Daredevil

Before Netflix there was Daredevil, the 2003 movie with Ben Affleck, which has no connection to the current version.

In the series, Matt is the son of Jack Murdock, a washed-up boxer. As a boy, he saves an old man from being hit by a truck and is struck by chemicals that leave him blind. His other senses shoot up. Soon after, his father is killed for refusing to throw a fixed fight. Orphaned, Matt is trained by Stick, an old blind warrior who teaches him to fight and control what he senses.

As an adult, Matt opens a small law office with his best friend, Foggy Nelson, and hires Karen Page. At night, dressed in black with a mask, he hunts criminals on the streets. He soon finds out that almost everything in Hell's Kitchen leads to Wilson Fisk, a businessman who presents himself as the neighborhood's savior and controls organized crime.

The war against Fisk comes at a high cost. Reporter Ben Urich is murdered, and Foggy learns Matt's secret in the worst way possible, shaking their friendship. At the end of season one, Fisk goes to prison, and Matt debuts the red suit. The papers dub him Daredevil.

Season two brings in Frank Castle, the Punisher, whose idea of justice always ends in bodies, and Elektra, the ex-girlfriend who comes back tangled up with the Hand, an ancient ninja organization. Elektra dies at the end of the season, the law firm falls apart, and Matt tells Karen who he is.

In The Defenders, he teams up with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist against the Hand, which has brought Elektra back as a weapon. To stop it all, Matt stays behind in a collapsing building. Everyone assumes he's dead.

Matt wakes up in a Catholic orphanage, cared for by Sister Maggie, who he later learns is his mother. He's deaf in one ear, has lost his faith, and wants to walk away from being Matt Murdock. Meanwhile, Fisk gets out of prison through a deal with the FBI and turns Agent Benjamin Poindexter into a fake Daredevil who kills on his behalf.

With help from Karen and Foggy, Matt takes Fisk down again, and this time without killing him. The season ends with the three of them back together and a promise to reopen the firm.

Matt's first appearance in an MCU movie is brief. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, after Mysterio reveals Spider-Man's identity, Matt is the lawyer who gets Peter Parker cleared of the charges. He also catches a brick thrown through the house's window, without even looking.

In She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, episode 8, Matt faces Jennifer Walters in court, defending a fashion designer against the hero Leap-Frog. Outside the courtroom the two fight and end up together, with Matt wearing a yellow-and-red suit that recalls the early comics. He also appears at the end of episode 9.

In Echo, Daredevil fights Maya Lopez in a flashback in the first episode, when she was still working for Fisk.

Daredevil: Born Again premiered March 4, 2025, on Disney+. In the very first episode, Bullseye kills Foggy at Josie's bar. Matt nearly kills the killer and, after that, hangs up the suit for a year.

In the meantime, Fisk becomes mayor of New York promising to get rid of vigilantes and creates a police task force to do it. Matt dates therapist Heather Glenn, defends the vigilante White Tiger in court, and puts the suit back on when Hector Ayala is murdered and a serial killer called Muse starts striking. When Bullseye escapes and shoots Fisk, Matt takes the bullet to save his enemy. In the final stretch, Matt learns that Vanessa Fisk ordered Foggy's death and, facing the martial law declared by the mayor, starts gathering allies to resist.

Season two premiered March 24, 2026, with eight episodes. Matt leads the resistance against Fisk's administration, alongside Karen, with whom he rekindles their romance, and with backup from Jessica Jones. Vanessa dies of wounds from a clash, and Fisk becomes even more ruthless.

Karen is arrested at a protest and put on trial, with Matt as her lawyer. In the final episode, "The Southern Cross", he reveals in open court that he is Daredevil, and the confession serves as evidence to clear Karen and expose Fisk's crimes. Under pressure, Fisk agrees to leave New York and ends up alone, far from everything. Matt pays the price: he walks out of the courtroom under arrest. A third season has already been confirmed.

Created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, Daredevil debuted in Daredevil #1 in 1964. Frank Miller's run in the early '80s gave the character the dark, street-level tone the shows adopted, and the Born Again arc, by Miller and David Mazzucchelli, lends its name to the Disney+ series.