< Daredevil

Daredevil/Characters


Daredevil/Matt Murdock

Daredevil (Matt Murdock)

  • Alliterative Name
  • Amoral Attorney: Massively subverted. Matt refuses to represent anyone who is guilty and he can always tell.
  • Anti-Hero: Type II, turns into Type IV or V during the Shadowland event.
  • Badass
  • Badass Bookworm: Works as a lawyer by day.
  • Badass Normal: His super senses are his only real power. Everything else (His incredible athletic ability, his amazing strength) is all his.
  • Being Good Sucks: Especially if you're named Matt Murdock.
  • Blessed with Suck
  • Brooklyn Rage
  • Butt Monkey: Matt could seriously challenge Spider-Man's place as the "Most Unlucky Hero". If something good happens, You can bet it won't last and will be swiftly followed by an enexpected punch to the gut, spiritually speaking. "Born Again" is the most famous example but there are many, many others.
  • Cane Fu
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: He's a normal person who is strong enough to lift and turn over a limo.
  • Cool Shades: Almost always wears his sunglasses when not fighting crime.
  • Covered with Scars
  • The Cowl
  • Crusading Lawyer: And he puts the rest to shame. Lots of fictional hero attorneys will bend the law or risk their lives for the sake of their innocent clients, but how many will kick the ass of crime lords, ninja zombies or superhuman assassins in the process?
  • Deadpan Snarker: He's usually very stoic and serious but when he wants to, he can easily outsnark the likes of his good friend Spider-man.
  • Determinator
  • Death by Origin Story
  • Disability Superpower
  • Fighting Irish: Matt is Irish-American and definitely one of Marvel's tougher heroes. Which is not to say he enjoys inflicting violence at all.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: One of his closest (and probably only) friends is Spider-man.
  • Genius Bruiser: Is an accomplished lawyer who can also hold his own in a fight against a good portion of the MU.
  • Handicapped Badass
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: In the movie anyway, his costume is basically a modified biker gettup.
  • Honor Before Reason: Matt often faces against enemies who are a lot more powerful and capable of incredible damage, physically and personally. He even refuses to defend guilty clients, which is why his law firm is usually broke.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal
  • Kick the Son of a Bitch: His exceptionally violent and brutal murder of Bullseye was supposed to show he had gone off the deep end, but considering who Bullseye is, there isn't a person alive who can fault Matt for doing what he did.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: You could probably count the number of times Matt's been happy on one hand. He could be written as a villain and you'd still be sympathetic to him. Despite this, he keeps on going. This trope could probably be renamed "Knight in sour red leather".
  • Living Lie Detector: He can determine if someone is lying by listening to their heartbeat.
  • Missing Mom
  • Really Gets Around: It really wouldn't be surprising to learn Matt has slept with every attractive woman in the Marvel Universe. Or at least, New York City.
  • Redheaded Hero
  • Samaritan Syndrome
  • Sunglasses at Night
  • The Stoic
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: While it was a Silver Age rule, it fits very well with Matt's Catholic side and his father's moral advice. It's still abided by even as his stories get darker.
  • Upbringing Makes the Hero: His father Jack raised him on his own and taught Matt not to use vioelnce and that he could be someone great one day. Fittingly Jack's murder is what convinced Matt to become Daredevil.


Allies

Franklin "Foggy" Nelson

Ben Urich

  • Badass Normal: Not for his fighting skills (he doesn't have any) so much as his guts; be you Wilson Fisk or Norman Osborn, even if you put the fear of God into him, sooner or later this man will stand up to and expose you knowing he risks he takes with his life.
  • Cool Uncle: To his sometime superhero nephew Phil (at least, until Phil went Ax Crazy, did a Face Heel Turn and became the newest Hobgoblin).
  • Intrepid Reporter
  • Secret Keeper: For Matt. He may also know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.


