Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)

Daredevil
Name	Matthew Michael "Matt" Murdock
Current Alias	Daredevil
Aliases	Editorial Names: Captain Universe, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear Nicknames: DD, Devil, Double-D, Hornboy, Hornhead, Horn-Head, Man Without Fear, Matty, Mr. Devil, Red, Red Man, Scarlet Avenger, Scarlet Swashbuckler, Shades Impersonations: Bullseye, Death's Head, Frog-Man, Ikari, Jester, Michael "Mike" Murdock, Salvatore "Side Pockets" Buchetto, Thor Other Aliases: Club, Daredevil 1.0, The Devil, Gary, God Without Fear, Guardian Devil, Jack Batlin, Kingpin, Kingpin of Crime, Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen, Laurent LeVasseur, Mister Faversham, The Most Dangerous Man Alive, Nameless One, Ray Mallory
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	New York City District Attorney's Office Formerly partner of Blindspot, Kirsten McDuffie, Defenders, Defenders, Fist, Nelson and Murdock, New Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel Knights, The Hand, partner of Black Widow, Elektra
Relatives	Ancestors: Tommy Murdock (ancestor) Parents: Jonathan "Battling Jack" Murdock (father, deceased) Maggie Murdock (mother) Siblings: Mike Murdock (twin brother, deceased) Spouses: Milla Donovan (ex-wife) Other Relatives: Victoria Murdock (alleged relative, deceased) ( "Killer" Murdock (alleged relative, deceased)
Host of	Enigma Force (formerly) Unnamed symbiote (formerly, deceased)
Marital Status	Divorced
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	5′11″ (1.8 m)
Weight	185 lbs (83.91 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Red
Unusual Features	Blind
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Human mutate
Living Status	Alive; formerly deceased
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Hell's Kitchen, New York City, New York
Cause of Death	Killed by Elektra (revived by himself) Killed by Echo (revived by himself)
Personal Information
Identity	Secret
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Parole officer, Adventurer, Vigilante, Lawyer formerly Mayor of New York City, Deputy Mayor of New York City, Assistant District Attorney, Leader of the Hand, Short Order Cook
Education	J.D. in law at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Self-taught in mechanical engineering
Base of Operations	Matt Murdock's Apartment, Hell's Kitchen, New York City, New York Formerly Avengers Mansion, Manhattan, New York City, New York; Nelson and Murdock Law Office; Shadowland; North Shore Mansion; San Francisco, California
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Stan Lee, Bill Everett
First	Daredevil #1 (February, 1964)
First	Daredevil #1 (February, 1964)

 As Daredevil, I get to save the world. As a lawyer... maybe I can fix it. I need them both. That's what I realized. The warrior and the lawyer. It doesn't work if I only have one. 

—Matt Murdock

History

This is an abridged version of Matthew Murdock's history. For a complete history see Matthew Murdock's Expanded History.

Early Years

Daredevil's life is a mix of joy and tragedy. The story of Matt Murdock began with his father. Jonathan "Battling Jack" Murdock raised his sons, Matt and Mike alone, claiming Matt's mother had died. Jack wanted his sons to be more successful than him. He impressed upon Matt the need to constantly study instead of playing sports with other kids. Jack hoped that Matt would become a doctor or a lawyer instead of an "uneducated pug" like himself. This led the neighborhood kids to bully the "cowardly" Matt as "Daredevil", while his twin brother came to his aid. Matt took out his frustrations by secretly training in his father's gym.

One day, Matt saw a blind man walking towards an oncoming truck. Matt pushed the man out of the way. The truck crashed and a radioactive isotope spilled out, striking Matt across the face and blinding him. While recovering in the hospital, Matt discovered his hearing, smell, taste, and touch were amplified to superhuman degrees. He also developed a "radar sense" that formed a mental picture of his surroundings.

During his time in the hospital, Matt was visited by a nun wearing a gold cross. Long thought dead, Matt would one day find his mother, "Maggie", was living as a nun. Matt wouldn't know who this woman was for many years.

Training with Stick

A few months later, Matt received training from the ninja master Stick. From Stick, Matt learned how to control his new abilities and honed his skills in acrobatics and martial arts.

Meanwhile, Jack Murdock was desperate to fight. He reluctantly joined with a crooked fight promoter known as the "Fixer". The Fixer set up Jack to be a heavyweight contender, just to have him take a dive. Jack refused and won his fight. Later that night, Jack Murdock was shot dead by the Fixer and his men.

The now orphaned Matt searched for his father's killers. He finally found the Fixer's gang and punished them severely. He chased down and confronted the Fixer, who pulled a gun on Matt. Before he could fire it, the Fixer suffered from a heart attack and died. Matt tracked down Angelo, the last man remaining responsible for his father's death. He found him at a brothel. Matt confronted him but was attacked by the women who worked there. In the melee, Matt knocked one of the women out of the window and thought she was dead (she would return as Typhoid Mary). He ran away in horror over what he had done. He went searching for Stick, but Stick had abandoned him because of his actions.

Columbia University

With Elektra

Matt continued his studies and entered Columbia Law School. At Columbia, Matt met and fell in love with Elektra Natchios. It was a first love for both of them. When Elektra's father was accidentally killed by the police, she retreated from the world and from Matt.

Nelson and Murdock

Matt earned his law degree and landed a job at a major law firm. He returned to Hell's Kitchen and to his father's old gym. There he met a young girl staying there named Mickey. They got close to each other, and he trained her. He also ran into Foggy Nelson while he was there. He helped him with some of his cases. Meanwhile, Mickey ended up being kidnapped by people working for the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. Matt tracked them down and rescued Mickey. Because of that he missed an appointment for work and was fired.

Matt opened a practice, Nelson and Murdock, with Franklin "Foggy" Nelson. Karen Page was hired by Foggy as their secretary. Karen was attracted to Matt, and found it a pity that such a wonderful, handsome man could be so handicapped. Matt made a yellow and black costume out of his father's old boxing robes and continued to fight crime as Daredevil.

Becoming Daredevil

Though some of his early enemies were considered laughable like (Matador, Stilt Man, and Leap Frog), Daredevil gathered an impressive and dangerous rogues gallery. Electro was the first costumed villain Daredevil faced. Also, in one of his first encounters, he clashed with his long-time nemesis the Owl. In his first team-up with another superhero, he assisted Spider-Man in defeating the Circus of Crime. His next opponent, the Purple Man was a spy for a foreign country. When he was accidentally doused with experimental chemicals, they turned his skin purple and gave him the power to control people's minds. His power wasn't very effective against Daredevil since it worked best when people could see him. Mister Fear seemed like a natural enemy for a "Man Without Fear". He was a wax museum curator obsessed with bringing his statues to life. Instead, he discovered a gas that filled people with terror. He used this gas as Mister Fear to commit daring crimes.

Yellow Costume

He also faced the Sub-Mariner during his early days as a hero. Even though he could not defeat the Atlantean, Daredevil refused to give up, which greatly impressed Namor.

Karen told Matt about Dr. Van Eyck, a doctor from Boston who might be able to restore Matt's lost eyesight. But Matt refused, which angered her, and she called him a coward. A client Klaus Kruger who is the Duke of Lichtenbad told them about Van Eych's treatment for the blind, Klaus verifies the claims, and Matt asks to go along because he senses that Klaus is lying about something. Back in New York City, Karen received a memo from Matt explaining that the surgery wasn't done, leaving Foggy to jealously assume that Matt chickened out at the last moment.

He battled such villains as the Organizer and the Ani-Men. He traveled to the Savage Land and teamed up with Ka-Zar. Together they battled the Plunderer. He went up against villain such as Ox, the Masked Marauder, Gladiator, Owl, Tri-Man, and Plunderer returned. He went up against Stilt-Man again. He finally took down the Masked Marauder. He went up against the Queega.

