Daredevil vs Death: 10 Times Daredevil Killed Someone

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There are very few heroes who cross the line and use lethal force, and Daredevil has certainly tried his best to never take the life of another person. Unfortunately, when someone has been fighting crime for decades, there’s bound to be a few mistakes here or there. While Daredevil strives to avoid using lethal force and to avoid being like the Punisher, there have been a few people that Daredevil has killed in his history.

When someone is running through the streets in the middle of the night and punching people in the head or hitting them with giant metal batons, accidents happen. Daredevil is a deeply religious person and has always tried to avoid using lethal force, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. That’s the unfortunate nature of things, and while Daredevil has certainly never enjoyed taking another person’s life, the fact remains that he has done so – several times, in fact.

10

Heather Glenn

Daredevil #220 by Denny O’Neil, David Mazzucchelli, Christie Scheele, and Joe Rosen

It’s well known that Matt Murdock absolutely loves women. Just about any woman who is left alone in a room with Matt is going to end up in a relationship with him. What’s not as well-known is how utterly horrible he can often be to them. Matt had a long-lasting relationship with Heather Glenn, and it ultimately resulted in her taking her own life due to the trauma.

Heather continually tried to break up with Matt Murdock, but she ended up reconciling with him and dating him again. When Glenn gained control over her father’s company, instead of supporting her, Matt tried to manipulate her into giving up control of the company so that she’d be forced into accepting his marriage proposal. Ultimately, Heather lost her company, lost all of her friends, and ended up taking her own life, despite begging Matt to save her, which were pleas he ultimately ignored.

9

The Fixer

Daredevil #164 by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Glynis Oliver, and John Costanza

Losing his eyesight at a young age was a tragedy for Matt Murdock, but the biggest tragedy was losing his father not shortly after. Matt was left as a blind orphan, and it was entirely due to the machinations of the Fixer. Jack Murdock tried to earn a living for his son as a boxer, but just before his title match he was told to take a dive. Not wanting to disappoint his son, Jack proceeded to win the fight in spectacular fashion, costing the mob a lot of money.

Wanting to make an example of Jack, the Fixer sent his men to brutalize him, leaving Matt’s father for dead in an alleyway and orphaning the future hero. Eventually, when Matt had trained and grown up, he managed to track the Fixer down and chased him into a subway. There, the Fixer suffered a heart attack and died on the spot.

8

Mysterio

The “Guardian Devil” Story Begins in Daredevil #1 by Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, Jimmy Palmiotti, Brian Haberlin, Dan Kemp, and Liz Agraphiotis

Another example of Daredevil not technically taking someone’s life, but certainly not helping, is in the “Guardian Devil” storyline from 1998. In this story, Daredevil is manipulated into protecting a young baby who is stated to be the newborn Messiah. What follows is a bunch of characters fighting over this baby, and Daredevil even attempting to throw the baby off a skyscraper after briefly being convinced that it was the anti-Christ.

All of this is eventually revealed to be the manipulations of Mysterio, who is suffering from a tumor. On the verge of death, Mysterio wanted to attempt driving Daredevil insane as his final act of villainy. After Mysterio is exposed, Daredevil pretty brutally takes him down, not just physically, but verbally. Using some well-placed insults and observations, Daredevil essentially talks Mysterio into killing himself, as Daredevil’s inner monologue clearly shows that he’s aware of what Mysterio is going to do.

7

A Mugger

Daredevil #2 by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Sunny Gho, and Clayton Cowles

Daredevil does his absolute best not to kill anyone while he’s out on patrol, but when he’s punching random people in the face or hitting them with batons, he can only be so careful. Even with his superpowers, he can’t always determine the exact amount of force that’s appropriate to use at any given time. While he is usually fine with how he deals with criminals, there have been a few times when the force Daredevil uses has ended up being too much.

While stopping an average robbery, Daredevil simply ended up hitting one thug in just the exact wrong way. Daredevil crossed a line that he didn’t even intend to cross. It’s not like some supervillain pushed him too far and Daredevil finally snapped. He just bonked a guy in the perfectly wrong way, and he died.

6

Two Mobsters

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #4 by Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., Al Williamson, and Christie Scheele

After discovering that Kingpin is keeping a warehouse of kidnapped children, Matt decides to launch an attack on the warehouse to rescue them. His first obstacle is a pair of goons standing on the docks, and naturally, Daredevil has a plan to take them out, but it’s surprisingly brutal. Daredevil knocks the two guys down into the water. When one of the mobsters pulls a knife, Daredevil redirects it onto the mobster, killing him.