Girlfriends

Elektra

Karen Page

Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)

Echo / Ronin (Maya Lopez)

Milla Donovan

The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk)

  • Acrofatic
  • Arch Enemy: One of two with Bullseye, though between the two the war between Fisk and Murdock is a closer example of this trope.
  • Badass Normal: Can hold his own against actual superhumans, though how well is Depending on the Writer. Once outsmarted Iron Man, despite the latter being far more intelligent, by tricking him into taking out some of his rivals. While in prison.
  • Bald of Evil
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Can veer into this at times, though it was more prominent when he was a Spidey villain.
  • The Chessmaster: He's always this, but in his prime in particular he controlled nearly all organized crime on the East Coast, and even had a general in his pocket.
  • Diabolical Mastermind
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His wife and son, even after both tried to kill him.
  • Evil Is Petty: He seems to really have it in for costumed crimefighters and can never simply try and "kill" them; he has to utterly humiliate them and ruin their lives first. This goes about as well as you'd expect.
  • Genius Bruiser
  • Genre Savvy: Sometimes. His reaction to the Never Found the Body trope is "Oh Crap".
  • It's Personal: Both Fisk and Murdock can go to pretty extreme lengths to get at each other. Both have went out of their way to ruin each others businesses, several times. Fisk has set Matt up with girlfriends who were secretly assassins after Daredevil; Matt made Fisk miss his own wifes funeral; Fisk has Matt's friends beaten up; Matt beats up Fisk...it goes on. On at least two occasions Kingpin was on the verge of getting his old empire back, and Matt stopped him by taking it for himself. Both were What the Hell, Hero? moments- he did it mainly just to screw Fisk over.
  • Large and In Charge: 6'7 and 400lbs of pure muscle.
  • Lightning Bruiser: When Spidey, Daredevil and other heroes had their first fights with him, what surprised them most was how damn fast he was.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • Necessarily Evil: He was once forced into retirement by his wife after she found out about his life of crime; he was then forced back out of retirement because of threats against him and his family, made by an underling who thought he was doing Fisk a favour. Which was a textbook case of Too Dumb to Live.
  • Revenge Before Reason: In Born Again his underlings kept calling him out on it- this was a mistake, but they were right and his revenge scheme blows his plans to move into legitimate business out of the water as they result in him being publicly exposed as a crime lord. In Civil War he has Spidermans' Aunt May shot, to goad Spidey into a fight so he could show all the goons in prison he was still in charge- Spiderman beats the hell out of him, and warns the crowd if he or anyone tries something that again he'll come back and kill them.
  • Revenge by Proxy: The Aunt May example, but he's went after Matt by attacking Foggy Nelson before, and through his girlfriends and other associates.
  • Rogues Gallery Transplant: Perhaps the most successful example of this trope. Started out as an A-list Spider-Man villain, then was promoted to Daredevil's Arch Enemy.
  • Self-Made Man
  • The Syndicate
  • Villainous Valor: Can be generally counted on to keep his word; genuinelly cares for his own family; sees his enemies in Worthy Opponent terms (sometimes) and will treat his underlings with respect so long as they don't fail or betray him.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Previously.


Bullseye

  • Abusive Parents: One of the few constants to his Multiple Choice Past is that one or both of his parents beat him when he was a kid. Another constant is that they stopped doing it because he murdered them.
  • Asshole Victim: Hoo boy, did he have it coming from Matt. If there was one person in the MU who deserved such a violent death, it was Bullseye.
  • Ax Crazy: One of the single most psychotic characters in the MU.
  • Badass Normal: He is at the absolute peak of human physicality and possesses astonishing skill with weapons but has no real powers.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Previously.
  • Bald of Evil: Currently, now with a bonus bullseye that was once tattooed but is now scarred onto his forehead.
  • Brooklyn Rage
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: He had tremendous potential as an athlete and Baseball player due to his expert marksmanship but his psycopathic nature came out and he killed a player. He actually does make a lot of money as an assassin but he never spends any of it (He believes he may have more money than Norman Osborn from his jobs).
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • The Dragon: To Kingpin.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: In the "Shadowland" arc.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Daredevil. He represents the path Matt could have gone down with similar circumstances and abilities.
  • For the Evulz: Bullseye is a paid mercenary and earns a sizable fee for his murders.... But he recently revealed he barely ever spends it since he'd rather spend his time killing even more people. He even states that he's gotten so much cash over the years for his various jobs he's probably richer than Norman Osborn.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: They don't call him "Bullseye" for nothing.
  • Improvised Weapon: Things that Bullseye has used as weapons include, but are by no means limited to, playing cards, paperclips, toothpicks, paper airplanes, golf balls, peanuts, and several of his own teeth.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Listing all the things he can kill you with would take up this entire page.
  • Knife Nut: He's an expert marksman and uses firearms on occasion but prefers to use blades and improvised weapons instead.
  • Multiple Choice Past: Ask him for his backstory and he'll give a different story each time. The only thing that ever remains consistent any time he talks about his past is that he had Abusive Parents, that he kills his parents and that he was a baseball player before becoming a Killer for Hire.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: We've never found out his real name.
  • Professional Killer: Assassin.
  • Psycho for Hire: At one point, he reveals that he has spent basically none of the money he has made from his assassinations over the years. Money is just a handy way to keep score.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: He will find You even if it takes him to the ends of the earth.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Details about where and when vary, but he does often state how he murdered his parents.

