D

DAREDEVIL. Th e red-clad, acrobatic alter ego of blind lawyer Matt Murdock is a

Marvel superhero co-created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett for Daredevil #1, cover-
dated April, 1964. Pushing a man out of the way of a passing truck, Murdock loses
his eyesight when some of the truck’s cargo spills on his face. At the same time, how-
ever, the radioactive fl uid grants him super-acute senses of smell and touch, as well as
superhuman hearing—which also endows him with a highly sophisticated “radar sense.”
Despite never being one of Marvel’s best-sellers except for brief periods, the series has
been in continuous publication ever since and reached its 500th issue in 2009. Th e
property was made into a Hollywood fi lm starring Ben Affl eck and Jennifer Garner
in 2003. Marvel’s Daredevil is not to be confused with the character of the same name
who appeared in Lev Gleason’s comic books in the 1940s and 1950s.
“I wanted something for Bill Everett to do,” Lee recalls his impetus for Daredevil’s
creation. Recognizing that it was the fl awed nature of Marvel characters such as
Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four that readers found appealing, Lee was looking
for another hero with a “fl aw.” He says he was nervous at fi rst to introduce a superhero
who could not see, for fear of off ending blind people. Th ose fears soon turned out
to be unfounded, however, as Lee says that he began receiving letters from chari-
ties reporting of blind people who loved the idea of a blind superhero. Everett left
the series after the fi rst issue. He was followed, in quick succession, by pencillers Joe
Orlando, Wally Wood, Bob Powell and John Romita, Sr. With Daredevil #20 fi nally
released in 1966, artist Gene Colan began a run that lasted for almost seven years,
until issue #100—but even after Colan left, he has occasionally returned for shorter
stints and guest shots, most recently in 2007. Lee, meanwhile, continued writing the
series until issue #50.