Daredevil is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett, with an unspecified amount of input from
Jack Kirby, and first appeared in Daredevil #1 (April 1964).
Living in
the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City,
Matt Murdock is blinded by a radioactive substance that falls from an oncoming vehicle. While he no longer can see, the radioactive exposure heightens his remaining senses beyond normal human ability. His father, a boxer named Jack
Murdock, supports him as he grows up, though Jack is later killed by gangsters after refusing to throw a fight. After donning a yellow and dark red, and later an all dark red costume, Matt seeks out revenge against his father's killers as the superhero Daredevil, fighting against his many enemies including Bullseye and the Kingpin.
Daredevil's nickname is "the Man Without Fear".
While Daredevil had been home to the work of comic-book artists such as Everett, Kirby, Wally Wood, John Romita, Sr., and Gene
Colan, among others,
Frank Miller's influential tenure on the title in the early 1980s cemented the character as a popular and influential part of the Marvel Universe. Daredevil has since appeared in many various forms of media including several animated series, video games and merchandise, and the 2003 feature-length film Daredevil, where he was portrayed by Ben Affleck.
The son of prize fighter
Battlin' Jack,
Matt Murdock grew up in the
relative poverty of Hell's Kitchen with much reverence for his father, who constantly pressed him to study instead of playing with his friends. In turn, they taunted him with the nickname Daredevil since he always went back to studying (or secretly training in his father's gym) instead of doing things with them.
As a boy, Matt witnessed a man about to be hit by a truck and pushed him out of the way but the truck crashed and spilled its cargo of extremely toxic chemicals into his face. He awoke in the hospital blind from the toxins and learned that his other senses were amplified as a result of his loss of sight and was able to see by a radar-like sense using natural sounds around him, giving him ultimate confidence in his surroundings. He met a blind martial arts master named Stick, who taught him to hone his senses and trained him in martial arts among other skills such as free running, meditation and marksmanship.
As an adult, he became a lawyer and opened a law firm with
Foggy Nelson while secretly taking on the mantle of Daredevil in order to protect the citizens of Hell's Kitchen and bring justice to the streets as well as the courtroom. His arch nemesis is Kingpin and other side villains include Electro, the psychotic Bullseye, and
Daredevil's frequent love interest Elektra.
