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Hey people, welcome to another great character spotlight right here in Marvel Snapshot! This week I’ll be focusing in on everybody’s favorite blind lawyer – Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil! He’s front and center right now with Shadowland, and it looks as if he is also going through a huge change. Let us not waste any more time with pleasantries and get right to it.

By now, I hope everyone knows about how as a young boy, Matt Murdock was changed forever when an accident with some toxic chemicals took away his sight, but granted him extraordinary sensitivity with his other senses. Back in 1964 when Stan Lee and Bill Everett created Daredevil, he was mostly fighting against wimpy characters until Electro, the Purple Man, and Mister Fear came along. Definitely his biggest adversary though is Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. The Kingpin was the undisputed crime boss over most of New York, and especially Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil was constantly thwarting Kingpin’s efforts to corrupt city officials, use his money and influence to further his evil empire, and try to take out superheroes that got in his way. Daredevil not only cleans up the streets at night, he also fights against crime as a lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen by day. Murdock, like a few others, has received his training by a mysterious man named Stick.
Matt has been through a lot personally, but has persevered and kept his moral ground. He’s seen a fiancée turn to porn, the love of his life killed right before his eyes, and lost his father at young age, too. Matt has had everyday girlfriends, as well as superhero ones. He’s been with Elektra, Typhoid Mary, and Black Widow. Now that I think about it, his days must have more than twenty-four hours in them. But seriously, Matt has really been through the ringer more times than anyone…well, except Spidey, I guess. I really got back into DD when New Avengers started up. His appearance with Foggy at the Raft was really cool. He was outed as Daredevil, though, and that created some obvious problems. Matt received some help from his friend Danny Rand (Iron Fist), in the form of Danny wearing the DD costume so people would think Matt wasn’t DD. People were successfully thrown off the trail for the most part.

If there has been one constant in Murdock’s life, it has been a man named Bullseye. Bullseye is probably the complete and utter polar opposite of Daredevil. He lives to kill for no reason at all sometimes, but usually he’s a hired gun by bigger players in the crime syndicate. Bullseye has fought against other superheroes, but has a special hatred for Daredevil because of all of the humiliating defeats at his hands. Not to spoil anything, but if you’ve read the most recent installment of Daredevil, you’d know that Bullseye and DD have just had a conflict that left one of them possibly dead!
Right now, in continuity, Matt has taken control of the ninja clan The Hand, and at first I had no idea where Marvel was going with this, but showing Daredevil running a criminal empire full of trained killers is really cool. In the preview for Shadowland part 1, it appears that Daredevil isn’t taking any prisoners, and also is willing to alienate his long time friends as well. I’m going to be picking Shadowland up in trade, but it’s killing me to have to wait! Hopefully Marvel will rush this out as soon as it ends. In closing, I’ve read nothing but positive reviews so far about this book, so go pick it up while you still can!
Suggested Reading
Essential Daredevil vol.’s 1- 5
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol.’s 1- 3
Daredevil Yellow – Tpb
Daredevil: Born Again – Tpb
Daredevil: Echo – Vision Quest -Tpb
Daredevil: Cagematch (one-shot)






Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net