He's the Man Without Fear. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen. A good Catholic boy doing the good work in the guise of a devil. Matt Murdock has brought justice to the streets of Hell's Kitchen as Daredevil since he was first created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in 1964. While he has always retained a devoutly loyal following, it wasn't until his treatment at the hands of then wunderkind Frank Miller that the character really found his voice. As Miller himself states in the special features of the Daredevil movie's DVD he was, for all intents and purposes "a poor man's Spider-Man". But Miller's noir inspired sensibilities guided the character from novelty blind acrobat to hard boiled and gritty crimefighter in his legendary run that began with Spectacular Spider-Man #27.
Miller's indelible impression on The Man Without Fear ushered in a renaissance for the character that attracted legendary writers and artists including Brian Michael Bendis, Joe Quesada, David Mack, Alex Maleev, Ed Brubaker, David Mazzucchelli, Mark Waid and Kevin Smith. Over the years he's battled demons (both literal and figurative), loved and lost, become the thing he despised the most and worked his way back to the light again. And he's punched a lot, a lot of ninjas. While Matt Murdock's greatest enemy has always been himself (he's arguably the most self destructive hero ever to grace the page) he's faced off against a parade of fascinating and lethal villains. Join us as we celebrate the silly and the sinister of Daredevil's rogues gallery...
25 MAGGIE FARRELL
Daddy issues, eh? It seems as though all the best superheroes have them. From absentee fathers who failed their sons to great men whose shoes have been hard to fill, dads have cast a long shadow for many comic book heroes and villains. Matt Murdock himself is no stranger to said issues, but he doesn't hold a candle to this lady, Maggie Farrell.
In Joe Quesada's aptly titled six issue miniseries Daredevil: Father, the unassuming Maggie is one of the most prolific criminals in New York's history. Not only does she have serious daddy issues, she also has an unhealthy obsession with one Matt Murdock. She earned the nickname 'Johnny Sockets' because she blinded her victims before ending them.
24 STILT MAN
While the name Stilt Man is unlikely to inspire fear in the name of all who hear it, this ne'er-do-well has been a thorn in the side of the Marvel Universe for decades now. Wilbur Day is an engineer and inventor who probably could have done tremendous good with his talents, had his nefarious nature not gotten the better of him.
He first battled horn head in Daredevil #8 and continued to tussle with him well into the 21st century, before the mantle was taken up by two other men and one woman. Don't let his silly gimmick fool you -- his battle suit gives him the strength of 10 men and is equipped with an array of deadly weapons.
23 IKARI
Daredevil can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, not can he lift a family sedan over his head. In fact, the only things that have saved him from certain death time after time are his enhanced senses, his pig headed determination, his unshakable resolve and his incredible martial arts prowess.
We all know that power invites challenge, and Daredevil has had to test his fighting abilities against some of the fiercest and most talented fighters in the Marvel Universe. Just take Ikari, a ninja warrior with heightened senses similar to Matt's own. While his identity has never been revealed, he has come within a hair's breadth of ending The Man Without Fear and succeeded in taking his best friend, Foggy Nelson.
22 ELECTRO
One of the great things about the Marvel Universe is that, unlike the Distinguished Competition, it has had inter-connectivity baked into its crust. As such, many of the MU's heroes have mixed and matched villains with wildly various results. Max Dillon, aka Electro, is best known as a Spider-man villain, but he's traded blows with ol' hornhead a few times over the years.
Indeed fighting the supervillain was something of an initiation for Daredevil, as he was the first major supervillain he ever crossed baths with. The pair first tangled in Daredevil #2 when he was caught breaking into the Baxter Building. Indeed, the confrontation was lovingly recreated for Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's sterling miniseries Daredevil: Yellow.
21 GLADIATOR
A hero's proudest accomplishment is not in being able to vanquish his or her enemy. It's in being able to turn an enemy into a friend and ally. So it was with Melvin Potter, aka The Gladiator. Melvin Potter was once a costume designer with delusions of grandeur, who believed himself physically superior to the superheroes of New York. he created a costume for himself complete withe deadly wrist mounted buzz saws.
Daredevil was the first hero with whom the nascent villain tangled, although he would go on to do battle with Iron Man, Black Widow, Man Thing and even Ghost Rider. But with the help of Daredevil and Betsy Beatty, Potter overcame the mental health issues that drove him to violence.
