I’m not seeking penance for what I’ve done.

Born and raised in the working class neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, Matt Murdock learned at a young age that the path to righteousness was not always a straight line. His grandmother imparted to him her staunch Catholic faith, but it was at his father's knee that Matt came to truly understand the meaning of devotion, strength and sacrifice. "Battlin" Jack Murdock, professional boxer and single parent, knew that getting knocked down wasn't the same as getting knocked out, and after 9 year-old Matt was blinded, that knowledge became a mantra.

What Jack didn't know was that the heroic accident that rendered Matt blind also heightened his other senses: Suddenly, the world was a cacophany of sounds, scents and sensations. Not even a year after the accident, Matt's father would be murdered for failing to throw a fight, but Matt would eventually find a new mentor who would teach him how to hone his abilities and master martial arts. Unfortunately, the mastery of his own emotions was less successful.

With a driving need to help others and the ever-present memory of his father, Matt would go on to graduate from Columbia Law School with summa cum laude honors. While at Columbia, he would befriend his roommate, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, who just happened to also be from the old neighborhood. Together, they would complete a successful internship at a large law office but then turn their attention to their own practice, with an eye toward offering legitimate support to the working class people of Hell's Kitchen. Matt, however, began to secretly offer the neighborhood a different brand of protection.

Thwarting petty criminals while all in black rapidly grew into a personal vendetta against the Kitchen's entrenched organized crime and its kingpin Wilson Fisk. The masked "Devil of Hell's Kitchen" evolved into a fully-fledged vigilante superhero in his own right, the Daredevil, and while Matt may have a fancy new costume and impressive reputation, he still hasn't mastered the dichotomy of daytime logic and nighttime retribution. Try as he might to be cool and pragmatic, his inherited ferocity continues to burn just beneath the surface.




Matt likes the ladies, probably more than he should considering his circumstances. As certain people could tell you, loving Matt is easy, but the reality of the burden he chooses to shoulder makes it difficult to have a healthy, functioning relationship of any kind. To care about Matt is to never know when he might come home half-alive, or whether he will come home at all, because while Matt feels deeply for those he loves, the conviction which drives him to the rooftops each night is immovable. He cannot and will not promise to stop, not when it comes to his city. Murdocks never quit.

Of course, because Matt is a man who feels deeply, he doesn't necessarily have the self-discipline to be distant and enigmatic like your typical tortured antihero. His effortless charm is ever-present, and he might be blind, but he's not unaware of being attractive. He's a realist, but there's an indelible romantic streak in there, too, and that makes him emotionally dangerous.

This isn't to say that having Matt Murdock in your life is without its rewards. He genuinely wants and strives to be a good guy. He's loyal to a fault, and has a huge heart that he wears much too readily on his sleeve. He just also has a tendency to get so focused on the moment that he loses sight of the bigger repurcussions of his actions. For the average guy this might not be such a problem, but for Matt, it can mean that people's feelings end up as Daredevil's collateral damage.