Being relatable is not something superheroes do all that often, as a general rule. It is difficult to imagine Batman relaxing in his calm apartment, listening to Nat King Cole, or thinking of Superman as anything less than a deity. Marvel, on the other hand, has an incredible capacity to create superheroes who captivate, enthrall, and make you feel like you are a part of their journey because they are so much like you.
Tom Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker, the nerdy, quip-ready, uber-genius knucklehead invented by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko all the way back in 1962, is one of the reasons why Spider-Man: No Way Home did so well at the box office. It is also why, no matter how hard you try (and they tried extremely hard in 2003), getting people to detest Daredevil is difficult.
Matthew Murdock remains one of the most genuinely inspiring superheroes in comic book history, despite his more recent brush with the dark side leaving him in an existential crisis from which he had to actually piece himself back together. Since 1964, The Man Without Fear has utilized his brains and brawns to throw bad men in jail, all while demonstrating to the world that you are more than your condition.
To be fair, this has not stopped his adversaries from utilizing it for their own gain; and given his field of operations, it is no surprise the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has lost his mind on a few occasions. Let us take a look at the worst of the bunch: Daredevil’s 8 Most Powerful And Deadly Villains – Explored.
Bullseye
Has there been a supervillain name that more accurately describes what they’re really, really good at? Bullseye’s backstory, much like the lunatic marksmen himself, is all over the place. Elektra Vol. 2 #2, Bullseye tells his recently-resurrected nemesis that he got his moniker after painting a bulls-eye on his abusive father’s head and hitting the spot with godlike accuracy.
In Bullseye: Greatest Hits #1, he tells the interrogators from the NSA that he had an older brother who couldn’t take their father’s abuses and burnt down their childhood home with their mother still inside. After leaving the scene of his most-prominent mental scar, a young Lester would go on to become a Baseball pitcher whose pitch-perfect accuracy meant every game became progressively boring for him.
After only 3 professional games, he would find his calling as a supervillain when, in a fit of annoyance, he throws the ball directly at his opponent’s skull, instantly killing him and scoring his first Bullseye. By his own admission, all of this could have might as well been fabricated; what isn’t a lie, though, is that Bullseye never misses.
He has the uncanny ability to turn anything- and we mean anything- into a lethal projectile that he can hurl at an insane 105m/h. He has outright killed targets with a nail, a playing card, and even his own tooth which he actually managed to get through his opponent’s skull. His aim is unerring, and he can wield any conventional weapon perfectly.
Besides his pinpoint accuracy, Bullseye is also a master martial artist and assassin, aware of every pressure point on the human body and capable of blending multiple fighting styles into his arsenal to take down hordes of opponents at once; like he did during the Shadowl and storyline where he took out an entire wave of ninjas without breaking a sweat.
His Olympic level conditioning and acrobatic skills give him peak human strength, speed, reflexes, endurance as well as flexibility, allowing him to fight for hours on end. And what’s more, when he fatally broke several bones after falling from a rooftop, including his skull, spine & fist bones, he received an adamantium graft, drastically boosting his physical endurance and strength.
He debuted in Daredevil #131 and has since been a defining counterpart to the Man Without Fear, obsessing over the fact that he just can’t seem to kill Daredevil despite scoring the W on their first encounter. They meet in several mob-affiliated and independent clashes, with Daredevil’s victories traumatizing Bullseye to the point he started hallucinating his presence everywhere he went.
That, and a brain tumor drove the marksman insane, a trait that couldn’t be cured even after a successful surgery; for a brief time he ended up convincing himself that he was, in fact, the real Daredevil, so go figure it out for yourself.
He has made it his life’s mission to torment Daredevil, even going so far as killing two of his love interests- Karen Page, and the more infamous murder of Elektra in the iconic Daredevil #181. Bullseye is a Top 2 Daredevil villain, who is inextricably linked to the character’s legacy.
Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin
This guy is the other half of Daredevil’s Top 2 Career-Defining Villains duology, and is arguably his arch enemy. Though Wilson Fisk was introduced as and continues to be one of the primary villains of Spider-Man, it only makes sense that the man known as The Kingpin would eventually end up tussling with the law. He just happened to pick the worst lawyer to possibly order a hit on.
Fisk grew up on the mean streets of New York City, and he’d seen just how bad a hand life can deal you. He was born into poverty, his father was a crack addict, and circumstances led him to kill his first man at 12. Somewhere along the line, the young Fisk decided to play the game instead of trying to run from it and dedicated himself to a life of crime.
He acquired every bit of knowledge he could about science, art, and political studies in his pursuit of becoming a leading figure in the East Coast mob. He also packed on serious muscle; to the point where he looks deceptively obese. Yep, you heard us right; Kingpin’s iconic look isn’t all blubber; in fact, quite the opposite, it’s all muscle.
By the time he was 15, Wilson Fisk had gained enough strength and knowledge to unite a bunch of rag-tag, juvenile gangs and begin his ascent to becoming the Kingpin of Crime. Being the central figure of criminal activities across the globe, it was inevitable that Kingpin’s criminal empire would end up in legal crosshairs, and that’s where Mutt Murdock comes in.
First appearing in issue #170 as part of Frank Miller’s legendary Daredevil run, Wilson Fisk comes out of retirement as the Kingpin after the mob practically forces his hand, and he inevitably ends up on the Daredevil’s radar.
The two have exchanged many salvos over the decades, both direct and indirect, with Kingpin often hiring Marvel’s best assassins (including our last entry) to get rid of the costumed hero in one way or the other.