Psychologist: And you say your father beat you?
Bullseye: Yes, until I was fourteen.
Psychologist: Hmmm. I see. And what happened then.
Bullseye: (kills psychologist with a voice recorder) I killed him.

Stiltman

Typhoid Mary

The Owl

Mr Fear (Larry Cranston)

Purple Man

  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Go on, just guess where he got his name.
  • Arch Enemy: To Jessica Jones and her husband, Luke Cage.
  • Back from the Dead: He died in Emperor Doom. They had a funeral in the pages of Alpha Flight and everything. Ten years later, he came back.
  • Color Character
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Invoked. He retired for a while in The Seventies, when he realized he didn't need to be a villain for the money when he could just make people give him what he wanted.
  • For the Evulz: That didn't stop him from doing really, really nasty things to people just because he could.
  • Healing Factor: Retconned to have one, Norman Osborn-style, when they decided to bring him back 10 years after his "death" in Emperor Doom.
  • The Hedonist: Since coming back from retirement, he is rarely seen without a mind-controlled woman (or a harem of them) on his arm.
  • Kick the Dog: He once stopped an entire restaurant from breathing so he could eat his eggs in peace.
  • Love Is in the Air: He has super-enhanced pheromones.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • Medium Awareness In Alias.
  • Mind Control: His power.
  • Mind Rape: Lots of people, but what he did to his wife and Jessica Jones stands out.
  • Morality Pet: Subverted. Learning he has a daughter seems to have made him worse, since he thinks she'll love him if he can conquer the world.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Writers have turned from a camp, one note bad guy to a full-fledged Complete Monster.
  • Oh Crap: In the first New Avengers arc, Purple Man appears and intends to use his powers to make Luke Cage attack the other assembled heroes. He also makes obvious threats toward Jessica Jones and her and Cage's unborn child. Cage then informs the unaware villain that his food contained special drugs designed to negate his powers. Purple Man has a look of sheer terror before Cage moves in on him.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Many times, most horrifically when he ordered thirty-odd innocent bystanders at a Denny's to stop breathing so he could enjoy his eggs in peace.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: One of the reasons why he is regarded as such a vile villain.
  • Resignations Not Accepted: When he tried to retire from villainy, Big Bads like the Kingpin and Doctor Doom kept pulling him back in.
  • Take Over the World: His motivation since coming out of retirement.
  • Took a Level in Badass: The year-long Daredevil storyline where he manipulated the father of Daredevil's girlfriend (who was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation) into letting him take over the company and bankrolling his anti-Daredevil efforts. The story ended with the father being Driven to Suicide, the girlfriend breaking up with Daredevil, and the Horned One being whaled on by four of his toughest foes at the same time.
  • Turn Out Like Her Father: One of several very good reasons why his ex-wife kept his daughter far away from him.
    • Of course in the new Alpha Flight book, she did a Face Heel Turn and now calls herself Purple Woman...So the apple didn't fall far...

Bushwacker

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