Daredevil is the name of several American comic book titles featuring the superhero Daredevil, the vigilante secret identity of blind attorney Matt Murdock, who gains superhuman senses as a result of an accident involving radioactive material. All of the volumes are published by Marvel Comics, beginning with the original Daredevil comic book series which debuted in 1964. The first volume was the longest in duration, lasting until 1998. In the 1960s, the series was written by Stan Lee and first drawn by Bill Everett with some assistance from Jack Kirby. Daredevil is usually based in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. Karen Page was Daredevil's primary love interest throughout this first series, with many ups and downs. Foggy Nelson appears as a recurring character throughout all the Daredevil series, as Matt Murdock's close friend and partner in law.
Wally Wood introduced the character's standard red costume, and was succeeded by John Romita Sr. and then Gene Colan as artist. Lee wrote the stories until 1969. Roy Thomas wrote the title from 1969 to 1971. In the 1970s, it was written by Gerry Conway, among others. In this period, Daredevil temporarily teamed with Black Widow in San Francisco. In 1972, Steve Gerber became the primary artist for the series. A number of different writers worked on the title, including Marv Wolfman, who introduced Daredevil's archenemy Bullseye. In the late 1970s Roger McKenzie wrote the series and brought an influence from horror comics.
Frank Miller's influential tenure on the title in the early 1980s, drawing inspiration from crime comics, established the prominence and originality of the title. In this period, Daredevil was one of the best-selling American comic books. He introduced influences from film noir and ninja films, and created the character Elektra, Daredevil's troubled ex-girlfriend, and an army of evil ninjas, the Hand. Miller emphasized Bullseye and Kingpin as Daredevil's primary antagonists, and also introduced the Punisher to the series. The issue that concluded in Elektra's shocking, violent death was a particularly striking event in comics of the decade. After a brief tenure by Dennis O'Neil, Miller returned to the series to write the acclaimed Born Again storyline, in which Page has become a heroin addict and sells Matt Murdock's secret identity to his enemies. Ann Nocenti, his successor, focused more on themes from left-wing politics, and created the villain Typhoid Mary. Miller also wrote the Daredevil: The Man Without Fear miniseries in the early 1990s, which delved into the backstory of the title character and his early relationship with Elektra. John Romita Jr. collaborated with both Miller and Nocenti. Also in the 1990s, writer D.G. Chichester in collaboration with Scott McDaniel changed the title character's costume and emulated the tumultuous, sensationalistic style of the comics of the period. Chichester also re-introduced Elektra to the series, resurrected from the dead.
Later in the decade, Joe Quesada began volume 2 of the series, which lasted from 1998 to 2011. This new series, first edited under the Marvel Knights imprint, restored the popularity of the title. Popular film director Kevin Smith also wrote a pivotal arc, in which Karen Page was killed by Bullseye. Subsequently, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev collaborated on a critically acclaimed arc. In the 21st century, Ed Brubaker then wrote a storyline that was similarly acclaimed. Both Bendis and Brubaker focused on the darker aspects of the character. Mark Waid, who wrote a third and fourth volume, took a somewhat lighter approach and focused on the character's unusual powers. Charles Soule wrote a fifth volume.
Many of the storylines published in Daredevil have been critically acclaimed, and have won a number of Eisner Awards.
Daredevil vol 1. (1964-1998) 1960s Martin Goodman, the publisher of Marvel Comics, was impressed by the popularity of Spider-Man and asked Stan Lee to create a similar character based on the original Daredevil, a superhero of the 1940s.Murray 2013, p. 3. Lee initially requested assistance from Steve Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-Man, but he declined the assignment. Lee then sought the creative input of Bill Everett, who had previously created Namor, and Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and other well-known superheroes. Kirby and Everett co-designed Daredevil's original costume.Murray 2013, p. 5. Lee and Kirby have each claimed credit for Daredevil's billy club, which he uses to swing from buildings.Murray 2013, p. 6. The original costume design was a combination of black, yellow, and red, reminiscent of acrobat tights. Paul Young indicates that the basic concept of the character as a heroic blind vigilante is probably inspired by the symbol and motif of blind justice.Young 2016, p. 22. Timothy D. Peters, a legal scholar, has also drawn attention to the recurring visual analogy with Lady Justice, the classical figure for the legal system.Peters 2020, p. 3-6. The character was generally considered second-string in Marvel's pantheon of heroes, and had low commercial viability for the first decade and a half of his existence, prior to Frank Miller's re-invention.Young 2016, p. 26-27.