20 THE JESTER
Like so many in New York City, Jonathan Powers started off as an unemployed actor with a disproportionate sense of his own talent and self worth. After he was laughed off the stage one time too many, he turned to crime. With the aid of some mischievous gadgets courtesy of The Tinkerer and equipped with gymnastics skills gleaned from his acting days, his nefarious activities brought him face to face with The Man Without Fear in Daredevil #42.
While his dastardly deeds have earned him pummelings from Spider-Man, Jessica Jones, She Hulk and Moon Knight (as well as a near ending experience courtesy of The Punisher in "Civil War") most Marvel fans think of him first and foremost as a Daredevil villain.
19 THE KINGPIN (ALEXANDER BONT)
While most Marvel fans know of one particular Kingpin of Crime in Hell's Kitchen, the ascot wearing crimelord was not the first to bear the mantle of Kingpin. Indeed that honorary goes to one Alexander Bont, an old school crime lord who ruled the Kitchen with an iron hand just as Daredevil was starting out.
After being released from prison, he returned to New York to see a city completely transformed from the one he knew. Gone were the genteel gangsters of old -- now the criminals all had powers, tights and gimmicks. Incensed and enraged, he took the dangerously unstable Mutant Growth Hormone to take on Daredevil, the man who put him behind bars, for one last hurrah.
18 MAN BULL
The melding of the human with the bovine has fascinated us since the days of ancient Greece. In Greek mythology the Minotaur was a ferocious carnivore who ended anyone foolish enough to enter his labyrinth. While he has yet to devour anyone's flesh since his first appearance in Daredevil #78, Bill Taurens is still a force to be reckoned with.
This low rent thug for hire became something far more ferocious when he was made a guinea pig for an experimental serum which gave him superhuman strength, speed and endurance but transformed him into a humanoid bull and robbed him of what little humanity remained. He's not only locked horns with DD, he's also taken on The Thing, Iron man, The Punisher and even Hulk.
17 ECHO
Anyone familiar with Daredevil comics knows that Matt Murdock has never had much luck in love. Maya Lopez and Matt Murdock seemed like a match made in Heaven when they first met in the Marvel Knights-era Daredevil #9. Like Matt, she has a unique blend of extraordinary abilities but also a profound disability. Yet, while the two seemed like kindred spirits, Maya had been tricked into believing Matt's alter ego Daredevil to be the man who took her father away.
Maya is deaf, but she also has photographic reflexes allowing her to mimic any action she sees with total accuracy. This skill has made her an Olympic level athlete, a master of martial arts and an acrobat of dazzling skill.
16 TOMBSTONE
Tombstone has proven more than a match for many heroes of the Marvel Universe. Indeed, it's a testament to Daredevil's fighting prowess, determination, constitution and propensity for taking a beating that has seen him prevail against this foe where more powerful heroes have struggled.
A mutagenic reaction to an experimental gas rendered street tough Lonnie Lincoln super strong and fast and as near impervious to physical injury as his name would suggest. He also has considerable combat skilled gleaned not from the dojo but from a lifetime of street fighting. As such, he eschews the codes of conduct most martial artists apply to themselves and isn't afraid to fight dirty. If that means sinking his filed teeth into a foe, so be it!
15 THE OWL
Fans of the Netflix corner of the MCU will recognize Leland Owlsley, played by The Shawshank Redemption's Bob Gunton. But the corrupt businessman we've seen on the screen is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the character's comic book incarnation, who's hounded horn head since he first appeared in Daredevil #3 .
The comic book Owl is widely believed to be a mutant but actually came by his powers through channeling his Wall Street millions into a serum that gave him the power of flight, combined with razor sharp talons. His later experimentation with Mutant Growth Hormone gave him superhuman strength, speed and reflexes. While he's never been among the most feared players in Hell's Kitchen, he is not to be underestimated.
14 MR. HYDE
Like his legendary namesake created by Robert Louis Stevenson, Marvel's Mr. Hyde is the alter ego of a brilliant scientist. But unlike the erstwhile Henry Jekyll, Dr. Calvin Zebo was never a particularly nice guy. Obsessed with the power hormones have on human physiology as well as Stevenson's 1888 classic, he used criminal means to create a serum to transform himself into an evil doppelganger.
The resultant 6'5" hulk like creature has tormented the Marvel Universe for decades and even fathered one Daisy Johnson who would go on to become Quake. He's teamed up with the likes of The Jester, The Gladiator and The Purple Man to take down Daredevil but has always been thwarted.
13 THE FIXER
Few superheroes get to have a nemesis before they've even donned the tights, but Roscoe Sweeney was an enemy to Matt Murdock way before he ever worse the red (or even the yellow) cowl. Sweeney was a petty extortion racketeer and illegal gambling magnate with a penchant for fixing boxing matches.
