Superheroes have a rich history of creating their worst villains. Batman knocked Joker into the vat of chemicals that transformed him. Superman blew chemicals onto Daredevil created one of his worst nemeses – although he didn’t realize it until years later.
This happened in Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.’s classic retelling of Daredevil’s origin in The Man Without Fear miniseries. Although originally a retcon of Matt Murdock’s classic origin, aspects of it have since made their way into mainstream continuity, including a very disturbing deed committed by Murdock himself…
In Stan Lee’s original telling of Daredevil’s origin, Matt Murdock apparently trained himself to use his superhuman senses after an accident with a radioactive isotope blinded him. When his boxer father Jack Murdock was murdered for not throwing a fight, Matt took some of Jack’s boxing gear, fashioned it into his first Daredevil costume, and used his costumed identity to bring those responsible to justice, thus becoming the latest in a pantheon of Marvel superheroes.
Over the years, however, Daredevil became a grimmer vigilante, and new layers were added to his origin. Frank Miller took some of these elements to give readers a more violent version of Murdock’s evolution into Daredevil in The Man Without Fear. In this version, Matt’s new superhuman senses nearly drive him insane until a mysterious blind man named Stick trains Matt to use them like weapons, grooming him to be a warrior in an unknown war. When Matt’s father is murdered, however, a vengeful Murdock puts together a crude disguise and goes out to punish the men who beat his father to death. He succeeds in taking down several of them – but when he tracks one of them to a brothel, the prostitutes in the building all begin attacking him. In his confusion, Matt lashes out – and accidentally shoves a girl out of a window, apparently to her death.
Horrified by what he did, Matt seeks out Stick, but finds his mentor has abandoned him for taking the law into his own hands and killing (albeit accidentally). Traumatized, Matt is not emotionally ready to become Daredevil, but continues practicing in secret and helping others. Only years later, after he uses his powers to save a young girl, does he finally don the familiar red costume and become Hell’s Kitchen’s “guardian devil.”
But the sins of Matt’s past still end up catching up with him. Years into his new career as a superhero, Matt becomes involved with a shy young woman named Mary Walker – who turns out to be a superhuman mutant assassin with multiple personalities. Originally calling herself “Typhoid Mary,” she attacks Daredevil with her telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers and nearly breaks him. Later, she develops a new personality, “Bloody Mary,” and tries to tear apart Spider-Man’s life.
While Mary was extremely dangerous, the fact that some of her personalities were genuinely innocent and kind made it very difficult for Daredevil or Spider-Man to fight her. At one point, Mary found the strength to keep her other personalities at bay and tried to seek treatment – but when they began to resurface, she actually hired the assassin Deadpool to kill her. Deadpool failed, but in the process, Daredevil got involved and learned a disturbing truth – Mary was the girl he had accidentally shoved out of a window on his first night as a vigilante. Unknown to Matt, Mary survived, but her personality – already unstable due to previous abuse – fractured into multiple alternate identities that threatened multiple people. As Matt Murdock – a man – had hurt her, Mary developed her original “Typhoid Mary” persona to ensure that no man would ever hurt her again.
For Matt, this revelation was both an absolution and a new form of damnation. While he was relieved that he didn’t kill Mary, he now saw that their lives had been intertangled long before he knew who she was, and that he is at least partially responsible for her madness. Fortunately, Mary continued seeking help and tried coming to with her other selves. She became the anti-hero/hero Mutant Zero for a black ops team and has also become something of a new “protector” for Hell’s Kitchen. Still, it’s almost inevitable that Mary’s villainous side(s) will later return – meaning Daredevil could have given the Marvel Universe one of its most psychotic villains… and its craziest hero.
