Daredevil, American comic strip superhero created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett. The character first appeared in Daredevil no. 1 (April 1964).
Daredevil’s origin is revealed in the comic’s first issue. Bookish Matt Murdock pushes a man clear of an oncoming truck but is blinded when he lands in an unknown radioactive substance. Matt is the son of boxer “Battling” Jack Murdock, who is attempting to rebuild his career with the help of a crooked promoter known as the Fixer. While attending law school, Matt engages in an intense physical training regimen, aided by heightened senses that were triggered by the accident that took his sight. When his father is killed after refusing to throw a fight, Matt dons a costume and becomes Daredevil, vowing to bring his father’s killers to justice. Upon being confronted by Daredevil, the Fixer promptly dies of a heart attack, so establishing the terrifying effect the hero has on criminals.
By day, Murdock aids needy clients with his law practice. By night, he takes to the streets in the New York neighbourhood Hell’s Kitchen to combat injustice directly. In addition to his elevated senses and martial prowess, Daredevil’s crime-fighting arsenal includes a cane that contains a grappling hook and cable for scaling walls.
Daredevil no. 1 also established the strip’s supporting cast: Murdock’s partner in his law firm, Franklin (“Foggy”) Nelson, and their secretary Karen Page. Over the following decade, Lee and other writers built up a formidable and bizarre rogues’ gallery for Daredevil, including the Owl, Mr. Fear, and Stiltman. Much like Spider-Man and his alter ego Peter Parker, Daredevil is a fast-talking joker while Murdock is tortured and morose.
In the early 1970s Daredevil acquired a new love, ex-KGB agent Natasha Romanova, also known as the Black Widow, and the pair relocated to San Francisco. After four years of well-crafted crime fighting, including a period when the Black Widow received equal cover billing, the pair split, with Murdock returning to New York. While by no means one of Marvel’s top-selling titles, the comic of that period was nonetheless one of the company’s most-readable books, and it introduced the deadly villain Bullseye, who could make anything into a weapon.
Daredevil no. 158 (May 1979) saw the introduction of a promising young artist named Frank Miller. Ten issues later he took over writing, transforming the comic into a fan favourite and profoundly changing its direction. Miller’s art was both cinematic and atmospheric, and one of his first acts as writer was to introduce Elektra, a deadly warrior who was working for the evil Kingpin. Elektra had also been Murdock’s first love, and their complicated and deadly relationship drew new readers to the title. Miller became one of the top comic writers of the 1980s, and Daredevil’s searing, dark, violent, and explosive direction was mimicked across the comics industry. Miller wove an elaborate saga in which Elektra is killed and resurrected, before he moved over to DC Comics in 1983.
Marvel found it difficult to follow Miller, but he returned for a brief period in 1986 to write the highly regarded “Born Again” story line, in which the Kingpin uncovers Daredevil’s civilian identity and systematically destroys Murdock’s career, reputation, friendships, and almost his life.
In the post-Miller era, writer Ann Nocenti and artist John Romita, Jr., introduced another female assassin, the schizophrenic Typhoid Mary, brought back the Kingpin, and pitted Daredevil against the demon Mephisto. In 1998, after 380 issues, Marvel decided to relaunch Daredevil as part of its more mature Marvel Knights line, with film director Kevin Smith as writer and Joe Quesada on art. Smith and his successor Brian Michael Bendis created a strong fan following, and in the early 21st century Daredevil once more became one of the industry’s most innovative and talked-about comics. Ed Brubaker, Andy Diggle, and Mark Waid succeeded Bendis as Daredevil writers, with stories that featured Murdock leading a ninja cult known as the Hand and serving as a member of the Avengers.
The live-action film Daredevil (2003) starred Ben Affleck in the title role and featured Jennifer Garner as Elektra and Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin. It was greeted with middling reviews, but it was successful enough at the box office to spur the development of the spin-off project Elektra (2005). Much more warmly received was the television series Daredevil (2015–18), created for Netflix, which introduced the hero to Marvel’s hugely successful cinematic universe.