Deciding to tell Karen that he was really Daredevil, Matt's plans got thrown out of whack when the Nelson & Murdock law office was attacked by the Masked Marauder's gang who beat up Foggy and kidnapped Karen to draw out Daredevil who they suspected to be Matt Murdock. Learning of Karen's kidnapping, Matt went to the location where Karen was being held hostage and pretended to be a blind Matt pretending to be Daredevil coming to misguidedly save Karen. Getting captured as part of his plan, Daredevil freed himself when his captors were not looking and easily defeated them. After Karen was freed and Daredevil turned in the crooks, Matt decided not to tell Karen his true secret fearing the danger it may bring her someday.

He went up against Cobra and Mister Hyde, battling the duo throughout New York.But finally defeats them. His rogue gallery increased battling the Beetle and the Trapster, which led to his confrontation with Doctor Doom.

Jester

He soon fought the Jester who was more dangerous than he appeared. Karen decided that she could not take working at Nelson and Murdock anymore and decided to leave since she and Matt could not reconcile how they felt for each other. Matt had an opportunity to make her stay but he pushed her away not wanting to risk her life because he's really Daredevil. Not wanting to take out his emotions on somebody else, Daredevil went on the trail of the Jester in hopes of capturing the criminal. However, while out on patrol, he overheard a radio report of a crook who stole a bag full of Radium. Finding the crook and stopping him, the Radium had a weird effect on Daredevil, causing him to go berserk. Traveling to Madison Square Garden he found that Captain America was having a charity fight with people wanting to step in the ring with him. Daredevil, in a peaked frenzy then attacked the Star-Spangled Avenger, however during the fight the effect of the Radium wore off and Daredevil retreated quickly. He found the Jester and finally took him down. A new threat soon arose in Hell's Kitchen: Biggie Benson.

Foggy Running for D.A.

As Foggy entered the final race for the District Attorney's office, Karen returned because she could not stay away from Matt and the two rekindled their romance. During the election race, Daredevil learned that Stilt-Man had been hired to make an attempt on Foggy's life, and so battled him as Daredevil. Although Stilt-Man managed to escape, Daredevil prevented him from bringing harm to Foggy. Soon afterwards, Foggy was elected D.A., leaving Matt to wonder what to do with his law career.

Thinking of Quitting

Matt decided that he was sick of being Daredevil and decided to quit his costumed adventuring because it cost him his best friend and the girl that he loved. However, this was easier said than done as Daredevil was attacked by a robot created by Starr Saxon and hired out by Biggie Benson. He battled Saxon many times. He later impersonated Mister Fear.

Fantastic Four

In his civilian identity, Murdock was very successful as a lawyer. Amongst his more prominent clients were the Fantastic Four, whom he also aided as Daredevil in their fight against Doctor Doom when they temporarily lost their powers. He was also present at the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm, both as Matt Murdock and Daredevil.

The Saga of Mike Murdock

Disguised as his brother

Matt's secret identity was compromised after Spider-Man wrote him a letter revealing that he had figured out that he was Daredevil and it was intercepted by Foggy and Karen. When he was confronted about the letter, Matt had to come up with an excuse on the spot, and decided to claim to have a twin brother called Mike who was Daredevil, and to whom the letter was actually addressed. To further consolidate the lie, Matt would sporadically adopt the identity of Mike and pretend to be his own cocky and brash twin.

Even though he managed to successfully deceive Foggy and Karen, juggling this triple-life became hard for Matt. When Karen started to fall in love with his Mike persona, Matt even considered for a brief time to propose to her as Mike. Matt eventually decided to get rid of his triple-identity, and took the opportunity to fake Daredevil's death during a fight against the Unholy Three. Since Mike's identity was tied to Daredevil, Matt would also claim that Mike had trained a new Daredevil before he died.

Matt's complex love life

Murdock moved to San Francisco with Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow. Although their relationship later ended, they remained friends. But sometimes Natasha wished that they were more. While living in San Francisco, Matt worked for another law firm.

He left when he realized his bosses were more concerned with their careers than with their clients and returned to New York where he opened the "Storefront Legal Clinic" that provided legal services to poor people with Foggy Nelson, who had lost his re-election as district attorney to Blake Tower. The Storefront was financed by the father of Matt's girlfriend Heather Glenn, Maxwell Glenn, who soon became a subject of investigation himself by Daredevil. He stopped a plot by the Jester who used fake television transmissions to plunge New York into chaos and teamed up with the Ghost Rider to rescue Karen Page who had been kidnapped by a new Death's Head.

Matt was reunited with Elektra under the worst circumstances. After college, Elektra had become an assassin. She had trained with an evil ninja cult called the Hand and she had become cold and violent. Elektra was killed by Bullseye, the world's deadliest assassin. Fortunately, ninja magic and Murdock's love brought her back to life and "cleansed her spirit". She moved to a remote mountain retreat to live with the Chaste, the Hand's heroic counterpart.

Sometime after Elektra's death, a drunken Heather called Matt for help. When he learned she was lying, he angrily left and ignored her. Days later, she hung herself.

Glorianna O'Breen was an Irish photojournalist who met Matt when he fought an IRA terrorist. But Matt's descent into poverty and madness, brought about by the Kingpin, pushed her away. She later moved in with Foggy Nelson. Years later, Glorianna was killed by Victor "Kruel" Krueller, a madman trying to remember his past by beating witnesses to his attempted murder.

Karen pursued an acting career in L.A. but ended up a porn star hooked on heroin. She sold out Daredevil's secret identity; information that eventually reached the Kingpin. It was Fisk who systematically destroyed every piece of Matt Murdock's life; who was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Elektra and Jack Murdock; who knew Murdock's secret identity as Daredevil but never told anyone, just to play power games with the hero. Matt took Karen back and they built a life together.

Typhoid Mary was the living embodiment of the Madonna/whore complex. Mary was a sweet but frightened woman who had been a successful actress. Typhoid was a trashy, cruel killer with telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers. The Kingpin hired her to make Matt Murdock fall in love with her, and then drive him crazy. Typhoid Mary succeeded in getting Matt to cheat on Karen Page and nearly had him beaten to death.

Mental Breakdown & Reconstruction

Left mentally shaken by his affair with Typhoid Mary, Matt left New York for a while and spent some time travelling in other parts of the country. During this self-imposed exile, Daredevil joined forces with the Inhumans to defeat a new version of Ultron, who was fortunately suffering a complex mental breakdown where all of Ultron's past personalities were active at once, allowing Matt and his allies to damage it.

After a traumatic trip into Hell to confront Mephisto, Matt suffered a mental breakdown. When he returned to New York, he had literally forgotten who he was, taking time to even realise that he was blind and claiming that he just had a "vision problem". He eventually recalled enough of his past to adopt the name "Jack Murdock" and began working as a blind boxer, while various encounters with street criminals helped him establish his sense of justice. At the same time, Bullseye was attempting to ruin Daredevil's reputation by posing as his enemy, but this led to Bullseye having his own mental breakdown and believing that he was Daredevil. Matt eventually regained enough of his memories to track down Bullseye's old costume and confront his foe while the two were dressed as each other, Matt defeating Bullseye and beginning work on rebuilding Daredevil's reputation.

While working with Foggy Nelson to restore his legal license as Matt Murdock, Daredevil was also troubled by new attacks on New York from the Hand while Wilson Fisk began to build a media empire to encourage his own views on society . Murdock was eventually contacted by Colonel Fury, who revealed that some of the financial investors Fisk had used to purchase his media empire were actually agents of Hydra intending to use his contacts for their own ends. Murdock was able to compromise Fisk's reputation among other gangsters by secretly planting the idea that Fisk had knowingly begun working with Hydra, while Fisk found himself under attack from his erstwhile allies as he underestimated their own resources. This culminated in Daredevil trading key information to district federal prosecutor Kathy Malper in exchange for her help getting Murdock's legal license restored. Fisk was ultimately exposed when Daredevil provoked Fisk into a public rampage, leaving his enemy stripped of virtually all his usual resources while Murdock's legal license was restored .