It was The Fixer who paid Matt's father Battlin' Jack Murdock to take a dive in his last fight, and his right hand man Slade who ended Murdock Sr. in retribution after he won the fight. One of Daredevil's first act was to apprehend the man who took his father away, but he passed of a heart attack before he could be brought to justice.
12 LADY BULLSEYE
What would drive a woman to emulate one of the most loathsome human beings ever to besmirch the Marvel Universe? A combination of both good and bad luck, it would seem. Maki Matsumoto was born in Japan and imprisoned by the Yakuza as a child. By sheer coincidence, the clan who took her were on the infamous Bullseye's hit list.
Seeing the efficiency with which her savior took out her captors, Matsumoto resolved to escape and become a feared fighter. Trained and recruited by the Hand, she is a fairly recent addition to Daredevil's rogues gallery, making her debut in Daredevil #111 just 10 years ago. She's been a persistent thorn in Matt's side ever since.
11 MYSTERIO
MCU fans around the world are rightly excited to see celebrated actor Jake Gyllenhaal face off against Tom Holland's Spidey as Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but comic book fans know that the master of illusion has famously tangled with Daredevil as well. Most notably in the "Guardian Devil" storyline penned by Kevin Smith and drawn by Joe Quesada.
In the six issue arc, a terminally ill Mysterio decides to abandon all hope of ever defeating his web slinging nemesis and instead sets his sights upon Daredevil. He seeks to bring about his downfall not through open combat, but by trickery, deception, illusion and psychological manipulation. While Daredevil ultimately prevails, it's scary how close Mysterio comes to breaking him.
10 THE PURPLE MAN
Zebediah Kilgrave, The Purple Man is probably best known as Jessica Jones' primary antagonist. Not only was their enmity portrayed brilliantly in the Jessica Jones series on Netflix, he's hounded the boozy PI since her inception in Alias, Brian Michael Bendis' superlative introductory run on the character in 2001.
But Kilgrave has tormented the Marvel Universe since long before he ever crossed paths with Jessica. Indeed, his first appearance was in Daredevil #4 in which he used his insidious mind control powers to politely rob a bank by strolling up to the cashier and asking her to fill it with $100 bills. While his methods have certainly gotten a lot more repugnant over the years, he's never strayed from the page for too long.
9 THE BEAST
Not to be confused with the wise blue furred mutant of the same name, this Beast is in fact a demon who once possessed Matt Murdock in quite possibly his darkest hour. After deciding that he'd rather rule then ninja clan known as The Hand and try to use them as a force for good than keep on fighting them, Matt's virtuous soul was soon corrupted.
The Beast Of The Hand was a demon who the clan had long revered and worshiped and it didn't take long to begin acting through Matt Murdock in the divisive "Shadowland" saga which set him at odds with his fellow heroes.
8 NUKE
It's a real testament to the character and fortitude that many attempts had been made to create the next Captain America in his absence... but none of them were nearly as successful. Take Frank Simpson, aka Nuke, for example. This damaged Vietnam veteran was forged by a government that turned him into a lethal but unstable fighting machine.
A product of the Weapon VII program, Nuke is a partial cyborg with bullet proof skin and two hearts... but no soul. He is incredibly unstable and is manipulated by his handlers through a series of mood altering red, white and blue pills. He's best known for his first appearance in Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's "Daredevil: Born Again".
7 MR. FEAR
You might think that a villain whose gimmick revolves around fear would be no trouble for a hero who is famously without fear. But one incarnation or another of this veteran Marvel villain has collided with horn head almost since the start of his comic book career. The original Mr. Fear, Zoltan Drago made his first appearance in Daredevil #5.
Perhaps the most malevolent version, however, is Matt Murdock's old classmate, Larry Cranston. Among Cranston's most egregious offenses are taking Matt's former wife Mia Donovan and overdosing her with a fear inhibiting drug which led her to take an innocent life.
6 THE PUNISHER
If you thought that season two of Netflix' Daredevil show was the first time that horn head and The Punisher have traded blows, think again. In fact, that awesome rooftop exchange in episode three? That was ripped straight from the pages of a 2001 story called "The Choice" written by Garth Ennis (who would go on to write a legendary run on Punisher under the MAX imprint) and drawn by Steve Dillon.
Here are two antagonists who could easily be friends not for their warring ideologies and equally unyielding pigheadedness. These two are likely to keep on trading blows, bullets and billy clubs for as long as Marvel keep making comics.