Daredevil’s Horrifying New Villain is Straight Out of The Last of Us

Daredevil is currently not having the best time. Sure, his MCU counterpart is dealing with Mayor Fisk taking over New York City, but nothing can ever touch the usual struggles of the original Matt Murdock on the pages of Marvel Comics. His usual rogues gallery consists of some of the worst of the worst in the Marvel Universe. There’s Kingpin sure, but he also has to contend with Bullseye, the Punisher, and Typhoid Mary, just to name a few of the killing machines he faces on the day to day. Now, Daredevil is up against an entirely new villain that takes things to a horrifying new level. Daredevil’s newest villain would feel right at home in the fungus-ridden world of The Last of Us.

How Daredevil Found His Fungal Foe

Ever since he chose to let Bullseye fall to his death in issue #19, Daredevil has been haunted by nightmares and guilt. After deciding he needed to reinvent himself and changing back into his atrocious Black Armor costume, Matt went to visit his lover, Nyla Skin. However, upon stepping into her apartment he was infected by some kind of fungal spores that knocked him out. Last issue ended with an unconscious Matt being picked up by hazmat-wearing goons and being dropped into a room with all the other denizens of the building, similarly infected.

This issue began with Matt waking up after another Bullseye nightmare, only to find himself in an entirely different sort of nightmare. His body is able to fight off the strange fungus, and Daredevil gets the infected outside for treatment. The cops inform him that they were told this was due to some kind of chemical leak, leading him to realize someone in a position of power is covering this up. Thanks to his enhanced radar senses, Matt is able to uncover a hidden network of interconnected mushroom roots that stretch all across New York City. He follows the trail to a large building in the center of the city, where he runs into two career henchmen he’s had the displeasure of beating up before.

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Now, however, these two are different. Their bodies are covered in that strange fungus and mushrooms, and they keep telling him that he needs to leave. Instead of people, they’re acting much more like zombies. Daredevil knocks them aside, only to be confronted by a voice that seemingly comes from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It tells him that it likes his costume, which is a surefire sign that this is a dastardly villain he is dealing with. Then the man of the hour emerges, who seems to be some kind of living mushroom-person. We can’t help but get major, twisted Clicker vibes from the creature. The issue ends with him saying that Daredevil cannot stop him from taking over the entire city with his spores, especially because Daredevil himself is already infected.

How Can Daredevil Fight What’s Inside of Him?

Daredevil’s foe is what appears to be a living fungal network with the intelligence of a person, and has already begun stretching roots all over New York City. He’s definitely not working alone, if the goons who moved the residents of Nyla’s building are any indication, and he somehow has enough political power to keep the entire thing under wraps. That’s not even mentioning his apparent ability to turn the people he’s infected into zombie-like creatures piloted by his spores and will alone. There’s no telling how many people this mysterious creature has added to his army already, or how long Daredevil can resist the transformation himself. There could be hundred, if not thousands of New Yorkers turned into sleeper agents, all just waiting for the command to strike. We could quite literally be looking at a The Last of Us situation if the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen can’t take this guy down in time.

Daredevil is going to have to find a way to fight something that’s just as much inside of him as it is outside, but that might just serve as a tie to the grander theme of the entire run. Matt spent the first nineteen issues of this run fighting off the manifestations of his sins, culminating in him choosing to let Bullseye die, a decision that has brought the idea that Matt is fueled by a deep seeded rage to the forefront of his mind. He’s questioning if he’s even a hero at all, or if he is just a selfish man that is in constant struggle with his inner demons. Now Matt has to literally fight a devilish force that is trying to corrupt him from the inside, which is his every moral struggle given physical form. This is as much a fight with his soul as it is a supervillain fight, and I adore when comic books do stuff like this. It’s a great way to tie the metaphor into the action of the comic, and I’m excited to learn more about this weird and cool new villain.

Daredevil #21 is on sale now!