Identity Crisis

Matt's secret identity was threatened by a New York tabloid. Though he protected himself, he still faked his death. Even Foggy and Karen were fooled. Matt now lived as a street hustler named Jack Batlin. He kept fighting crime as Daredevil, this time with an armored costume and a meaner attitude. This led to an identity crisis which he eventually overcame while also clearing up rumors of his identity. Murdock subsequently began working with Foggy at a law firm run by his estranged mother.

Guardian Devil

During this time, he was the target of the supervillain Mysterio, as part of his final plan before dying. He paid the Kingpin for information and devised an elaborate plot to pretend that the Second Coming was taking place, leaving Daredevil in the custody of an infant who had been reportedly identified as both the new Christ and the Antichrist. At the same time, he tricked him into coming in contact with an associate-suggestive toxin that would make him violent if anyone suggested that the child was innocent. Finally, to make things worse, he got his friend Foggy Nelson framed for murder (and consequently fired) and made Karen believe that she had AIDS. Despite having been pushed to the breaking point, the toxin was removed from his system with help from Doctor Strange, who also confirmed that the tales of the child as the second coming were a trick.

Looking for the baby

With a clear head now, Matt rushed to his mother, sensing something had happened to her, and he was proved right when he found Bullseye had attacked her as well as the other nuns while looking for the child. Although Matt was unable to save the child from being abducted by Bullseye, with his old foe also killing Karen in the process, he was able to track down his nemesis and learn of Mysterio's role in these events. Mysterio taunted Matt with the possibility of killing him, but Murdock overcame the traps and illusions and saved the baby, dismissing Mysterio as a pathetic villain with an unoriginal scheme, driving Beck to shoot himself in the head. Although Matt was still shaken by Karen's death, a conversation with Spider-Man helped Matt see that the baby represented something positive that had come from this whole mess. While the girl was put up for adoption to another family, Matt suggested that the new parents name the baby Karen, and used the life insurance that Karen had left for him in her will to restart Nelson & Murdock.

Echo

Maya Lopez was born deaf. She also had the gift to recreate any physical motion she sees. The Kingpin used her in another plot to destroy Matt Murdock. First, he arranged Matt to meet her, knowing Matt was lonely after the recent death of Karen Page. Then he tricked Maya into thinking Daredevil killed her father. Maya created the identity of Echo and fought Daredevil. She didn't know he was Matt, and he didn't know why she now hated him. Matt soon explained himself and Maya attacked the Kingpin. She left him blinded for many months.

Identity Revealed & Marriage

Murdock was outed by the press as Daredevil. He publicly denied this and sued the paper.

The latest woman in Matt's life was Milla Donovan. Like Matt, Donovan was blind. Matt saved her life and a year later they were married. Milla eventually learned their marriage may have been part of Matt's mental breakdown. She filed for an annulment.

Eventual Breakdown

Murdock continued to fight crime, ultimately defeating Wilson Fisk and claiming the title of "Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen", preventing any crime from being committed in the area, although Matt's own mental state was rapidly going downhill after the death of his true love, his lies to the public, and assuming the alias of his greatest enemy. During this time frame, Matt was briefly invited to join the New Avengers when he aided them in the latest attempted break-out from the Raft but refused the offer because he didn't want to affect their reputations in the public eye, although he did suggest Maya as a replacement member.

Imprisonment and Impostor

Matt was eventually captured by the FBI and sent to prison for his actions. Foggy Nelson was believed to have been killed and a Daredevil impostor was sighted.

Matt learned that the Kingpin, Bullseye, and the Punisher were also serving time. An attempt at a breakout was made by Black Tarantula. Matt was able to stop Fisk and Bullseye and saved the warden. He and Punisher then escaped.

The impostor was confronted, revealing himself as Iron Fist and that he had been hired to do so. The two and Ben Urich searched for information. The employer seemed to be an injured but very much alive Foggy Nelson.

Vanessa Fisk's Plan

Daredevil then set out to Europe to trace the figure who had had Foggy killed and employed a fake Daredevil. Much to his surprise, this was the Kingpin's wife Vanessa Fisk, who was dying after she killed her son and wanted revenge on Daredevil, who, along with Kingpin, she blamed for her situation. She offered to solve his secret identity problems once and for all if Matt would corrupt himself by fighting as a lawyer to free Kingpin from prison. Matt refused, but Vanessa had already set her plan in motion, having the FBI director who imprisoned Daredevil killed, leaving a suicide note saying he had framed Matt. Matt was able to return to his life in New York City, reunited with Foggy and Milla. Matt decided to honor Vanessa's last wish out of respect for the person she used to be before the Kingpin's influence corrupted her and had the charges against the Kingpin revoked, although he lost his U.S. citizenship and left the country. Vanessa died of her terminal illness, with Matt drawing out the trial so that Fisk couldn't attend the funeral as another act of revenge.

Hell to Pay

With the charges against him for being Daredevil cleared, Matt decided to move his office to a new location due to constant threats from his enemies and resumed his life as a lawyer with Foggy and Becky Blake, their law firm no longer listed in the phone book and only taking referrals to help avoid being easily located. Matt also moved to a different apartment as well. Disaster struck when he went up against the new crime boss the Hood. Mister Fear, who was working with him at the time, poisoned Milla with a psychedelic drug which he did with the help of Lily Lucca, a young woman in love with Matt whom he met while in Europe. This put Milla into a mental institution with Matt accepting the fact that he ruined Milla's life when Mr. Fear told him there was no cure for her.

Out of grief for what happened, Murdock accidentally had sex with Dakota North while drunk and recently he went up against Lady Bullseye and the Hand, where in her civilian disguise as a Lawyer, Lady Bullseye showed the pictures of Matt and Dakota together to Milla's parents, resulting in them being granted full custody of their daughter. Regretting that he had betrayed his wife Matt decided to sign for divorce.

The Devil's Hand

Daredevil: Leader of the Hand

A drunken, blind and immortal sensei Master Izo targeted Murdock in his war against the Hand - and Murdock was forced to team up with his old enemy, the Kingpin, to take the Hand down. However, the price that was paid for this, is that this agreement combined with his ever-growing irrational behavior resulted in Foggy firing Matt from the firm when he found out about the arrangement. The Kingpin attempted to betray him, but Murdock beat him and his assassin, Lady Bullseye, and seized control of the Hand, with Izo's help on the condition that they are to never be involved with either Lady Bullseye or the Kingpin again.

Lady Bullseye, sent by the Kingpin, killed two associates of Norman Osborn, H.A.M.M.E.R. director and leader of the superhuman community. Enraged, Osborn sent his assassin, Hawkeye (the original Bullseye), to kill Daredevil, whom he suspected was responsible for the kill. Bullseye lured Daredevil to a trap, detonating a bomb in an apartment building full of families that were holding out against an OsCorp development site.

Pushed to the brink by Osborn and Bullseye's acts, Daredevil rallied his associates in the Hand to "send a message" - and take back the streets of New York from Osborn's corruption. He then traveled to Japan to unite the five warlords of the Hand while a splinter group worked to corrupt his soul. Murdock returned to New York City and built a large fortress over the spot where Bullseye destroyed the apartment building and called it Shadowland.

Shadowland

Black Shadowland costume

When Daredevil erected his fortress, it began to unsettle some of the heroes, like the Avengers. Bullseye entered the fortress and challenged Murdock to a battle. Murdock arrived dressed in a new black Daredevil costume and ordered a group of ninjas to attack. Bullseye defeated all of these ninjas, but soon faced Murdock himself. Murdock brutally broke both his arms and then used a sai to stab Bullseye through the chest, effectively killing him. Although Daredevil was possessed by the Beast due to the actions of the Snakeroot, it is unclear whether Bullseye's murder was an action of Daredevil's own will. After the final battle- where he was cured of the Beast thanks to Iron Fist striking him with a 'chi punch' that healed the spiritual damage the Beast had caused to his soul-, Matt left New York on a journey to mentally retrain himself that would place him back on the right path by rediscovering himself, while Black Panther took over his role as the protector of Hell's Kitchen.

