by having Matt return to Hell's Kitchen and reconcile with Foggy, determined to find Karen again.
Tropes in Ann Nocenti's run:
- Captain Geographic: Number Nine wears a costume made from the stars and stripes.
- Healing Factor: Number Nine's power, which makes her pretty much indestructible.
- Runaway Train: In the "Inferno" crossover, Matt is on a runaway train...to Hell.
- Walking the Earth: More like "Walking Upstate New York," but this is what Matt does post-"Inferno."
- Issues: Daredevil #292-380, Annual #8-10, Daredevil: Man Without Fear #1–5, Annual #7-10
- Writers: D. G. Chichester, J. M. DeMatteis, Karl Kesel, Joe Kelly, Scott Lobdell
- Artists: Lee Weeks, Scott McDaniel, Gene Colan
Daredevil meets The Dark Age of Comic Books. It's not D. G. Chichester's fault, exactly, it's just the way that comics were going at the time.
Chichester took over the book after Nocenti and kept it going, with Matt still trying to rekindle his relationship with Karen and keep Hell's Kitchen and it's citizens safe as Daredevil. During "Last Rites" (issue #297–300), Matt performs a Batman Gambit so good that he captures Typhoid Mary, brings down the Kingpin, and even gets back his attorney's license. And in 1993, Frank Miller returned to write Daredevil: The Man Without Fear five-issue mini-series about Daredevil's origin and early days. (Basically, it was Batman: Year One but for Daredevil, although not as acclaimed.)
And that's when things started to go downhill. D. G. Chichester had been doing more experimental stories in line with Ann Nocenti's run, but that ran smack down into Marvel's '90s era and it's insistence on extreeeeme things, like symbiotes. So Chichester decided to write a storyline called "Fall From Grace" (#319-325) that included symbiotes. And vampires and demons and ninjas. All of whom are after a mysterious virus called "About Face," which can change the very nature of your being. And somehow, in all of this, Daredevil's identity is leaked, so Matt decides to fake his death and reinvent himself as "Jack Batlin." And gets a brand new costume with armor. Yeah.
After Chichester left the book, it was taken over by Gregory Wright, Alan Smithee, and, for one issue, Warren Ellis, before J. M. DeMatteis took over and restored Daredevil's classic red costume as Daredevil fights against a double in his original red-and-yellow costume. (This story was also called, confusingly, "Inferno.") DeMatteis's run would be short, however, and eventually Karl Kesel would become the writer, having Matt and Foggy work for superstar lawyer Rosalind Sharpe (Foggy's mother). DeMatteis and Kesel returned Daredevil back to basics, something the book desperately needed.
Unfortunately, sales had fallen so low that it was too late. The book went through two more writers, Joe Kelly and Scott Lobdell, but sales didn't turn around, so the book was cancelled with issue #380.
Daredevil was dead. But not for long.
Tropes from the "Fall From Grace" era:
- Darker and Edgier: During the mid-1990s, the series became even edgier, since the title was placed under the "Marvel Edge" line of books, which included other antiheroes/urban heroes like Punisher and the Ghost Rider.
- Faking the Dead: Daredevil buries Matt Murdock in a grave and changes his costume to a black and red suit. He is not dead, of course.
- He-Man Woman Hater: During "Inferno", a one-shot villain named Sir was introduced. Sir worshipped "maleness" and loathed frailty and femaleness, so much so Sir killed women. In "Purgatorio", it is revealed that Sir's real identity is a woman named Marsha, who wanted to get rid of any "female weakness" and underwent both a surgical and psychological process to mold her body into a powerful male form, because Marsha promised never to "become a victim" again. The process worked, but the resulting persona, "Sir", escaped before the operation was... complete.
- Lazy Alias: Matt's father was "Battlin' Jack Murdock." So when Matt fakes his death and changes his name, he changes it to..."Jack Batlin." Real smooth, Matt.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: In a 1996 issue, Martinique Jason (aka, the first female Mastermind) hires Foggy Nelson's firm, and later fights Daredevil with her psychic illusions.
- Rule of Symbolism: J. M. DeMatteis's three part arc ("Inferno", "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso") breaks Daredevil's psyche, only to reassemble it again by the end of the run.
- Secret-Keeper: During Kesel's run, Matt is on a date with Karen Page when Peter Parker and Ben Urich (from the Daily Bugle) come to meet them. Suddenly, a Spider-Man swings overhead, and Matt says he has an appointment. Karen, Ben, and even Peter cover up for his absence, each other unaware that they all know Daredevil's identity.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Daredevil switches out his iconic red costume to an armored black-and-red one.
- Working with the Ex:
- In 1997, Daredevil goes to work with Natasha for a three-part arc titled "The Widow's Kiss", while still dating Karen Page during this time.
- Also in 1997, in Elektra's solo title (1996-1997), he partnered up with Elektra, another ex, during the "American Samurai" arc.
