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.

This week, in honor of Daredevil's new TV series, let's take a look at Matt (Daredevil) Murdock's dead girlfriends!

One of the most dangerous things to do in the Marvel Universe is date Matt Murdock. We'll take a look at all of his dead girlfriends, beginning with their first appearances, then when they started dating, then when they broke up and finally when they met their sad fate. I'll go in chronological order from their first appearance.

1. Karen Page

"The love of Matt Murdock's life" is a tough battle between Karen Page and Elektra. I personally lean towards Karen. She debuted in the first issue of Daredevil (written by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, with art by Everett and Steve Ditko).



Matt and Karen's courtship was weeeeeird. They were not even really dating when Matt first decides he's going to marry her...



He never actually gets around to proposing to her, but she reveals (via inner monologues) that she DOES love him. Which is fair enough, except she apparently has already given him photos SAYING it (which is a bit of an odd thing to give a blind guy, but whatever)!



They keep breaking up over dumb reasons...



Until finally, in Daredevil #57, Karen learns his secret identity...



They get engaged the next issue...



But when he doesn't quit being Daredevil, she just snubs him. Total silent treatment. it is kind of insane. No one actually acts like this...



She eventually goes to Los Angeles and pursues an acting career. She returns one last time and she and Matt get engaged again, but in Daredevil #86, she leaves (seemingly for good), as writer Gerry Conway just wanted the path clear for Matt and Black Widow to hook up...





So Karen is out of the book (except for one short appearance 70 issues or so later) until she shows up in Born Again, having sold Matt's secret identity for drugs. They reunite in Daredevil #231...



And they remain an on again/off again couple throughout the rest of Volume 1. In Volume 2 (by Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti), she is tricked into believing she is HIV positive. Then, in Daredevil Vol.2 #5, she is murdered by Bullseye using Daredevil's own billy club...









2. Heather Glenn

Heather Glenn debuted in Daredevil #126 (written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Bob Brown and Klaus Janson)





She pursued Matt, and eventually he relents...





They eventually just became a normal, ordinary couple...





Until she learns his secret identity when he gets involved in her father seemingly being framed as a bad guy. Her father kills himself (Karen ALSO learned Matt's identity in a case involving her father. Weird) and she blames Matt...





She gets over it, though, and she is Matt's girlfriend throughout Frank Miller's first run on Daredevil, until Foggy and Black Widow actually TRICK THEM into breaking off their engagement because Foggy knows that they are bad for each other (specifically Matt is sort of blackmailing Heather into marrying him)...





Denny O'Neil later had Heather descend into alcoholism. He used her as a drunk friend to Tony Stark. Anyhow, in Daredevil #220, she approaches Matt....







And later in the issue, she kills herself...



3. Elektra Natchios

Elektra first showed up in Frank Miller's first issue of Daredevil as the writer, #168 (pencils by Miller, inks by Janson)...



We flashback and see how Matt and Elektra fell in love in college and why they broke up....









In Daredevil #181, Elektra is murdered by Bullseye...









She is later brought back from the dead a couple of times.

Go to the next page for the last two (including probably the worst death of all of Matt's girlfriends)!

4. Glorianna O'Breen

Introduced in Daredevil #205 (by Denny O'Neil, William Johnson and Danny Bulanadi), Glorianna O'Breen shows up and stays in Matt's place...





He helps her get her own place, and he asks her out...



They have a pretty chaste relationship...



Their relationship began to taper off at the end of O'Neil's run, but they officially break up in the first part of Born Again, as Matt's life is falling apart around him (She ends up getting together with Foggy)...



She eventually leaves the book during Nocenti's run to pursue her photography career. She is gone for nearly a hundred issues, before she is brought back to be killed off in D.G. Chichester's final storyline, a story so bad that he used a fake name (Alan Smithee) for it, where Kruel, who is perhaps the least memorable Daredevil villain ever, just throws her out of a window...









That is a messed up death.

5. Maya Lopez

Introduced in Daredevil #9 by David Mack, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, Maya Lopez has the ability to copy other people's abilities, which makes her a piano virtuoso...







as well as a boxing champ...





The Kingpin killed her father and then kept track of her since she was a kid. She begins to date Matt Murdock...







But then the Kingpin lies to her and convinces her that Daredevil killed her dad, so she fights him as the vigilante known as Echo (because she can "echo" people's abilities). She wears a handprint on her face in honor of the bloody handprint her father left as she died.



When she learns that Matt IS Daredevil, she realizes Kingpin must be lying to her, so she turns on Kingpin (she ends up blinding him). She leaves Matt at this time, though, as she has to find herself now that her father has been avenged...



She ends up as a member of the New Avengers. She drifts away from superherodom after a while and ends up in Los Angeles. Once there, she gets sucked back into the superhero game by Moon Knight. The two of them take on Count Nefaria, and he kills her in Moon Knight #9 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev)...



Matt's ex-wife Milla Donovan had to go to a mental institution to avoid being killed! She and Black Widow are the only MAJOR girlfriends of Matt's to still be alive (he's had a few minor girlfriends here and there, like Foggy Nelson's sister and I guess Typhoid Mary sort of counts). Currently, Matt is dating his fellow lawyer Kirsten McDuffie and writer Mark Waid is having a little fun with Matt's constant worrying over her safety (although, as it turns out, she sometimes gets into trouble based on people wanting revenge on HER for what she did as an assistant district attorney, as someone strikes out at Daredevil to get to HER. It's a cute bit).

Okay, that's it for this installment! If YOU have a suggestion for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com! Don't make suggestions in the comments section.