The series began with Marvel Comics' Daredevil #1 (cover date April 1964),Murray 2013, p. 7. written by Stan Lee and drawn by Bill Everett.De Falco 2022, p. 94. The cover of the first issue was based on Jack Kirby's original concept sketch, but inked by Everett. Everett pencilled the contents of the issue. When Everett turned in his first-issue pencils extremely late, Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko inked a large variety of different backgrounds, a "lot of backgrounds and secondary figures on the fly and cobbled the cover and the splash page together from Kirby's original concept drawing". The first issue covered the character's origins as well as the murder of his father, boxer "Battling Jack" Murdock, who raised young Matthew Michael Murdock in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Jack instils in Matt the importance of education and non-violence with the aim of seeing his son become a better man than himself. In the course of saving a blind man from the path of an oncoming truck, Matt is blinded by a radioactive substance that falls from the vehicle. The radioactive exposure heightens his remaining senses beyond normal human limits, and gives him a kind of "radar" sense, enabling him to detect the shape and location of objects around him.Hanefalk 2022, p. 185. To support his son, Jack Murdock returns to boxing under the Fixer, a known gangster, and the only man willing to contract the aging boxer. When he refuses to throw a fight because his son is in the audience, he is killed by one of the Fixer's men. Having promised his father not to use violence to deal with his problems, Matt adopts a new identity who can use physical force. Adorned in a yellow and black costume made from his father's boxing robes and using his superhuman abilities, Matt confronts the killers as the superhero Daredevil, unintentionally causing the Fixer to have a fatal heart attack.
Wally Wood introduced Daredevil's standard red costume in issue #7, which depicts Daredevil's battle against the far more powerful Sub-Mariner, and has become a classic story of the early series.Murray 2013, p. 8-9. Wood also redesigned Daredevil's costume to include communications equipment; in his depiction, the mask contains a complex radio receiver, and his horns are both antennae to pick up radio signals and amplifiers of his own super-sensory radar blips. However, these concepts would be dropped.Murray 2013, p. 8.
John Romita Sr. became the new artist in May 1966, just prior to his long tenure on The Amazing Spider-Man. The issue marked Romita's return to superhero pencilling after a decade of working exclusively as a romance-comic artist for DC. Romita had felt he no longer wanted to pencil, in favor of being solely an inker. He recalled in 1999,
Romita later elaborated:
Daredevil embarks on a series of adventures involving such villains as the Owl and the Purple Man. In issue #16 (May 1966), Daredevil meets Spider-Man, who will eventually become one of Daredevil's closest friends.Callahan 2013, p. 25. A letter from Spider-Man unintentionally exposes Daredevil's secret identity, compelling him to adopt a third identity as his twin brother Mike Murdock, whose carefree, wisecracking personality more closely resembles the Daredevil guise than the stern, studious, and emotionally-withdrawn Matt Murdock.Callahan 2013, p. 21-31. The "Mike Murdock" plotline was used to highlight the character's quasi-multiple personality disorder. This third identity was dropped in issues #41–42; Daredevil fakes Mike Murdock's death and claims he had trained a replacement Daredevil.Callahan 2013, p. 31.
When Romita left to take over The Amazing Spider-Man, Lee gave Daredevil to what would be the character's first signature artist, Gene Colan, who began with issue #20 (September 1966). Though #20 identifies Colan as a fill-in penciller, Romita's work load prevented him from returning to the title, and Colan ended up penciling all but three issues through #100 (June 1973), plus the 1967 annual, followed by ten issues sprinkled from 1974 to 1979. He would return again for an eight-issue run in 1997.
Lee never gave Colan a full script for an issue of Daredevil; instead, he would tell him the plot, and Colan would tape record the conversation to refer to while drawing the issue, leaving Lee to add the script in afterwards.Field, p. 58 Though Colan is consistently credited as penciller only, Lee would typically give him the freedom to fill in details of the plot as he saw fit. Lee explained "If I would tell Gene who the villain was and what the problem was, how the problem should be resolved and where it would take place, Gene could fill in all the details. Which made it very interesting for me to write because when I got the artwork back and had to put in the copy, I was seeing things that I'd not expected."Field, p. 61
The 31-issue Lee/Colan run on the series included Daredevil #47, in which Murdock defends a blind Vietnam veteran against a frameup; Lee has cited it as the story he is most proud of out of his entire career. Colan argues that he was the first to introduce film noir influences to the series. With issue #51, Lee turned the writing chores over to Roy Thomas (who succeeded him on a number of Marvel's titles), but would remain on board as editor for another 40 issues.
Matt discloses his secret identity to his girlfriend Karen Page in a story published in 1969. However, the revelation proves too much for her, and she breaks off the relationship.Lindsay 2013a, p. 102-104. This was the first of several long-term breakups between Matt and Karen, who remains a recurring character up until her death in the late 1990s.Lindsay 2013a, p. 104-108.
Early 1970s: Gerry Conway era 18-year-old Gerry Conway took over as writer with issue #72, and turned the series in a pulp science fiction direction. Conway also moved Daredevil to San Francisco beginning with Daredevil #86, and simultaneously brought on the Black Widow as a co-star for the series.Sanderson 2022, p. 147.
Conway explained, Concerning the Black Widow, he said, "I was a fan of Natasha [Romanoff, the Black Widow], and thought she and Daredevil would have interesting chemistry."