Every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without explaining that the previous story was retconned away. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, we take a look at the roller coaster ride that is Daredevil's secret identity!

Few characters have had quite the same ups and downs when it comes to their secret identity as Matt Murdock, the man without fear known as Daredevil.

The first time Matt's secret identity was exposed was when Spider-Man figured it out when they fought in an early issue of Daredevil, then Spidey wrote a letter to Matt telling him he was pretty sure he was Daredevil. However, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson opened up the letter and confront Matt about this issue. This leads to Matt coming up with the most logical solution to the problem possible, as we see in Daredevil #25, by Stan Lee, Gene Colan and Frank Giacoia), when he decides to pretend to have a twin brother who is Daredevil....

Having now written himself into an absurd corner, Matt has to continue this ridiculous fiction, but luckily for him, Foggy and Karen are two of the most gullible people alive, so we get the following...

I covered this whole bizarre (but awesome) period in Daredevil's life here. It's bonkers - but in a good way.

Okay, "Mike Murdock" is eventually killed off.

Now decades later, Ben Urich, who had figured out Daredevil's secret identity (which he has kept secret), has his computer files stolen by his slimy former assistant, who leaks the information to a slimy newspaper and Daredevil's secret identity is out (this is during the Fall From Grace storyline by D.G. Chichester, Scott McDaniel and Hector Collazo...I featured the whole thing in an old Remember to Forget)...

However, when she tries to get the cops to Matt's apartment to prove he's Daredevil, he's ready for her, and she now looks like a fool.

Ben then furthers his revenge by getting her arrested because she broke into his computer files to get his notes. She ends the story in jail.

Even though his identity is secret once again, Matt still decides to use a handy doppelganger (from the then-recent Infinity War crossover) to fake his death...

So yep, Matt uses this as an excuse to fake his death...

and take up the new secret identity of Jack Batlin, a play on his father's Battling Jack nickname. He worked as a sort of "good" con man...

He returned as Matt after a couple of years (this is when Foggy learned his secret identity).

Okay, we haven't even gotten to the first REALLY big reveal yet! Go to the next page to see how Brian Michael Bendi and Alex Maleev "outed" Daredevil...

In the opening arc of their run on Daredevil, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev reveal that a bounty has been placed on Matt Murdock's head. We eventually learn that one of Kingpin's underlings discovered that Matt was Daredevil and he found it a bit odd that Kingpin wasn't doing anything currently with this information...

The Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk, compels Silke to use this info to try a coup. It temporarily succeeds, but then the Kingpin's wife comes and takes over (and kills her own son). Silke is now screwed, so he goes to the FBI looking to make a deal...

They decide to keep the info under wraps, but one of the FBI agents leaks the details and in the next issue, Daredevil #32...

So that was the situation for the rest of bendis' run = Daredevil's identity was out there, although Matt "officially" denied it. Eventually, Matt even goes to prison.

Then, in the Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano run that followed, they tried to put the genie back into the bottle while still respecting what Bendis did. Vanessa Fisk uses all of her power to get Matt his life back (by this point, he had already escaped from prison to avenge Foggy Nelson, who was supposedly dead)...

He turns her down, but she does it anyway, as she knows he will feel indebted to her even if he said no (her masterstroke was having the Director of the FBI kill himself and leave a suicide note saying he framed Matt).

So that was the status quo when Mark Waid took over the title. Daredevil's secret identity was sort of back in the bottle, but there was still ton of suspicions about him.

On the next page, we see the next (and so far, last) "outing" and "de-outing"...

So in Waid's run, his hook was that Matt no longer even technically worked as a lawyer, since everyone at least thought that he MIGHT be Daredevil, and that was grounds for the other side to always tear him apart in front of the jury. So he and Foggy began to work as legal advisors, instead.

Anyhow, in the second-to-last issue of Waid's first volume of Daredevil, of which he had been joined by the brilliant Chris Samnee halfway through, the Sons of Serpent try to blackmail Matt into representing them in court...

Matt outmaneuvers them, though, in the final issue of this volume when he reveals his identity in open court...

(How amazing is Chris Samnee? No offense to Mark Waid, as he's awesome, as well, but those pages...lordy! Samnee is so good!)

Disbarred, Matt moves to San Francisco, where he practices for a while in the second volume of Waid ans Samnee's Daredevil, which only ended a few months back.

Most recently, though, in the newest volume of Daredevil, Charles Soule and Ron Garney have brought Matt back to New York, and while we don't know HOW the genie was put back into the bottle, we just know that Matt's secret identity is once again a secret to everyone...except Foggy Nelson (who isn't a fan of that situation, for reasons that are also a mystery for now).

That's it for this installment! Feel free to drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have a suggestion for a future Abandoned Love!