Daredevil: Reborn

Following the events of Shadowland, Matt wandered in New Mexico to escape his life as a hero, feeling that he had never accomplished anything of worth save for getting his friends hurt, but despite his best effort to stay out of heroics, he ended up getting involved in a corrupt police force operating in a small New Mexico town, saving its residents in the process and defeating a local drug lord named Calavera whom the cops were working for. Though Calavera possessed mysterious telepathic abilities which exploited Murdock's fears of his past mistakes, this ordeal left him reassured in himself, his abilities and his duties as Daredevil, allowing him to face his actions during the Shadowland and reaffirm his status as the 'Man Without Fear' as he defeated Calavera. Matt since then had made his way back to New York City to rebuild both his superhero and legal careers.

Daredevil back in action

Moving his law office to Hamilton Heights, Matt Murdock officially made his return as Daredevil by foiling the kidnapping of a young girl at a Mafia Wedding by the Spot. However in the first case since his return, Matt's presence compromised the case of defending a Muslim named Ahmed Jobrani who is the owner of a small electronics store in a case of police brutality, but it also turns into a media circus due to the past allegations of Matt being Daredevil. Also, because of his pasts allegations of being Daredevil, Matt was forced to change Nelson and Murdock's business strategy, where he and Foggy would have to teach their clients how to represent themselves in court as consultants.

New Avengers

In his next mission involving a wrongful termination case, Daredevil discovered that it had to do with several terrorist organizations whose data was stored electronically in a device called the Omegadrive that was created with the use of the Unstable Molecules in a piece of the Fantastic Four's costume that was recovered from one of their battles. Despite having been beaten by the Bruiser earlier and in no position to fight, Daredevil talks his way out of it by stating to each group's representatives that one of them would have to kill each other to get the device and would end up starting a gang war, which wouldn't happen if Daredevil was allowed to leave and take all the blame for what happened and make himself a target instead.

Later shortly after he officially joined the New Avengers, Daredevil assisted Spider-Man when Black Cat was framed with the theft of a Wi-Fi Holographic Projector and recovered the device from the hands of Black Spectre's gang. In the end he received a passionate exchange from Felicia as a reward. Although this relationship was a plot by Black Spectre to use the Black Cat to get the Omega drive back, Felicia left Matt a note warning him about what was happening before going into hiding. Using the Omegadrive, Daredevil was able to expose Black Spectre leading to their takedown as a warning.

Teaming with Spider-Man and Punisher, Daredevil took down the crime syndicates, and then with his friends in the New Avengers tricked them into thinking Black Spectre was still active and took the Omegadrive only to be abducted by Latverian forces loyal to Doctor Doom. Upon escape, Foggy had begun to question Matt's sanity, ultimately leading to a fallout between the two. They reconciled once the truth was discovered, but Matt later learned that part of Foggy's stress had been due to the fact that he possibly had cancer, which was later confirmed. Later as Daredevil, Matt faced-off against individuals that were being given his powers, he discovered the one responsible for a number of these recent attacks against him was his old enemy Bullseye, who had survived Shadowland but his injuries had cost him all of his senses except his eyesight. Eventually after the following fight, the container that Bullseye was in was knocked into a vat of toxic waste which cost him his eyesight as well.

Return to San Francisco

Later on, Nelson and Murdock collapsed after it was exposed for what it had done in the past, and Daredevil's identity was again made publicly known, though this time it was intentional. Now unable to practice law in New York State anymore, Daredevil reluctantly left Hell's Kitchen and moved back to San Francisco, but not before confessing his feelings to Kirsten McDuffie. Before going, both he and Foggy were attacked by the Leap-Frog. By making it look as if Foggy had died heroically preventing an explosion from going on the streets, Foggy could now go under the radar.

During his time in San Francisco, Matt went against Jennifer Walters in court for the first time. He had learned that Steve Rogers (Captain America) was being sued for wrongful death and had tried to warn him about it, but, surprisingly, Steve asked him to take the case against him and do his best to give him a fair trial; meanwhile, Jennifer would do her best to defend him. In the beginning, it was looking good for Matt's side, considering the evidence that would clear Steve's name was classified, but Jen ultimately managed to get the jury in her good graces and win the case.

Later, Matt decided to ditch the alter-ego of Daredevil, fully merging his two lives for the best. He also encountered Jubula Pride, the daughter of the Owl, in order to find the latter, who had vanished from the city. The search for the Owl ended in Alcatraz, where he was found being inhumanly used by the vigilante the Shroud to power a surveillance supercomputer to find his ex-girlfriend, Julia Carpenter. Matt's interference prompted the Shroud to broadcast malefic footage of his personal and professional life.

In an attempt to salvage his reputation, Matt turned to the Kingpin with an offer to protect Foggy and Kirsten for the price of his total liberty, and to become Kingpin's pawn. However, Kingpin double-crossed Murdock, kidnapping Kirsten, Foggy, and Julia Carpenter, and forcing Matt into a deathmatch with the assassin Ikari. In the middle of the fight, which transpired away from Fisk, the Shroud intervened and killed Ikari. Matt took Ikari's costume, and distracted Kingpin long enough to let the Shroud and Jubula trick the Owl into using the surveillance system to bring to light all of Fisk's operations and ruin his criminal career. The arrival of the police to capture Fisk allowed Matt to rescue all of the three hostages and put an end to the villain. In the aftermath, Matt managed to clear his name, and become reconciled with the different aspects of his life.

Back in Hell's Kitchen

The drawbacks of Matt intertwining his personal life with his vigilante career became apparent soon afterwards. Matt had to stop practicing law due to Daredevil casting a shadow on his every action. After fending off an attack from Typhoid Mary in the privacy of their home, Matt and Kirsten moved back to New York City for a while. Unfortunately, Matt's deal for an autobiography jeopardized his reputation as a vigilante, with people believing he tracked down criminals to pad his book. When Matt and Kirsten returned to San Francisco, they came across two of the Purple Children fleeing from a mob controlled by their father, the Purple Man. Daredevil saved them and tracked down their father, who had created a device to enhance his powers to a global scale, using his children as batteries. Once Daredevil stopped Killgrave and freed the Purple Children, they decided to return the favor by employing their father's machine to hypnotically alter the memories of everyone in the world, erasing the knowledge that Daredevil and Matt Murdock were the same person. Foggy Nelson became Matt's only confidant after re-learning his secret identity shortly afterwards.

For Kirsten's own safety, Matt broke up with her without telling her the truth, and he returned to Hell's Kitchen, where the removal of the knowledge of his secret identity allowed Matt to be reinstated as a New York attorney. Living there again, Matt worked as an assistant district attorney, serving as a prosecuting attorney instead of a defense attorney. He also started mentoring a young inexperienced vigilante named Blindspot.

Daredevil's black costume

Matt decided to take advantage of his identity's secrecy having returned and set out to use his abilities and powers to find a way to integrate vigilantes and superheroes into the legal system. To this end, Matt first helped foil a plan of a group of terrorists named the Munition Militia, and then managed to testify in court as Daredevil without revealing his identity. This victory set a precedent to pave the way for legitimizing superheroes' involvement in the legal process. Wilson Fisk attempted to stop Murdock, pulling the strings behind expert lawyer Legal to issue an appeal. The legal battle took Matt to the Supreme Court of the United States, where he won the case, which effectively made legal the participation of superheroes with secret identities in the courtroom. In a turn of events, Wilson Fisk was elected mayor of New York not long afterwards, and began to work on reverting Murdock's progress in legitimizing superheroes. Fisk additionally offered Matt to be his deputy mayor in an effort to subvert him. Matt accepted in hopes of using Fisk's play to his own advantage.