While Daredevil states that he had no choice, that’s definitely not the case for the other guy. The other man is simply too large to swim, and he is dragged down by the grenades and ammunition on him. Daredevil simply allows this guy to drown, making absolutely no effort to save him at all, even though he definitely could have. It’s a surprisingly vicious way to deal with the two criminals, but it certainly got the job done.

5

Larks

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #4 by Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., Al Williamson, and Christie Scheele

While Daredevil prefers to avoid killing if possible, sometimes it’s unavoidable, especially when Matt was just starting out and innocent lives were at stake. This was the case when Kingpin sent Larks, his number-one hitman, after someone. Desperate to save the girl, Daredevil pleaded with Larks to let her go. Daredevil continually repeated that he didn’t want to kill Larks and truly just wanted to save the girl.

Unfortunately, Larks was unmoved by these pleas and continued taking shots at Daredevil, but Matt continually deflected them. Seeing that Larks wasn’t going to give up, Daredevil finally deflected one of the bullets directly into Larks’ head, killing him instantly. While it was certainly a brutal death, it was also one that Matt saw as unavoidable, as Larks simply refused to relent and set his hostage free.

4

Kingpin

Daredevil: End of Days #1 by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Hollingsworth, and Joe Caramagna

Daredevil and Kingpin have been fighting one another for a long time. Daredevil has tried just about everything he can to handle Kingpin. He’s tried running Kingpin out of New York; he’s tried becoming Kingpin himself; he’s tried putting Kingpin in prison. Absolutely nothing has worked, which leads Daredevil to try one final, desperate solution: killing Kingpin. It’s a horrific choice, but it seems one that Matt is destined to make.

Kingpin and Daredevil have killed each other several times across the Marvel multiverse. In What If #2 by Danny Fingeroth and Greg Capullo, Matt Murdock once again finds himself being pushed to his limits by Kingpin. But in this alternate version of Born Again, Matt simply shows up and shoots Kingpin with a gun, killing him once and for all, plunging New York into a gang war. Matt eventually begs the Punisher to kill him for his sins. It’s kind of a mess.

3

Nick Fury

What If?: Daredevil vs. Elektra #1 by Karl Bollers, Rafael Kyanan, Lovern Kindzierski, and Jeff Powell

One of the things that makes the Hand such a nasty enemy is that they’re capable of reviving fallen enemies as their new allies. They’ve done this trick many times, such as with Elektra and even Wolverine. But in this What If? story, it wasn’t Elektra who was killed and resurrected, but Matt Murdock. Now under the thrall of the Hand, Matt Murdock attacked a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, decapitating the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury.

It was a brutal blow to the heroes of the world, and Matt’s murders only continued from there. Very rarely do readers get to see an evil version of Matt Murdock, and while this one was brainwashed, he was nonetheless one of the most vicious assassins that the Hand ever had, and Matt happily carried out their sadistic orders as he cut his way through the Marvel universe.

Daredevil: Reborn #3 by Andy Diggle, Davide Gianfelice, Matt Hollingsworth, and Joe Caramagna

Daredevil and Spider-Man usually get along pretty well, but that definitely was not the case on Earth-11053. On Earth-616, Daredevil was corrupted by the Hand and ended up becoming the avatar of the Beast, the God that the Hand worships. A possessed Daredevil got into a major conflict with several heroes, such as Spider-Man, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. In 616, Daredevil managed to regain control of himself and was saved from the Beast’s influence, but that wasn’t what happened on Earth-11053.

On Earth-11053, Daredevil fully succumbed to the Beast’s control and ended up slaughtering his former friends, including Spider-Man, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and Iron Fist. They all fell before Daredevil’s new demonic power, and the world was then presumably conquered by the Hand shortly after. It’s a pretty dark ending for the world, and it’s likely for the best that readers never got to see more than a glimpse of it.

1

Bullseye

Shadowland #1 by Andy Diggle, Billy Tan, Matt Banning, Christina Strain, and Joe Caramagna

Narratively, one of Daredevil’s worst kills was Bullseye. While it might seem more justified that Daredevil would kill Bullseye than anyone else, it was honestly a terrible mistake. Daredevil killed Bullseye of his own free will. He wasn’t manipulated into doing it, and killing Bullseye is what led the Beast to start to take control over Daredevil’s body and mind.

If Matt hadn’t killed Bullseye, then the majority of Shadowland would never have happened. A lot of death and chaos would have been averted if Matt had simply stuck to his rule of not using lethal force. But because of the history between the two, Daredevil finally gave into his dark impulses and everyone on the planet nearly paid the price. No matter how justified it might seem, this is definitely Daredevil’s most brutal kill.

“}]] Daredevil has killed more than you might think.  Read More