During each fight, Ikari brutalizes Matt, despite Matt's years of training and experience, and is only defeated by outside forces and later killed offscreen entirely. Always Someone Better: Ikari, Daredevil's Evil Counterpart is played as this in the Mark Waid run, as a heavily skilled and similarly empowered mook of Bullseye who has the ability to see.Defeating the Owl and outsmarting the Kingpin (again), Matt returned to his friends as the world turned white.

Matt then decides to write and sell his autobiography to Kirsten's father, but this was interrupted by the Owl, who had gained new powers. Matt has trouble when confronted with the Purple Children, the children of the Purple Man, who stir up his depression again, but manages to work on it with Kirsten's help. Relaunched again, Daredevil vol 4, by Waid and Chris Samnee, saw Matt, Foggy, and Kirsten living in San Francisco, with Foggy getting cancer treatments until he has to fake his own death (again). Disbarred from practicing law in New York, Matt decides that he'll go to the one city where he previously practiced law: San Francisco. Meanwhile, Foggy himself is diagnosed with cancer and begins treatment.Įventually, in order to stop the Sons of the Serpent from taking over the city's law enforcement, Matt goes on the witness stand and reveals to the entire world that yes, he really is Daredevil. Even after defeating Bullseye, Matt still feels the pull of hopelessness and Waid finally gives him a reason: he has depression. Defeating Ikari and Lady Bullseye, Matt and Foggy realize the real villain behind everything is Bullseye, who has become completely paralyzed and is seeking revenge against Matt. Matt is eventually beaten by a new villain, Ikari, who has all of Matt's powers, but isn't blind. But the book also introduced Kirsten McDuffie, a new ADA who teases Matt about being Daredevil, and really fun moments like Matt entering a Christmas party with a sweater proclaiming 'I Am Not Daredevil.' During one crossover with Spider-Man and the Punisher, Daredevil protects a MacGuffin called the Omegadrive from being taken by Black Spectre and other evil organizations. At one point, Matt's father's remains are dug out by the Mole Man and Matt thinks he's going crazy. Which wasn't to say that the book couldn't get dark: it could and it did. So Mark Waid thought it was time for it to become a bit more fun, so when it was relaunched in volume 3, Waid and artists Marcos Martin, Paolo River, Javier Rodriguez, and Chris Samnee returned the character to his more 'swashbuckling' persona. The book had sent Matt Murdock through hell over and over again. From 1998 to 2011, Daredevil had gone to some pretty dark places.

Daredevil, Volume 4 by Mark Waid