Marvel Reveals Daredevil’s Fake Twin Brother Is Real

Matt Murdock has experienced a lot of strange events in his career as Daredevil, but perhaps none as strange as what occurred in the most recent issue of his Marvel Comics series, in which he finally meets the twin brother he didn’t know he had because he himself made him up.

SPOILERS for Daredevil #606 by Charles Soule and Phil Noto follow.

Anyone who has seen the Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix knows that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, but those fans might not realize that the alias Matt gives to Claire Temple to hide his identity, “Mike,” is a reference to Mike Murdock, the twin brother alter ego that Matt made up in the comics to help protect his real secret identity as Daredevil.

The invention of Mike Murdock happened in Daredevil #25 by Stan Lee and Gene Golan and published by Marvel in 1967. Spider-Man figures out that Matt Murdock is really Daredevil and decides to leave Matt a note to assure him that his secret is safe with the web-slinger. Unfortunately, the note is found by Foggy Nelson and Karen Page before it reaches Matt, and now Foggy and Karen are in on Matt’s secret for the first time.

Matt isn’t ready to share that secret with his friends and so he comes up with a quick cover: Spider-Man is mistaken and its Matt’s twin brother, Mike Murdock, who is actually Daredevil. Of course, Foggy and Karen are eager to meet this mysterious twin brother that Matt has never mentioned before and so Matt has to create and put on the persona of Mike Murdock to keep up the charade. Matt makes Mike into a carefree sort, the kind of person that it would be easy to believe is the masked vigilante Daredevil, especially compared to his blind and conservative brother.

Eventually, the stress of keeping up a triple-life becomes too much for Matt and he fakes Mike’s death, having Daredevil reemerge as the “new” Daredevil, someone chosen by Mike Murdock to be his successor, which helps to throw Matt’s friends off of his scent.

Flashforward to Daredevil #606. Wilson Fisk is the mayor and Daredevil is determined to prove that the Kingpin rigged the election. He contacts the Inhuman detective Frank McGee for help with the investigation. McGee brings in the mutant Cypher, whom he and Daredevil worked with during the events of Hunt for Wolverine: Weapon Lost, and the Inhuman called Reader, who Daredevil is meeting for the first time. Daredevil realizes that Reader is also blind and tells him that Matt Murdock, also blind, will be helping them with the investigation and has some background material written in braille.

At this point, Daredevil hears over a police scanner about a disturbance involving people with powers and heads out to help the understaffed NYPD. He arrives outside of the Bar with No Name to finds an entire group of supervillains involved in a brawl. He easily scatters the villains but is surprised when he’s greeted by his previously entirely made up twin brother, Mike.

The solicitation text for the next issue of Daredevil suggests that Reader is responsible for Mike Murdock suddenly being his own person. Reader’s Inhuman ability allows him to manifest anything that he reads up to three times a day. This incredibly powerful ability is why he was blinded as a boy, but he is still able to use his ability by reading braille.

While it is unclear how exactly these events transpire, it seems that Reader may read something about the life and death of Mike Murdock in the braille background material provided to him by Matt Murdock, accidentally triggering his power and manifesting Mike as a real flesh-and-blood independent human being. It is unclear if that means Mike’s existence is permanent or temporary and it is also unclear what his motivations and intentions are towards his twin brother.

Daredevil #606 is on sale now.