Say Hello to Daredevil, Mayor of New York

WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Daredevil #600 by Charles Soule and Ron Garney, with colors by Matt Milla.

Thanks to Marvel's Legacy renumbering, Daredevil's solo comic released it's #600 this week. Of course, with that lofty number comes expectations for big things to happen, and Charles Soule and Ron Garney don't disappoint. But while The Man without Fear is no stranger to big life changes, this one may be the biggest of them all.

The Devil is the Plaything

Since Wilson Fisk became the Mayor of New York in a landslide vote, Daredevil has done everything he can to stop whatever plans Fisk has up his sleeve. As deputy mayor Matt Murdock, he was unable to stop Fisk from declaring superheroes in the city illegal, but as Daredevil, he's finally come up with a way to bring Fisk down cleanly and stop his plans of collusion with the criminal underworld.

As Daredevil #600 starts, the Man Without Fear has assembled of Big Apple heroes to aid him in his endeavor. Along with fellow Defenders Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones, he's managed to recruit Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Misty Knight, and Echo to round up the crime lords all making deals in the Bronx while Fisk is holding a rally in Central Park. Once the cops are making arrests, all Daredevil has to do is testify on the stand that the crime bosses are involved with Fisk, and it's another win for our hero. Moon Knight's desire to beat the criminals all half to death aside, it's the perfect plan. Until it's not.

The various crime lords all quickly deduce that something isn't right about their meet and thing understandably deteriorate. Daredevil is still optimistic about the plan, despite the chaos, but soon realizes that he's been played; the crime lords were bait to lure the heroes in for the cops to arrest all of them. It's only Daredevil that's able to get away, and now his mission is to find Fisk and save his friends.

A Flaming Rematch

While Daredevil is taking the fight to Fisk, his apprentice Blindspot is spending the issue in downtown NY going up against the Inhuman serial killer Muse, who took his eyes some months ago during the "Dark Art" arc. Having broken out of the Inhuman prison holding him, Muse has gone on a painting spree around New York, painting heroes on the side of buildings as a sign of support after Fisk made them outlaws. Matt tried to keep Muse off Blindspot's radar, but his apprentice learned about it and decided to get revenge on the man who blinded him. It begins to not go his way, until Blindspot gets an offer from the Beast--a demon that restored his sight in the "Land of the Blind" arc who he and Daredevil later defeated.

Sensing his desperation, the Beast tempts Blindspot with the full power to destroy Muse and get revenge for being blinded months ago. Blindspot's eyes go from their dark blue to blood red, showing that the hero has accepted the Beast's offer before beating Muse into a bloody pulp as the rooftop catches on fire. Both the Beast and Muse taunt Blindspot into killing the artist like he so desperately wants to; but the hero Blindspot rejects death. Enraged and refusing to not be the story, Muse walks into the flames, tragically declaring he had "so much beauty left" as he's burnt to a crisp.

But even that major moment has nothing on what happens to Matt Murdock next.

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At Fisk's rally in Central Park, Daredevil arrives to face him down before the speech can begin. Armed with a sledgehammer, Fisk takes swing after swing at his enemy, hoping the hero will hit him and provide him with a fiery opener for his speech. And when that proves to not provoke him, Fisk decides to bash his own face in with the hammer, but Daredevil stops him before the steel can touch his face. So instead, Fisk beats Daredevil with the sledgehammer and has the NYPD cart him off, declaring "the only hero this city needs...is its king."

Greeting the roaring crowd, Fisk gleefully informs the New Yorkers of his successful sting that landed multiple heroes and crime bosses behind bars. And no sooner does he declare the city safer than ever that he's interrupted with an arrow to the chest. Followed by multiple arrows to his whole body, all fired from a legion of red-clad ninjas. That's right folks, it's the Hand again, back to collect on the debt that Daredevil and Blindspot owe the Beast.

It doesn't take long for Daredevil to hear about the situation, and despite his warnings to the cops, they keep him cuffed and locked away in a police convoy. Using his super hearing, he learns that Fisk is in critical condition from all the arrows in his body, and the city's rules of succession are now in effect. One of Fisk's employees Steve Cornish reveals that the previous mayor had changed succession rules to allow himself to run for a third term. But Fisk had yet to revert that when he made Matt Murdock his deputy mayor in an effort to stifle the lawyer down, meaning that Daredevil is effectively the mayor of New York City.

Matt has a history of winning his battles in pretty unorthodox ways; the ninja clan known as Hand, his longtime rivals, were at one point under his command, albeit while he was temporarily controlled by a demon. When he outed himself as a superhero and relocated to San Francisco, Matt managed to make the most of it and have a happy relationship even with his greatest secret having been divulged to the world. And when he eventually had to wipe his secret identity from the minds of the world, he used even that big loss to his advantage by making it so superheroes could testify in court while in costume.

Now that he's mayor, it's entirely possible he may not even have to be Daredevil anymore to fix his city, not when he can be more effective behind his desk without fear of the system failing him or his fellow superheroes. A superhero becoming a mayor of his city is nothing new (Green Arrow's done it already, for one), but Matt has a much more intimate relationship with his alternate persona in that the actions of one identity colors the actions of another. If nothing else, he'll certainly undo Fisk's outlawing of superheroes once everything is said and done, but no one has to imagine that's just the beginning for Matt's plans for the city.

We won't find out what Mayor Murdock can do until after he's beaten the Hand out of New York, which will continue in Daredevil #601.