With Blindspot

Shortly afterwards, the city fell victim to an assault from The Hand in revenge for Blindspot having rejected the Beast. In the first minutes of the siege, Fisk was injured by ninja and fell into a critical condition, leading to Matt's appointment as mayor. Matt used his resources as mayor and as Daredevil to fight off the invasion, and was eventually successful in ending The Hand's siege with help from both the local superheroes as well as the Ordo Draconum, a secret order of Catholic Knights. Fisk recovered shortly afterwards, and Matt quit his job as deputy mayor, preferring to fight Fisk from the outside.

Matt's life was shaken up following a near-death experience after being hit by a truck while saving an unsuspecting pedestrian. The years of accumulated injuries left him crippled, and the psychological toll caused him to swear off being Daredevil. After becoming consumed by fear and giving up on recovery, Matt managed to fight his personal demons and overcome the trauma. However, when he next went back into action as Daredevil, Matt's weakened state caused him to overcompensate, resulting in him accidentally killing a minor street thug named Leo when he unintentionally caused the man serious brain damage. Convinced that he was set up, Matt interrogated the doctor who had treated the thug and listened in secretly on Fisk, learning that both thought that he had killed the man. When returning to the crime scene to see if he had missed anything, Matt was confronted and shot by the newly transferred Detective Cole North. Matt managed to escape but was quickly surrounded due to his weakened state. After a fistfight, resulting in him getting beat up by North, he was saved by the Punisher. After learning from Castle about the Owl's operations, Matt tried to confront the enhanced henchman on his own. He was beaten up to unconsciousness due to his previous injuries but was saved by the Defenders.

Confronted by Spider-Man about his recent failures, Matt decided to hang up his costume, starting to work as a parole officer. During this time, he met Mindy, a local bookstore owner Matt became infatuated with. During his work, Matt accepted a client without noticing he was Joe Carraro, the brother of Leo. When he did notice, he suffered a panic attack and went to church, trying to find an answer in God, by speaking with Sister Elizabeth about his recent troubles.

Matt later accepted an invitation from Mindy to have dinner at her house, with her family and he soon discovered the woman was married to Tom Libris, son of Hell's Kitchen's mob boss Izzy Libris, who was also sitting at the table. Matt understood Mindy invited him to poke her husband and Izzy. He was then involved in a shooting inside Mindy and Tom's house, later finding out that a man dressed in a Daredevil mask was trying to assassinate the head of the Libris family.

Matt's identity crisis kept on making his life difficult. After discussing the idea of God with Reed Richards, Matt found himself beating up a gang of criminals to save a young boy from their bad influence. Once again facing the possibility of becoming Daredevil, Matt reached out to Mindy, and the two shared an intimate moment inside the bookstore. Later, Matt went to the police precinct to see why his client, Joe, was in jail. At the same time, some agents tried to kill detective Cole North right there in the precinct, and Matt acted to stop everything, also having a brief confrontation with North. Getting out of the place, Matt was approached by Elektra, who offered him her help by training him.

Elektra is back

After completing his training with Elektra, Matt was once again his former self. Now aiming at unraveling a deeper kind of criminal activity, Matt set his sights on discovering why the Hell's Kitchen's police precinct was corrupt and not acting to aid the citizens. He started out by contacting detective North, who confessed to Daredevil he was changing his thoughts about law and order. Then, with Elektra, Matt eavesdropped on some conversation inside the precinct, discovering that the order to stop any police activity in the Kitchen came from the state's governor. He also broke up from his relationship with Mindy, feeling the guilt of an affair with a married woman.

Matt informed Foggy Nelson about his new operations against crime, and also told him that Joe Carraro had discovered he was Daredevil after his fight inside the police precinct. Later, partnering with Elektra, Matt uncovered the connection between governor Kettle and the Stromwyn family, as they were the ones responsible for the order to keep Hell's Kitchen's policemen inactive. Elektra, knowing that Wilson Fisk had recently had contacts with the Stromwyns, suggested to Devil to meet his former enemy, who was in the hospital but had nothing to say. Still, the Greek assassin had a way to strike at the richest family in the country: with the help of Devil and his powers, they were able to infiltrate the Stromwyn's server factory, stealing from them three billion dollars. Matthew, suspicious about Elektra, questioned her about the operation, finding out she'd kept one third of the sum for a "personal project". This prompted Matt to leave Elektra for good.

Eventually, Leo's murder caught up with Daredevil and he was arrested. Matt was allowed to keep his mask on during the duration of the trial and the judge didn't have enough reason to keep him under bars before he was convicted, so Matt decided to prepare himself for the worst in the meantime. He contacted Tony Stark as Daredevil and asked him to take part in the auction to buy Hell's Kitchen and outbid everyone. Then, as Matt, he spoke to the persecutor to arrange a deal without his friends' knowledge, confident that his neighborhood would be safe after Stark's purchase. As he was ready to accept his fate, Tony called him to announce he had lost the bid on the neighborhood and someone else had bought it.

Pleading guilty

Afraid that the people of Hell's Kitchen wouldn't be safe with him gone, he was planning to go against the deal. However, Elektra showed up at court and whispered to him that she was the one that won the auction and that he could trust her to keep everyone safe. Hearing her words, and to the surprise of everyone present, Daredevil then pled guilty to the charge of second-degree manslaughter.

Behind Bars

While in jail, Matthew received an unauthorized visit from Elektra, who tried to convince him to escape. After a debate, Elektra told Matthew of her plan to revive The Fist, a counter-organization against the Hand that had been forgotten for millennia, but he refused to give her any help, at least, until she proved she was on the side of Light.

During his time in prison, Daredevil became acquainted with a man named Marcus, who believed that Daredevil's right to keep his mask on was unfair and that this privilege was also indicative that he would find freedom sooner than his full two-year sentence. His life in incarceration wasn't an easy one though, as the warden of the prison was the father of Mason Hollis, a criminal he'd stopped years before, and word quickly began spreading that the warden would give preferential treatment to anyone who killed Daredevil.

After overcoming being poisoned, stabbed, and sent to solitary, Matt tried to investigate the deaths of several prisoners as part of a deal with the FBI. He entered a restricted laboratory, where he suspected they had been killed while manufacturing a dangerous drug. He defeated the guards protecting it in hand-to-hand combat, but the entire prison was accidentally dosed with the behavior-altering stimulant, leading Daredevil to be exposed as well and, in his out-of-control state, take control of the facility. He used the chaos that ensued go get out of prison and deliver the proof that the FBI requested, also detaining Bullseye in the process. Once everything, had been taken care of, however, he still decided to go back to prison and serve the rest of his sentence.

Free Man

When he was finally freed, he and Elektra reunited and began protecting the city as Daredevil together. After Fisk banned vigilantism from New York, several heroes, including the two Daredevils, joined hands to remove him from power once and for all. It wasn't an easy fight, and there were some casualties (among them, Mike, while he was pretending to be Matt), but, in the end, the heroes came out on top. When the dust settled, Matt and Elektra decided to focus on taking down the Hand.

Leader of the Fist

After the Hand came under the control of a new leader, Matt's old rival Frank Castle, Matt and Elektra wound found the Fist anew. Starting with the recruitment of mercenaries and of allies such as Stick, Foggy Nelson, Cole North, and superhero psychologist and therapist Doc Sasquatch, the brunt of the Fist's muscle would be composed of supervillains liberated from the Myrmidon metahuman prison. After months of training and of work with Doctor Samson, the Fist would face the Hand, losing the battle but escaping with a magical talisman that could be used to destroy them for good. However, before this final victory could be achieved, a coordinated attack by The Hand (who revealed that Stick and Foggy had been dead for months and replaced with undead imposters that had been acting as spies) and the Stromwyn family (who bombed the Fist's stronghold with a chemical called Re-Cid that generated murderous rage in anyone breathing it in) would destroy the Fist's entire leadership structure. The Avengers and Spider-Man would arrive soon afterwards, arresting Elektra for allegedly assassinating the President of the United States (in reality another Hand imposter) and most of the supervillains, although Matt and Cole would narrowly escape capture, being saved by Doc Sasquatch and Bullet.

