Daredevil

* Daredevil
* Matt Murdock

The Devil of Hell's Kitchen

Mr Murdock

The Blind Lawyer

 Nelson and Murdock

> *"I am not seeking penance for what I have done, Father. I'm asking for forgiveness... for what I'm about to do..."*
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> *―Matt Murdock to Father Paul Lantom*
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**Matthew Michael "Matt" Murdock** is a man who had been blinded as a young boy by a radioactive substance that fell into his eyes from a crashed vehicle, and even though he lost his sight, his other four remaining senses were heightened to superhuman levels. After his father was killed by mobsters, Murdock was trained by Stick to become a warrior, using his disability as an advantage to fight for the Chaste. However, Murdock's compassion with Elektra led him to be rejected by Stick, as he then returned to Columbia University with Foggy Nelson to gain his law degree and dedicated his life to fight injustice where he could find it in New York City as a lawyer by day with his law firm Nelson and Murdock, and by night as a vigilante known as **Daredevil**.

Murdock's actions as a crime fighter had eventually put him into conflict with a crime lord named Wilson Fisk. Murdock used his skills to expose Fisk's criminal activities and then have him taken to prison. From this point, Matt kept on his career as Daredevil, taking down Fisk and many other villains along the way.

## Biography

### Early Life

#### Raised by Jack Murdock

Matt Murdock was born in January 1985 to Maggie Grace, a nun, and Jack Murdock, a washed-up boxer. Shortly after Matt’s birth Maggie returned to the church after being unable to properly care for Matthew with her Post-Partum Depression and as a result, Matt was raised solely by his father. Jack consistently urged his young son to study hard and make something of himself, so Matt would not end up like him. When Jack returned from boxing matches, Matt would stitch his injuries. During one of these sessions, Jack allowed Matthew to have a drink of scotch, to keep a steady hand. Matthew stayed awake at night listening to sirens, trying to know what they were, creating stories for them.

#### Accidentally Blinded

When he was nine years old, Murdock saved an elderly man from being hit by a RAND Oil & Chemicals truck, causing an accident. Hazardous chemicals from the flipped truck splashed on his face and came in contact with his eyes, and Murdock was blinded. The last sight he had was of his father trying to comfort him. He screamed in pain and fear when he realized he would never see again.

He awoke in the hospital, where he discovered that he could hear any sound in the vicinity, causing him distress. His father made a vain attempt to console him. He allowed his son to touch his face in order for him to remember him, which seemed to calm him down.

Over the next few months, Murdock learned to read Braille and began to control his heightened senses, although he kept them a secret from everyone, even his father. His father continued to work as a boxer despite losing almost all his fights. One day, he returned home while Murdock was reading in Braille with severe bruises on his face. He let Matt touch his face and made him promise not to be a boxer like him. One day, while Matt was reading in Fogwell's Gym, he overheard his father being offered money to lose his upcoming fight with Carl Creel.

#### Battlin' Jack Murdock's Death

Matt listened to his father fight Carl Creel on television and cheered him on as he beat the odds and won the contest. He waited for his father to come home, but was concerned when he did not. Murdock dashed to Fogwell's Gym but was intercepted by a cop. Murdock managed to push his way past the officer and found his father lying on the street, having been murdered by local mobsters. Murdock fell to his knees and begged his father to wake up before crying over his father's lifeless body.

#### Life as an Orphan

Following the demise of his father, Murdock moved into Saint Agnes Orphanage, where he experienced terrible nightmares, causing him to wake up in his sweat screaming. To help him deal with this, Maggie Grace would sit and hold his hand until he fell back asleep. This had worked until one night, after he called for help after another nightmare, nobody came, due to Grace tending to other children. It was this event that caused Murdock to never ask for help again. At some point, Murdock held the record for the most Hail Mary's for five years in a row.

#### Trained by Stick

When his mother failed to take care of him after his father's death, Murdock was moved to Saint Agnes Orphanage, although she tended to him there as a nun while Murdock was unaware of her identity. While there, he continued to suffer from his enhanced senses. While still at the orphanage, Murdock was visited by an old blind man named Stick. Stick knew that Murdock's other senses had been heightened and took him outside for ice cream. While they sat together, Stick asked Murdock what he could understand about nearby people just from listening to them. Stick promised to train Murdock to control and master his "gift." Murdock kept the wrapper from his ice cream, planning on giving it to Stick as a present.

Stick began a harsh training regime with Murdock, often pushing an emotional response from him to teach him to control his anger. Over the next few months and years, Murdock became a powerful fighter with almost complete control of his blindness. During one of their training sessions, Murdock gave Stick the wrapper from his ice cream, having made it into a bracelet. Stick crushed it in his hand and told him he could no longer train him. Stick left and Murdock would not see him again for many years.

### Law School

#### Meeting Foggy Nelson

As a young adult, Murdock gained a place at Columbia University Law School. He arrived in his room and introduced himself to his new roommate, Foggy Nelson. Nelson had heard of Murdock, as he remembered what had happened to him as a child. Murdock and Nelson immediately formed a strong friendship and Nelson often joked about his blindness while Murdock would tease Nelson about many of his poor life choices, such as his decision to take a course in Punjabi simply to get close to a girl.

