Daredevil / Matthew Murdock

Matt Murdock begins with a troubled youth. His single father, Jack Murdock, raises him to become more than he could be and to never instigate a fight. Jack "The Devil" Murdock had once been a prizefighter, but gave it up to raise his son. One day, as Matt walks home from school, he sees his father working as a thug for Fallon, a well-known crime lord. Distraught, Matt flees the scene and accidentally forces a fork-lift to pierce some toxic waste canisters. The chemical bath leaves him blind and physically scared, but father and son grow closer and stronger. Jack trains to fight again and Matt adjusts to his new life as a blind twelve-year-old, excelling in his studies.

However, Matt is not totally blind. His remaining senses are tuned to super-human sensitivity, so much so that he could "see" sound waves. His sense of touch is so sensitive that when he first woke up in the hospital he couldn't remove the bandages over his eyes because they scratched his fingertips. He can smell someone outside a building walking towards him and even make out conversations over police radios from several blocks away. Slowly, Matt learns to control his abilities until he became as good a fighter as his father, able to defend himself from the bullies in Hell's Kitchen. He vows never to let the underdog win, to stand up for the little guy, because no one ever stood up for him.

As Jack climbs towards the heavy-weight title, his old employer, Fallon, approaches him and informs Jack he needed to take a fall or there will be consequences. Distraught, Jack sees his son in the audience as he cheers for his father. At the last moment, Jack knocks out his opponent, winning the fight. Outside, though, a group of thugs ambushes and beats him to death as Matt hears everything, powerless to stop them.

Cradling his father's body, Matt makes a life-changing decision…

"I would keep my promise. I would help those that others wouldn't. I would seek justice, one way or another…"

Matt kept his word. For years, he hunts criminals in true vigilante fashion, sometimes leaving them to die, but never killing them himself. He never questioned his methods. By day, he is a lawyer representing those who cannot afford to pay a lawyer's fees. By night, he is Daredevil, a myth to some and final justice for others. Soon, though, he questions his agenda after ambushing a thug and nearly beating him to death in front of his son. Later he questions himself further when he is unable to save Nicolas Natchios, father of his true love, Electra Natchios. After Electra is killed by a psychopathic assassin named Bullseye, Matt's lust for revenge explodes and, on the brink of taking a life with his own hands, he stops himself.

Wounded but alive, Matt puts his father's memory to rest and continues as Daredevil, not as a punisher, but as a protector.