Matt would spend a few weeks hiding from the law and healing from his wounds in Cole's New York apartment, before returning to his Daredevil identity to defeat the Hand once and for all. Matt would attack the Stromwyn's and violently coerce them into having Elektra and all of the Fist's supervillains freed from the Myrmidon with wiped criminal records, before discovering a way into Hell in a Japanese cave through ancient Fist texts. Meeting his old partner Blindspot at the mouth of the cave (who had been instructed by Stick to guard it) and sending him home to his family, Matt would kill himself, his soul venturing into Hell to defeat the Beast of the Hand once and for all and free the souls of Stick, Foggy, and the President. Empowered by holy energy, Matt would free the trapped souls (returning the individuals that belonged to life) and slay the Beast, but would remain seemingly dead and trapped in Hell. Months later, Matt would reappear as an amnesiac priest, seemingly reborn.

Personality

Daredevil was a morally righteous individual with a strong sense of law and justice. This also influenced him to become a lawyer. Daredevil objected to total violence and preferred to keep his enemies alive and thus defeated them rather than killed them; however, Daredevil did have a dark side, and would not hesitate to badly injure foes under certain circumstances, often when he was under a period of stress.

As a young lad, Matthew was instilled with high morals by his father, Jack, who encouraged the boy to focus on his studies and not to play or fight with other kids. Matt took his father's lessons to heart and was thought to be an exemplary of good nature by figures of authority. Despite all this, Matt did have a mischievous side and on one occasion stole the baton of a police officer. Matt was incredibly selfless which led to him performing many heroic deeds in his life, such as saving a blind man from an oncoming truck, which lead to Matt's blindness. In the early stages of his disability Matt suffered increased frustration, feelings of helplessness, and self-loathing; however, due to training under Stick, Matt managed to conquer the struggles which boosted his confidence, and he eventually developed a fearless attitude.

As Daredevil, he has displayed a heavy sense of humor and snarky remarks in various life-threatening situations, especially early in his career. Throughout his long tenure, however, his various trials have made Daredevil a grimmer and less light-hearted vigilante. Despite all his great virtues, Daredevil is not without his flaws, and has shown extreme ruthlessness especially when those close to him have been threatened or targeted by his enemies. An example of this would be willing to torture Ox for information on his boss that had targeted his wife. Matt also suffered from severe clinical depression, which has led him to indulge himself in self-destructive tendencies.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

The Guardian Devil

Radioactively Enhanced Physiology: Murdock was originally enhanced by the radioactive isotope which later blinded him. As a result, he possesses superhuman senses of smell, hearing, taste, and touch, as well as a "radar sense". Nick Fury's intel classified him as power level 7.

Superhuman Sensory System: At his early age, Murdock did not know how to handle his powers until he met Stick, who became Matt's mentor and taught him to control and enhance them. A testament to the level of skill it requires Matt to even function would be seen, when he fought Psylocke during the war between the Avengers and the X-Men, as she was overwhelmed when she tried to read his mind and found herself experiencing all the information he received through his superhuman senses, demonstrating the scale of psychological training required for Murdock to operate on a normal human level. Matt's various senses allow him to act, fight, and navigate while blindfolded, in darkness, or otherwise sightless.

• Superhuman Touch: Murdock's sense of touch is so acute that his finger can feel the faint impressions of ink on a printed page, allowing him to read by touch, though laminated pages prevent him from touching and thus reading the ink impressions at a much faster pace than a normal person would be able to read. 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.
• Superhuman Smell: Murdock'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. Furthermore, 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 body 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.
• Enhanced Tracking: Matt can track others down easily via various means, ranging from scents to footprints. With enough experience, he can follow tracks that are days or even weeks old. He may hypothetically be able to reconstruct a prior event by sniffing around the area.
• Superhuman Hearing: Murdock'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, Murdock 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. Matt also utilizes his superhuman sense of hearing as an aid in processing, filtering, and interpreting the feedback of his radar/sonar sense to actually give him a three-dimensional picture of his surroundings. Additionally, Matt's combined use of his super hearing and radar sense can also give him tactical advantages, such as awareness of people hiding around the corners of rooms, walls, buildings, and furniture and makes it virtually impossible to literally blindside Matt.
• Superhuman Taste: Murdock's sense of taste enables him to detect the number of grains of salt on a pretzel. His ability to remember tastes enables him to determine every ingredient of a food or drink he tastes, as long as there are at least twenty milligrams of that substance present.
• Superhuman Balance: It is a common misconception that balance isn't a sense, but Murdock's balance centers give him equilibrium nearly on par with Spider-Man's. During the fight with Mole Man, Matt managed to balance perfectly on a piece of crystal with just one hand.
• Superhuman Reflexes: Due in part to his exposure to the radioactive waste that caused his blindness, Matt's reflexes borderline superhuman. A combination of his radar, hearing, and sense of touch allow him to anticipate incoming threats before the average person would, increasing his practical response time. He was able to catch a sai thrown by Bullseye, and can easily dodge gunfire from multiple gunmen at point-blank range. He may also deflect bullets, even when injured. And his reaction time is in the order of magnitude of the microsecond.

Daredevil showing his superhuman agility as he knocks out multiple men at the same time

• Superhuman Agility: Matt's agility and dexterity are similarly exceptional. While Matt was tied up - he managed to dodge point-blank range gunfire and to break ties at the same time. He even managed to avoid several bullet shots while bad in mid-air.
• Illusion Awareness: Due to most illusions affecting mainly eyesight, other senses such as hearing and/or smell have a difficult time succumbing to the illusion. It is also made worse by ignoring use of their other senses. Matt's superhuman senses enable him to remain aware at all times of the true reality around him, potentially seeing through any optical and/or mental illusions that others attempt to deceive him with.
• Lie Detection: By listening, feeling, and smelling, Murdock can tell whether a person is lying by sweat, changes in body temperature, and heartbeats (though he can be fooled by a pacemaker and those able to keep calm under pressure).
• Telepathy: Due to Stick's training, Murdock has displayed minor telepathic abilities.
• Telepathic Immunity: Murdock is skilled in being able to resist psychic intrusions to be able to prevent his mind from being read. Additionally, since Matt has had to train his mind to navigate his superhuman senses, an unprepared telepath will be overwhelmed by the suddex influx of stimuli if they invade his mind.
• Radar Sense: A form of echolocation via low radio wave projection, according to one theory; an energy wave within certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The signal emanates radio waves from regions of his brain, after which it travels outward, bounces off objects around him, and returns to receiving regions of his brain. With this ability, Murdock can synthesize a very close analogue of three-dimensional three-hundred-and-sixty-degree human sight.
• Proximity Sense: An offshoot to radar sense, this ability is the combination of all other senses (excluding radar sense) and can allow Matt to reconstruct his surroundings.
• Person Identification: All of Murdock's senses help him identify people by the specific patterns of their heartbeat, smell, touch, sound, and even radar appearance, as it allows to "see" through objects, specifically clothes (albeit obscure).
• Blindness: Having trained to use his superhuman senses to compensate for blindness, Murdock is unaffected by darkness, smoke, very bright light, or other situations that would obscure a sighted person's vision. Lack of sight also helps protect him from certain kinds of mental control.

Former Powers

Demonic Powers: While he was possessed by the Beast during the Shadowland arc, Murdock's physical abilities combined with his combat capabilities were enhanced to where he could overpower fellow martial artists Iron Fist and Shang-Chi, both of whose combat skills are on par with his. He also gained other demonic abilities as well, such as regeneration and possible immortality, having survived from being stabbed by Wolverine's claws. After the Beast was removed, Murdock's physical abilities returned to their original statistics.