#### Avocados at Law

After a beer run, Murdock and Foggy Nelson swore to work together for many more years once they had finally graduated from Columbia University. Nelson and Murdock joked about their future as lawyers, with Nelson mistakenly saying they'd be "avocados" rather than saying the correct Spanish word leading Murdock to tease him, using the same word.

When Murdock revealed to Nelson that he had his first alcoholic drink when he was nine, because he had to stitch his dad up after a fight, Nelson comforted him, saying that if he could see him now, his father would be proud of the man he had become while Nelson noted his whole family were coming to his graduation. They then continued to talk about their future as Murdock noted that they should call their future law firm Nelson and Murdock as it sounded better that way, joking that while he was blind his hearing was still excellent before they then got up to continue their night of drinking together and discussing a future of working together.

#### No Sleep for the Devil

The night after he and Foggy Nelson quit Landman and Zack (a company in which Murdock and Nelson interned for a brief while), Murdock would have trouble sleeping because he kept hearing his neighbor's daughter crying at night, as her father was abusing her while the neighbor's wife was asleep. Murdock contacted child services to have him arrested. However, the man was able to get away with the crime, being smart enough not to leave a mark. Seeing that the man would not face justice, Murdock donned an eyeless mask and hoodie and ambushed him at a train yard where he worked. Murdock beat him up severely and threatened that if the man ever touched his daughter again, he would know about it. Murdock then left him bloody and unconscious.

Murdock later joined Nelson for a drink at Josie's Bar where Nelson expressed his concern as Murdock had claimed to have tripped causing his cut on the lip. Nelson meanwhile invited Murdock to feel the drawing he had done of Nelson and Murdock's sign which would go outside of their Law Office in the future. Although Nelson made it clear that he was highly nervous about what their future held, he claimed that because he trusted in Murdock's judgement, he was with him for whatever came next and believed that they make Nelson and Murdock a success by working together.

### The Masked Vigilante

#### Confession to Paul Lantom

Years later, Murdock chose to take his vigilante career to the next level in order to protect the people of New York City. He bought a black outfit online, including a new black eyeless mask, which covered the top half of his face, and wore it when fighting crime. Later, Murdock went to confession at Clinton Church, telling stories about growing up with his father before claiming he was not there to seek forgiveness for what he had done, but was asking forgiveness for what he was about to do. He would not tell Father Paul Lantom his intentions.

#### Rescue of Kidnapped Women

The same night, Murdock tracked Turk Barrett, who was now leading a group of Russian Mafia gangsters engaged in a kidnapping under the orders of Vladimir and Anatoly Ranskahov. They planned on transporting a group of young women into a shipping container and threatened to torture them if they resisted in any way. Seeing this terrible act, Murdock snuck up behind Barrett's men and attacked, knocking down many of the guards and avoiding Barrett as he attempted to shoot him, having heard the gun clicking before it was fired, before subduing Barrett by throwing a steel beam at his head, which knocked him unconscious to the ground.

#### Renting the Law Office

The very next morning, Murdock was awoken in the early hours by a phone call from Foggy Nelson who ordered him to get out of bed so they could view the new offices, ready to finally open their own law practice Nelson and Murdock, while teasing him about Murdock having possibly spent the night with a woman. They soon went to their offices and chose one that was fairly cheap due to it having minor damage from the Battle of New York when the Avengers stopped Loki's invasion.

The pair then went right to work as they took the job of defending a woman accused of murder. Using the mantle of Daredevil, Murdock was able to find evidence to prove the woman's innocence. However, due to the woman's lack of money, her name being Karen Page, she agreed to work for free as an assistant at Nelson and Murdock's firm.

### Daredevil

Over the next few years, Murdock would keep his identity of Daredevil a secret as he kept going out at night to fight crime and find evidence for his law firm to use in cases to prove the innocence of their clients. At some point during his time as Daredevil, Murdock was stabbed multiple times causing him to fall into a large bin and to be found by a nurse known as Claire Temple. Claire at this point recommended Matt upgrade his suit from what he had to avoid these major injuries. This is advice Murdock would later take when getting a new suit from Melvin Potter.

Daredevil would go on to fight the likes of Bullseye, Wilson Fisk (the King Pin) and many more foes. Murdock to this day still patrols the streets of Hell's Kitchen and New York City as a whole, protecting the innocent, defeating the evil and helping restore the city to a greater nature.

## 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 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 humour 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.

## Physical Appearance

Murdock is a 6 foot tall, 200 pound male with Brown hair and Brown eyes, however due to his blindness they seem to take on more of a greyish colour. Matthew has a near-peak human physique, having had intense training from Stick as well as many others and constantly trains at a his own Gym that he uses privately for himself to train in.

In terms of clothing, Murdock wears a standard grey suit with a variety of either black, grey or red ties during the day, being a lawyer opposite his friend Foggy Nelson at their lawyers firm aptly titled: "Nelson and Murdock". Along side this suit Matt wears a pair of semi-opaque red-lensed glasses and uses a walking cane, these latter items being for his blindness, although due to his senses he does not necessarily need them.

