In this feature, I spotlight five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Here is an archive of all the patterns we've spotlighted so far.

Over the years, Matt Murdock's secret identity has been revealed to the world, hidden again from the world, revealed again to the world and hidden again from the world a number of times (we took a look at some of them in this old Abandoned Love post). However, for many years, it stayed a secret, with the famous exception of Karen Page discovering his secret identity surprisingly early on. What's interesting is how many times people discovered it...just before they died! Batman had a number of these, so now let's look at some Daredevil examples!

In Daredevil #9 (by Wallace Wood, Stan Lee and Bob Powell), Matt Murdock travels to a small European country at the behest of its leader, the mysterious Klaus Kruger. Kruger offered to have a famous eye doctor fix Matt's eyesight! Once there, though, Matt figures that things are really bad in this country.



Daredevil then begins to help with a coup of the country, and along the way, the doctor figures out Daredevil's secret identity...







Man, that sure was a close call for the entire human race!

In Daredevil #51 (by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor Smith and George Klein), the villainous robotic expert Starr Saxon has his robot foiled by Matt Murdock, but at the same time, he discovers Matt's identity!





In the next issue, Saxon kidnaps Karen Page, and as Matt rushes to her aid, he reveals his identity inadvertently to guest-star Black Panther (luckily, Black Panther does not die)...







So in Daredevil #54 (by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan and George Klein), Matt fakes his own death...



At the same time, Mister Fear shows up again. In the next issue, Daredevil and Mister Fear battle and DD discovers that Fear IS Saxon, who has taken the Fear identity over! Just in time for Saxon to fall to his death...



In Daredevil #158 (by Roger McKenzie, Klaus Janson and a new artist on the series, Frank Miller, who had a decent stint on the book), Death-Stalker reveals that he knows that Matt Murdock (who Death-Stalker had just used the Ani-Men to capture) is Daredevil and he wants to fight him to the death!







As the fight continues...







Not a bad start for that Miller kid.

Go to the the next page for more examples!

In Daredevil #195 (by Denny O'Neil and Klaus Janson), a drunken Heather Glenn (Heather, like most of Matt's girlfriends, also ended up dead, but so much time passed after she discovered his secret identity that I don't think it really counts) tells police commissioner Tarkington Brown Matt's identity...



Brown decides to kill Daredevil as part of his own private police murder squad (he doesn't tell the others that Matt is Daredevil)...





Daredevil confronts him...





Fives issues later, in Daredevil #200 (by Denny O'Neil, William Johnson and Danny Bulanadi), after returning from a Japanese adventure, Matt discovers that Brown is dead...





In Daredevil #209 (by Arthur Byron Cover, David Mazzucchelli and Danny Bulanadi), Daredevil sees an old childhood acquaintance involved in a crime...



He sees him in court the next day, where we learn how they know each other...







Squarejohn followed Daredevil and discovered that he is Matt!



In the end of the issue, he sacrifices himself to save Matt.



Finally, one of the most famous people to discover Daredevil's secret identity was low-level mobster, Sammy Silke, who learns what is sort of an open secret among Kingpin's crew in Daredevil #30 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev)...



He used Kingpin's "weakness" to organize a mutiny against Kingpin. It failed, and then in Daredevil #31, Silke turned to the FBI to get protection and gave up Matt's secret identity...



(The FBI later leaked it).

In Daredevil #45, though, it doesn't protect Silke from Kingpin's revenge...







Sooo...yeah, be like Kingpin's other guys. Just pretend that you don't know anything if you learn Daredevil's identity!