The God Without Fear: As Malekith's War stretched to Midgard and Heimdall lent Daredevil his sword Hofund. Matt temporarily became an all-seeing deity in his own right, with senses that matched those of the bridge guardian himself, amongst other impressive proclivities. Not only was his sight restored on top of all his other registry inputs ramped up to the point he could sense everything that was happening in the universe. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen garnered vastly augmented physical conditioning befitting one of the divine o any other powerhouse of marvel; making him tougher, faster and stronger than a typical human male. Strong enough to clash with frost giants and similarly mystically empowered beings whilst causing insurmountable collateral damage. It'd also given him a form of clairaudience coupled with clairsentience, feeding information from his sword to his conscious/subconscious mind in order to know and therefore understand an enemy, and how to best them, inside and out. He'd also receive intuitive flashes of how best to proceed with sensitive quests in order to achieve the most desirable result. Upon relinquishing the blade however, Matt went back to base power levels.

Grendel Symbiote: As the King in Black besieged the Earth with his army of Grendels, Daredevil was momentarily subsumed by one of the many cast offs begotten from Knull's horde. He eventually fended off the Symbiote God's hold over him by expelling his possessing entity via electrocuting himself in order to break free of its grasp, but during the hosting he had access to all the Grendel's powers.

Abilities

• The Man Without Fear: It is untrue that Matt has never been afraid but through the years of training and experience, Daredevil currently shows a detached ability to fear and emotions bordering on sociopathic. This ability extends to immunity from "fear toxins" and spells, as Daredevil seems to simply be "The Man Without Fear."

• Master Attorney: Murdock is a highly skilled and accomplished lawyer, specializing in criminal justice. His legal practice is considered the single greatest source of strength of both emotional stability and his successful war on crime. Murdock's law firm also does a lot of pro bono work as well as the full range of social justice issues such as rape cases, hate crimes, police brutality, wrongful death suits, medical malpractice, whistleblower/witness protection cases, workplace violence, corporate business fraud, LGBT harassment/workplace inequality, child/sexual abuse cases, victims of war crimes/terrorism, food/consumer safety cases, automotive recalls, anti-GMO food lobbying, and even environmental issues. In law school, Murdock also had a very particular focus in U.S. Constitutional Law.

• Devout Catholic: As a devout Roman Catholic, Murdock has the mixed benefits and access to certain resources and contacts/allies through the Catholic parishes of Hell's Kitchen (modern day Clinton). As a lawyer, Murdock can also access additional assets in the form of safe-houses and sanctuary of the Church for his clients should local law enforcement resources become either compromised and or cannot be relied upon in witness protection cases. Murdock can also make use of contacts in the form of the Catholic clergy giving him vital information regarding the movements of street gangs, the various mafia of the NYC area, pimps, and other elements of the criminal underworld in order to allow Matt to be more successful in battling the criminals of Hell's Kitchen.

• Peak Physical Conditioning: Through many years of intensive training in multiple physical and mental disciplines, Matt's body and mind is at the peak of a man of his age, height, and weight.
  • Peak Human Strength: Thanks to nearly two decades of weightlifting and strength training, Matt Murdock can lift at least 450 lbs. He is strong enough to tip over a limo without straining, causally pick a man up and throw him, easily break a man's leg and rupture skin with a single kick, and lift Foggy's weights up easily with one hand. He has also shown the strength to use a mailbox as a weapon, was able to hurt Hyde, and throw his baton with enough force to break concrete. Daredevil has demonstrated that he is capable of easily curling and utilizing a four-hundred pound barbell as a staff weapon, wielding it quickly and easily enough to strike two heavily mesomorphic opponents hard enough to render them unconscious, and fast enough to prevent them from being able to defend themselves.
  • Peak Human Speed: Matt has the speed of an Olympic athlete. He is capable of sprinting two city blocks in seconds, disappearing, hitting a sniper with his billy club, and crosses a large distance while getting into costume in seconds. Matt's running speed is also above an Olympic-level athletes speed, such as a track and field sprinter/decathlete.
  • Peak Human Stamina: Matt's stamina is also that of a trained athlete, since he was able to hold his breath underwater for longer periods of time. At peak capacity, he can physically exert himself for several hours before showing any signs of fatigue.
  • Peak Human Endurance: Matt has an extremely high tolerance to pain. He has survived being knocked around in a car by Nitro, survived after slowing himself down during a multi-story fall and being hit by a car. He kept fighting after being immolated by Typhoid Mary while the same attack severely hurt Jessica Jones, who has superhuman durability. On one occasion, he was able to continue functioning for five days without any sleep, and on another he continued to function despite having suffered a gunshot through both his hands that also grazed his head. Daredevil has landed on the hood of a taxi uninjured following a controlled fall and was able to kick the windshield hard enough to penetrate it and strike the driver. After laying outside with no medical assistance, Daredevil passed away only to utilize his chi to supercharge his bodily healing with the help of Stick, regulating his heart and respiration to revive himself, sealing cuts, setting the bone in his right leg and healing other unspecified bone injuries. After being found and hospitalized, under demonic attack once more, he was strong enough to fend off the assault and actually run from his room to join the fight against demons invading New York City yet again. In this state, he was able to take on a demon that had formed from the structure of a subway train, walk against its blast of soul-attacking "hellfire", then spear it with rebar, hurting and frightening the demon enough to force it to flee from him, before collapsing from exhaustion.

• Expert Interrogator: Murdock uses many different interrogation methods to extract information from criminals. His knowledge of criminology and torture is unerring and often overwhelming.

• Gifted Intellect: Murdock's intelligence and brain functions have always been apparent; long before he was affected by radiation, his long-term midnight training, A+ morning schooling and little need of sleep is a testament to that.

• Indomitable Will: Daredevil has tremendous determination, fearlessness and strength of will, which makes him an extremely formidable opponent, one who absolutely refuses to ever hunker down and give up, even when placed against seemingly insurmountable odds. Hence, he is one of the extremely few individuals on Earth known to possess the willpower to resist the Purple Man's mind control, with Daredevil having successfully done so on more than one occasion.

• Expert Detective: He has shown to be an expert self-taught detective, using his intellect to figure out complex problems and hyper-senses to find clues and evidence to crime scenes.

• Multilingualism: Murdock can speak English, German, and some Spanish.

• Expert Tracker: With the aid of his hyper-senses, Murdock is able to track objects and people from miles away with ease.

• Master Acrobat: He is a superb athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist and almost without peer due to the many years of constant training and exercise, first on his own and later exclusively under the tutelage of Stick. Only a very small handful of other fellow superhero martial artists within the Marvel Universe, such as Elektra, Psylocke, Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, and Shang-Chi, can possibly match him in acrobatics.

• Weapons Proficiency: Murdock is highly proficient in wielding various martial art weapons through his ninjutsu training, such as swords (katana), chain weapons, stick and staff weapons, combat knives of all types, both ancient and modern military style, and projectiles such as shurikens, throwing knives, bows, and even firearms.

• Expert Marksman: He is very skilled marksman, which makes him capable of throwing his billy clubs with great accuracy. Murdock is also skilled with most projectile-like weaponry such as throwing knives, shurikens, and darts, as well as archery, and has been shown utilizing military-grade weaponry such as sniper rifles in extreme situations.

• Master Stick Fighter: He is a masterful expert in wielding all types of stick weapons which include staffs, batons, nunchaku, and paired short sticks.