During the night, Matt wears his signature and infamous Daredevil Suit. Murdock noticed Wilson Fisk's impermeable armored suit and decided to take Claire Temple's advice to get somebody armour of his own. He located Melvin Potter, who made Fisk's suit and persuaded him to make a red and black suit with a facemask and helmet resembling the Christian Devil, leading to his new name. This suit is highly durable, allowing him to be nearly unfazed by an opponent's attacks and recover more quickly from being hit. It notably allowed Daredevil to survive unscathed from battling a resurrected Yoshioka with the same Kyoketsu-shoge hook that badly wounded him when he wore his more simple vigilante suit. After his first protective helmet got cracked by a close-range bullet from the Punisher, Daredevil had Potter make him a new, more durable one.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **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.
* **Peak Human Strength:** Thanks to his control over his central nervous system due to his many years of martial arts training, Matt can increase his strength to peak human level.
* **Peak Human Speed:** Similar to his strength, Matt can increase his speed to peak human level.
* **Superhuman Reflexes:** Possibly due to his exposure to the radioactive waste that caused his blindness, Matt's reflexes borderline superhuman.
* **Superhuman Agility:** Matt's agility and dexterity are similarly enhanced.
* **Enhanced Stamina:** Matt's stamina is similarly enhanced, 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.
* **Enhanced Endurance:** Matt has an extremely high tolerance to pain allowing him to take massive beatings in a fight and still keep going.
* **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 has shown to be able to reconstruct a prior event by sniffing around the area.
* **Illusion Awareness:** Due to most illusions affecting mainly eyesight, other senses such as hearing and/or smell have a difficult time not succumbing to the illusion.
* **Blindsight:** This power allows Matt to act, fight, and navigate while blind, in darkness, or otherwise sightless.
* **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.
* **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.).
* **Sonar Sense:** Very much like his radar sense, Matt can emit sonar waves, that are actually "echoes" that bounce off objects in his surrounding environment, and listen to the echoes that return from various objects near him, and use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Alternately, he can use ambient sounds do the same.
* **Superhuman Taste:** Murdock's sense of taste enables him to detect anything, including such things as 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 that has been demonstrated to be on par with Spider-Man's.
* **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.
* **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 (though albeit obscure).

### Abilities

* **Man without Fear**: 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.
* **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.
* **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.
* **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. Only a small handful of individuals on Earth can possibly match Murdock's ability.

## Weaknesses

* **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.
* **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,.
* **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 being 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.

## Equipment

### Currently used Equipment

#### Murdock

* **Walking Stick**: This stick is used to aid Murdock in helping him where he is going during the day, however due to his senses he doesn't actually need it.

#### Daredevil

* **Daredevil Suit:** This is a red suit created by Melvin Potter as a replacement for his previous Vigilante Suit. This suit is armoured and resistant to knives and gunfire (from certain angles) on the plated areas. This suit also can save Matt from a direct gunshot, although it will break the area of the suit where he was shot. Luckily, Melvin is usually around to replace parts of the suit when needed and even upgrade it.
* **Billy-Club**: When Murdock asked Melvin Potter to create an armored suit for him, Potter also created a special Billy Club. It can be used as a short staff, or two individual sticks joined by a high tensile wire for grappling. It can also be split into two individual short sticks for close-quarters combat. It is kept in a holster on the suit's left thigh. It was said by Melvin that the Club was "damn near indestructible" and could be used as a grappling hook.

### Formerly used Equipment

* **Vigilante Suit**: Murdock bought a black suit with red stitching online to wear in his vigilante activities. He also wore a black mask over his head, eyes, and nose, leaving only his mouth uncovered. This suit also had padding which he wore underneath the suit so that the beatings would not hurt as much, but they did not stop him from being seriously injured. He would ultimately discard this suit in favor of a much more durable armored one. However if anything were to happen to his main suit, this one would be used.
* **Wooden Sticks**: At a young age, Murdock was trained to be an expert stick fighter by Stick, but he stopped using the weapons after Stick left, preferring to fight unarmed. He began using them again at Stick's insistence when his mentor returned to New York City. However, he discarded them after Melvin Potter made him a more advanced Billy Club.

## Relationships

### Family

* Grandmother
* Battlin' Jack Murdock - Father †
* Maggie Grace - Mother

### Friends

* Paul Lantom † - Friend
* Claire Temple
* Chaste
	+ Stick - Mentor
* Elektra - Ex-Girlfriend and Temporary Enemy
* Nelson and Murdock
	+ Foggy Nelson - Best Friend and Partner
	+ Karen Page - Friend, Ex-Girlfriend, and Assistant

### Enemies

* Wilson Fisk/Kingpin - Attempted Killer and Attempted Victim
* Stilt-Man
* Bullseye
* The Hand

## Trivia

* The substance which blinded Murdock wasn't revealed, but the barrels reveal it to be "TYP A" with the serial number "0464XXXX".
* Matt Murdock is a Catholic.