Being a superhero isn’t easy. Not by any means. For most, it seems their lives are just a series of down times that are mostly caused by their secret identity. Perhaps no hero is more haunted than Daredevil (Matt Murdock), a man who has turned brooding into an artform and heartbreak into a way-of-life. With Andy Diggle’s current “Shadowland” event seemingly turning Matt into a villain and Marvel teasing “The End of Daredevil,” we may have reached the bottom of the well for The Man without Fear.
This brings us to our latest edition of Multiversity Comics Countdown: Daredevil’s Happiest Moments. For the man who is as cursed as anyone in comics, it got me to thinking…what has made him happy in his life? I take a look at what are perhaps the five happiest moments in the character’s history (chronlogical order) along with a special twist you’ll read about after the jump. Let’s just say the good is just precursor to more bad.
Also, a quick shout out Kuljit Mithra from ManWithouFear.com for weighing in on this for me.
“Battling” Jack Murdock wins one for his son
The Heartfelt Moment: Matt’s father Jack was a boxer by trade, and also the man who raised him and instilled upon him his innate sense of right and wrong and to approach life intelligently instead of always with his fist. He was the most important man in Matt’s life. One night, Matt and his best friend Foggy Nelson come by the ring to watch Jack fight. Inspired by his son, Jack wins one for him.
Matt’s gleeful response in the locker room afterwards said it all. “You did it, Dad! You proved nothing’s impossible if a man has the courage! If a man’s not afraid!”
The Aftermath: Well, nothing is impossible, Matt – unless you double-cross the gangster who instructed you to throw the fight (surprisingly loudly from ringside even, as you can see from the image above — isn’t it a bad idea for a gangster to announce that the fighter was supposed to take a dive in front of everyone?). In that case everything becomes impossible because you’re dead and “Battling” Jack Murdock and not Jean Grey.
So that happy moment quickly became both the saddest moment of his life and the reason Matt becomes Daredevil. Thanks, Pop!
Meeting Elektra at Columbia University
The Heartfelt Moment: “Matt does not see. But he smells a delicate French perfume and hears a voice soft as velvet.”
As a student at Columbia University, walking with his clumsy best friend Foggy, Matt first meets the ravishing Elektra Natchios. He was spellbound from the very first moment, and quickly (the next page) went about attempting to woo the new student from Greece. They quickly fall in love, and it’s the first love for the both of these characters.
Note: In case you were wondering, I meant this scene from the Daredevil movie in no way.
The Aftermath: Well, this could be a long one. I mean, come on – when he first met her she threatened him with martial arts! You had to know she wasn’t ordinary.
After a year together, Elektra’s father was killed by police accidentally when terrorists took her and her father hostage. This led to her fleeing to develop her martial arts abilities, training to be an assassin by The Hand, becoming the primary assassin for the Kingpin, attempting to kill Matt, Foggy, and Ben Urich multiple times, and then being mortally wounded by Bullseye, left with just enough life left in her to crawl to Matt’s home and die in his arms.
And that was just the first time she was alive (and not a Skrull). And I thought I was bad with women!
Meeting Karen Page
The Heartfelt Moment: Since the very first time they met her, both Foggy and Matt were in love with their secretary Karen Page. However, she only had eyes for one man: Matt. Well, and his alter-ego Daredevil (although she didn’t know that). She was smitten with both parts of Matt, and they quickly became one of the most loving couples in comics. Kind of.
The Aftermath: Perhaps the only time with Matt that can out-sordid his history with Elektra, Karen Page makes the worst girlfriend you’ve ever had look like one of the girls from pre-color Pleasantville.
After they met, she pretty much spent all of her time coming and going in the most harmful way humanly possible. Let’s go down the list:
- Matt reveals his Daredevil identity to Karen. Karen’s response: “Yeah, I’m moving to California.”
- After she finds work in California as a soap star, that falls through and she becomes addicted to heroin and starts filming porn. She’s so hooked on heroin that she sells Matt’s secret identity to a drug dealer (Matt: “Hello, trust issues.”).
- Matt helps her back on her feet after the whole “Born Again” arc gets wrapped up, until Karen discovers that he’s been manipulated into an affair with Typhoid Mary (Karen: “Hello, trust issues.”)
- They get back together until she realizes she’s become too dependent on Matt. Back to California for her, because god only knows that worked so well the first time.
- Dr. Mysterio (something about that name seems fishy) tells Karen in California that she’s HIV positive (he left out the “lol jk” part until she left the office). She goes back to tell Matt and gets killed by Bullseye in the process.
I don’t know about you guys, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten back together with Karen any of those times. I mean, sure, she’s pretty and all but this girl has serious baggage. That happiest moment turned into a really unhappy 30+ years.
“Nelson and Murdock!”
The Heartfelt Moment: Immediately after the “Guardian Devil” arc in which Karen died, Matt finds himself independently wealthy (he’s Karen’s sole beneficiary… apparently she became rich from her extremely varied and often sordid career). Matt meets Foggy at the grounds of his old home and proposed a new partnership: a new and improved law firm!
“Nelson and Murdock!” indeed.
The Aftermath: Well, it goes well for a while, until one of their clients (one “Matt Murdock” who is in Ryker’s for being a vigilante or something) ends up accidentally getting Foggy killed when he visited. Much to Matt’s chagrin, as he goes on a rampage throughout Ryker’s disposing of common crooks in Gen Pop as prolifically as Mel Gibson goes on racism based diatribes. This leads to a pretty dark period in Matt’s life where his guiding light and hetero life mate Foggy Nelson is nowhere to be found.
Meeting Milla Donovan
The Heartfelt Moment: Matt (in Daredevil garb) saves a blind woman named Milla Donovan, who quickly falls for him (and he for her).
The Aftermath: Well, they get married completely off-panel. So that was neat… except for the part where their relationship is mostly awful. The marriage is quickly annulled because she fears that their marriage happened because he was having an emotional breakdown, she’s repeatedly traumatized by attacks and Matt going to jail, and eventually is driven insane and accidentally murders someone. She’s put in an insane asylum and even though she pretty much hates Matt (and her parents hate him too), he refuses to divorce her (somewhere in there they got off-panel married again).
Then Lady Bullseye arrives disguised as Milla’s lawyer and shows her parents photos of Matt and PI Dakota North sleeping together. Matt quickly signs the divorce papers in what can only be described as a mercy killing.
At this point, I wonder if something good happens and Matt instinctively responds with a thought bubble that just says, “Shit. Not again.”