• Master Martial Artist: Murdock is a highly skilled, self-taught boxer both due to watching his father compete and helping him train and prepare for his fights. He has also been very heavily and extensively trained in the ninja arts by Stick, a senior grandmaster and leader of the secret order of 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 taught and trained Matt both control of his powers and valuable fighting techniques with stealth, vanishing, to even life-energy(chi/ki)control. Murdock is well-educated in the functioning of the human body as well as martial arts techniques that target pressure points, enabling him to paralyze limbs or an individual's entire body altogether. He has disabled eyesight and speech, induced pain, and could possibly know a pressure point for inducing death. Murdock's fighting style is a very balanced and harmonious fusion of Boxing with Ninjutsu, Jiu-jitsu, Aiki-Jujutsu, Savate, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Judo, Krav Maga, Silat, Karate, Capoeira, Eskrima, Aikido, and Greco-Roman Wrestling. His skills have proven so exceptional that he has been able to easily defeat or stalemate some of the greatest fighters on Earth. Matt is easily one of the greatest martial artists in the Marvel Universe. Matt's martial skills are at a point where he was ranked by Stick as at least tenth degree black belt in ninjutsu, seeing as that was the art that Matt seems to have been trained in almost exclusively by Stick. He has fought opponents who are fellow master-rank martial artists, such as Black Panther, Taskmaster, Iron Fist, Karnak, Captain America, Sabretooth, Winter Soldier, Deadpool, and Wolverine to standstills, even impaling Wolverine with a sword while the mutant was in a feral state due to brainwashing by Hydra.

Weaknesses

• Sense Precision: Daredevil's extent to discern pictures or video images are limited, and he can only guess at colors based on the amount of heat they are absorbing or reflecting. If nothing is being emitted (by a person or thing) that would trigger his heightened senses, Daredevil would not be able to detect it, such as when a sniper bullet fired outside the range of his sense of hearing was able to badly injure him.

• Superhuman Sense Disruption: Daredevil's superhuman senses render him extraordinarily vulnerable to odors and/or excessive noise, which can temporarily weaken his radar sense. Under extreme circumstances he can be easily immobilized, suffer great pain, and/or be left disorientated. Once the disruptive effects wear off, Daredevil's radar sense is able to return to its normal calibration.

• Radar Sense Disruption: Though uncommon, in unique situations where multiple objects, sounds, temperatures, and smells are in close proximity, Daredevil's radar has been known to fail, leaving him to rely on his other senses.

• Immersed In Water: While in a large body of water, his radar sense is rendered useless. He loses several senses while in the water and has a hard time telling which direction sound is coming from.

• Non-Superhuman Physical Conditioning: As Daredevil's powers do not give him any kind of superhuman physical ability, Daredevil is as susceptible to physical injury and disease as any other normal human, often having to rely more on strategy than strength when up against a superhuman opponent.

Additional Attributes

• Blindness: Daredevil is blind. While his superhuman senses help him overcome this, it becomes a problem for him to navigate and fight when his heightened senses are overwhelmed, scrambled, or otherwise cannot detect anything.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Daredevil's Suit: Daredevil has used four costumes in the course of his career as a crime fighter: his original yellow-and-black costume, his modern red costume, a black-and-red armored costume that was used temporarily, and a newer black-and-red costume which was used during the Shadowland saga. When Murdock experienced a psychological break, each of his first three costumes came to be focuses for three distinct separate, distinct personalities within Murdock. Since that time, Murdock has resolved his psychological problems, and now exclusively uses the red costume. The horns on his costume are antennae that can pick up radio waves, allowing him to tap into police scanners everywhere. Matt's current suit is also fully bulletproof, fireproof, and fully insulated from electrical attacks. While possessed by the Beast, the horns on his costume were transformed into larger devil horns when it fully awakened, and were reverted back to normal when the Beast was removed from Matt Murdock's body.

• Lock-picking set: Concealed in the buckle of Matt's belt is a small set of standard lock-picks.

Weapons

Matt currently wields a multi-purpose cane that has many different modes. Its initial form is two short sticks held together by an extendable cable. It can be configured into a nunchaku-like weapon to a manriki-gusari (a long rope/chain weapon with two weights on its ends), dual short sticks which can be wielded in a pair, staff, or a cable with a grappling hook. The weapon can also be adjusted to combine both sticks into a larger stick. The weapon is held by a holster on the side of Matt's left leg.

• Billy Club: Daredevil's billy club is a multi-purpose weapon. It has a retractable microphone, a miniature tape recorder, chamber for firing projectiles, and a wire cable which allows the club to be used as a grappling hook. It can also be used as either as a baton or a cable. In addition to this, his clubs have been shown to conceal retractable blades.

• Yggdrasil Batons: Out of respect to the man of Hell's Kitchen for holding the torch when an almighty could not, the Keeper of the Bifrost fashioned dense wooden eskrima out of the World Tree itself as a token of respect and thanks to the hero of Earth and for showing he was more worthy of divinity than most any supreme being had ever been before him.

Former Weapons

• He wore wrist blades on his arms during his time in the Hand, but he no longer uses them.
• Hofund: During the War of the Realms, when Heimdall's eyesight was damaged, Daredevil replaced Heimdall in order to help the heroes in the war.

Transportation

• Daredevil usually travels by foot across city rooftops with the grappling hook and cable in his billy club.

Notes

• Matthew Murdock has commented that he feels himself suffocating while wearing business suits. He considers Daredevil's Suit to be his actual working clothes. He started realizing that Daredevil is a larger part of his identity, as if Daredevil was the real identity and Matthew Murdock just an acting role.
• Daredevil used to play three different roles in his daily life: "conservative" Matt Murdock, dazzling Daredevil, and carefree Mike Murdock. He considered himself a method actor and mused that he could eventually open his own school of method acting.
• According to Marvel Comics Index #9B, Matt Murdock is a distant relative of Victoria (Asbestos Lady) Murdock. However, that connection has never been mentioned in a story or any other reference work.
• The following is a list of living people who know Daredevil's secret identity after it was restored by Killgrave's children: Foggy Nelson, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Kingpin, Spider-Man, Benjamin Hochberg, Elektra Natchios, Blindspot, Stick, and Robert Goldman

Trivia

• Stan Lee has stated Daredevil's Radar Sense is better than Spider-Man's Spider-Sense.
• Daredevil's senses reach seventy-five yards minimum in all directions (a one hundred and fifty yard three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle of awareness) without any concentration needed.
• Daredevil once mused that his life may merit an adaptation to stage or film. He had an actor in mind for the role, Alec Guinness (1914–2000).
• Murdock's favorite spot in the city is the top of the Chrysler Building.
• Matt is left-handed, a trait he shares with his father.
• Despite being extremely articulate, Matt has, according to Kirsten McDuffie, "the punctuation and spelling skills of somebody who was dropped on his head at an early age". She additionally noticed he's extremely terse.
• Daredevil was ranked 10th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes in 2011.
• In 1984, the origin story of Daredevil involving a boy saving an old man from being run over by a truck and the radioactive isotope would serve as the inspiration for the origin story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the mutagen that would mutate them in their original Mirage Comics appearance and the later comics and media adaptions as well.
• Matt Murdock suffers from depression.
• Murdock can play the piano.
• In an attempt to deny his secret identity, Matt Murdock once wore a "I'M NOT DAREDEVIL" shirt. Apparently, more of these shirts were made as both Peter Parker and Peter Quill were later seen wearing one.

See Also

• 1551 appearance(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 32 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 219 minor appearance(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 389 mention(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 29 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 2569 image(s) of Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 285 quotation(s) by or about Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 7 victim(s) killed by Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)
• 8 item(s) used/owned by Matthew Murdock (Earth-616)

Links and References

• Matthew Murdock on Marvel.com
• Matthew Murdock on Wikipedia.org
• Daredevil (Matt Murdock) at Comicvine.com
• DD Resource
• Daredevil screenplay (unproduced)
• Daredevil bio at MarvelDirectory
• Man Without Fear fan site
• The religion of Matt Murdock, Daredevil
• "Secrets, lies - and lawyers!", Douglas Wolk, Salon.com, January 5, 2006. Retrospective of the Bendis/Maleev run.