Daredevil is an enigma. He is an extremely honest man who believes in letting the law do its work to put people away behind bars. He is the opposite of Punisher, who thinks the law doesn’t work, and Daredevil will always oppose Frank Castle’s modus operandi. However, at the same time, there might not be a more brutal fighter in Marvel Comics than Daredevil. He has lived with Catholic guilt his entire life, believes he has no redemption coming for what he has been forced to do, and while he won’t kill anyone in a fight, he has gone as far as a superhero can go before stopping and pulling back.
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Daredevil has been severely beaten up more times than most superheroes because he has no superpowers. This allows his comics to be full of brutal fights that often leave both combatants bloody and bruised. However, some of his most brutal fights have almost pushed him over the line, and others have almost left him dead.
5) The Owl (Daredevil Vol. 2 #83)
This Daredevil fight occurred in prison and was in the six-part “The Devil in Cell Block D” storyline. Matt Murdock is in prison, thanks to Kingpin turning over the file of everything he knows about Matt and Daredevil to the feds. A new Daredevil is operating on the streets, making it look like Matt and Daredevil are different people. However, Matt is on his own in prison, and there is nothing he can do when his friend and attorney, Foggy Nelson, comes to visit and is seemingly murdered outside his cell. Since Matt had no way to save his friend, he ended up brutally beating up other prisoners, trying to find out who ordered Foggy’s death.
The six-part storyline sees Kingpin also in prison, and Punisher even allows himself to be arrested to get inside the walls to get some information. However, in the third part of this storyline, Daredevil goes too far when The Owl mocks him, and Daredevil demands information about Foggy’s death. In one of his most brutal beatdowns, Matt starts beating the villain mercilessly, demanding to know who ordered Foggy’s murder. By the time he stopped, he had broken both of The Owl’s arms and legs.
4) Kingpin (Daredevil Vol. 1 #228)
The iconic Daredevil: Born Again storyline saw Karen Page betray Matt and tell Kingpin his identity as Daredevil. Wilson Fisk set out to ruin the man’s life. Kingpin has the IRS freeze Matt’s bank accounts, the bank forecloses on his apartment, and a police officer lies under oath that Matt paid a witness to perjure himself, costing him his career. His girlfriend dumps him for Foggy, and then his apartment is blown up, destroying his costume and everything he owns. Finally, Matt goes after Kingpin, realizing he is responsible. What happened next was shocking.
Daredevil (Vol. 1) #228 sees Matt at his lowest, so he goes, as Matt Murdock, to fight Kingpin. However, Matt is tired. He hasn’t been sleeping well, and he hasn’t been working as Daredevil. He had no chance, and Kingpin brutally beat him almost to death. When he finishes, he puts Murdock in a cab and drives it into the river, making it look like he died in an accident. Matt survives, though, and returns to fight another day.
3) Echo (Daredevil Vol. 2 #11-15)
In Daredevil (Vol. 2) #11, the book set up one of Daredevil’s most brutal fights in a masterful way. Created by David Mack and Joe Quesada, the book’s first few pages showed Matt Murdock and Maya Lopez on dates, really starting to fall for each other. However, intercut with these scenes were moments of Echo training and watching videos of Daredevil. Kingpin convinced her that Daredevil killed her father, and she wanted revenge. However, she had no idea Matt and Daredevil were the same person, and he had no idea Maya was Echo. Maya is deaf, and Matt is blind, making them an interesting combination when the fight began.
The fight started with Echo attacking Daredevil and delivering the line, “Hello, villain. I have a performance for you.” The problem is that Matt’s senses recognized her immediately. He knew Echo was Maya, and he refused to fight back. What resulted was one of the most brutal beatdowns Daredevil ever took, with Echo wanting revenge in the worst way. However, what happened during their battle in the second issue added to the intensity, as it kept cutting away to the people of Hell’s Kitchen, on the verge of suicide, murder, or just giving up on everything, but then all finding hope while Echo was trying to kill Daredevil. Their appearance is the only thing that saved him from death in this fight.
The fight continued for four issues, and it wasn’t until Daredevil had Echo pinned to the ground and she realized who he was that she listened to his words. Matt Murdock was in elementary school when her father was killed. She knew Kingpin did it, and this finally ended the fight. This was the moment Echo came into her own and proved she was on the level of Daredevil after spending four issues brutally beating him every step of the way.
2) Ikari (Daredevil Vol. 3 #25)
While he is not one of Daredevil’s more popular villains, Ikari left a mark on his legacy when he showed up in a similar costume to Daredevil’s old yellow and red outfit (albeit with Japanese lettering.) This fight in 2013 was the villain’s first appearance, and he claimed to have the same radar senses as Daredevil. In reality, Bullseye hired him to kill Daredevil, and little is known about the villain as his real identity was never revealed.
However, Ikari was ready for Matt. He knew about Daredevil using his senses and had things in place to confuse and disorient Daredevil (even wearing Matt’s dad’s boxing robe when he walked in,) and then he launched his attack. They finally went outside and fought across the rooftops, but it didn’t help, with Daredevil guessing they hit each other over 100 times during the fight. Daredevil thought he had found a way to gain victory by turning on the sprinklers in a store, which dampened their radar sense. However, Ikrai wasn’t blind, and he beat Daredevil into submission. Ikari chose not to kill Daredevil in that moment and left him beaten and bloody.
1) Bullseye (Daredevil Vol. 2 #49)
The most brutal fight Daredevil ever had was against his most hated villain, Bullseye. It wasn’t the beating that was brutal by itself, although Daredevil didn’t hold back. What made this so intense was that Daredevil also verbally destroyed Bullseye in this fight. Bullseye had already killed two of Daredevil’s girlfriends — Elektra and Karen Page. Now, he was showing up to kill another girlfriend, this time Milla Donovan. This time, Daredevil wouldn’t let it happen, and he destroyed Bullseye in the most epic fight of his career.
Matt shows up in time to stop Bullseye and then throws him out the window. The two begin fighting on the streets below, and a crowd soon gathers to watch the fight. While Bullseye was trying to be cocky and insult Matt, Daredevil wasn’t in the mood. Daredevil began kicking and punching him. He tells him that he knows his mother was a prostitute and his dad left before he knew who he was, calling him pathetic and uninteresting. Daredevil said he thinks Bullseye wants him to kill him, but he won’t because no one cares if he lives or dies. He finally carves new scars into Bullseye’s head so the villain will never forget this moment. It was the most brutal fight in Daredevil’s life, and he held nothing back.
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