Twice he has managed to actually get Matt arrested; the first time was when he manipulated Matt’s ex-turned-junkie Karen Page to leak his identity and used the information to frame him for unethical legal practice, and the second was when he was serving time himself and used the fake “Murdock Papers” to get make sure Matt ends up in the same high-security prison like him.
He’s also managed to outwit Matt a number of times, most recently when he became the Mayor of New York City and tricked him by offering Matt the Deputy Mayor’s position and then turning the tables on him at the last possible moment. Their countless legal (and extra-legal) battles have immortalized Kingpin as the centerpiece of Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery.
Typhoid Mary
“One of us is tender one of us is not. One of us takes vengeance. All four tied in a knot.” To call Mary Walker’s life “tough” would be an insult; she’s seen the worst humanity has to offer since birth. As soon as she was in her crib, her abusive, maniacal father was on her. Committing the ultimate act of sin, he would make taking advantage of his infant daughter a casual hobby, traumatizing her to the point she repressed her own personality in favor of one that’s more suited to express the rage and violation she was experiencing.
Once her deadbeat father saw what she was capable of doing, he never laid so much as a finger on her. This metamorphosis also triggered her X-gene, bringing her mutant powers to the surface whenever she’d slip into her “other personality”. She was transferred to a mental institution and diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, with her “other” being named Typhoid due to the fever she would always carry around with her.
Mary escaped from that hellhole and eventually ended up becoming a prostitute; that’s how she first meets Matt Murdock, who, in his rush to catch a bad guy, ends up pushing her out of the brothel window. On that day, she vows to never allow a man to hurt her ever again and officially becomes the supervillain we know (and love) as Typhoid Mary.
Debuting in Daredevil #254, she was hired by the Kingpin in a cerebral attempt to thoroughly break Matt Murdock. He had Typhoid Mary manipulate Matt Murdock into falling for her, while she also tried to assassinate Daredevil. Unfortunately, she succeeded only at the former and would later be tricked by Matt into reverting to her docile Mary persona in Daredevil #297.
Since then, the two have crossed paths multiple times, most recently during the Shadowland storyline where Mary was revealed as a sleeper agent for the Kingpin, working to take down Murdock’s Hand from within. She’s also held her own against the likes of Punisher, Vengeance, Deadpool, and Spider-Man and it’s all thanks to her mutant abilities.
Typhoid Mary can perform pyrokinesis, and telekinesis and is an irresistible telepath who uses her power- psychological and literal- to turn men into her personal horny lapdogs by combining behavioral psychological and telepathic prompts and employing suggestive seduction techniques.
Moreover, when she switches personalities, her physiological traits (heartbeat, etc) adapt to the change as well, which is why Daredevil couldn’t figure out that Mary was Typhoid at first; his Radar Sense was useless against her there!
Nuke
Yeah, Captain America loves his nation, but is he patriotic enough to get the Star-Spangled Flag tatted on his face? To be sure, Nuke’s face tattoo isn’t a symbol of his patriotism- it’s a convenient way to cover up the hideous scars that cover his mug- but it’s quite possible that post-WW2, he’s served American interests more directly than Steve Rogers himself.
Introduced in Daredevil #232 as a trigger-happy mercenary hired by Kingpin in his latest attempt to get rid of Matt Murdock, it wasn’t until 2006’s Wolverine Origins Vol 1. #2 that we’d get to see how Frank Simpson ended up in the position he’s in. Frank was the son of a wealthy, abusive, alcoholic, upper-class woman in Ohio who had spent his formative years in a highly unstable environment.
Frank was kidnapped by Logan for the Weapons Plus program’s Project: Homegrown, and after years of experimentation and training, he would become the sole survivor of the Weapon VII experiment. His first operation was carried out on Vietnamese soil during the war, where he was used as an ambush device against innocent Vietnamese farmers.
After this mission, he turned into a mercenary for hire and was working for Generalissimo Felix Guillermo Caridad of Tierra Verde when Kingpin acquired his services. Frank went through several corrupt military officials to unleash the mad war dog and his trusted sub-machine gun Betsy on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, and true to his name, Nuke’s brief tryst with Daredevil was thoroughly explosive.
As Weapon VII, Nuke possesses various artificial and biological enhancements that make him a super soldier at par with the likes of Steve Roger. His bones have been replaced with cybernetic body parts and most of his skin is grafted with a kind of plastic that cannot be easily broken, making his entire body a legitimate powerhouse and practically invulnerable; even after being a skilled martial artist at the peak of human conditioning, Daredevil was barely able to push him back, let alone break his limbs a la Sherlock Holmes.
Nuke also has an artificial second heart, which means killing him will be twice as tough as it appears. Actually, make it thrice because of the healing factor that allows him to cure injuries with a nap. Being a top black ops agent for the US military, he’s proficient in a number of martial arts and weapons techniques and has held his own against the likes of Wolverine.
His only problem is his mind, which has been turned to mush after years of mental trauma and programming. Nuke is schizophrenic and depends on pills to regulate himself: red, for increased adrenaline; white, to bring him down; and blue, to relax. We don’t need to tell you which one’s his favorite.
Frank Miller created one of the most genuine threats to Daredevil’s life in his swansong with the franchise, which is why Nuke is on this list despite only appearing in 2 Daredevil issues.
Echo
If you’ve seen Marvel’s Hawkeye series, you pretty much have an idea of how Echo and Daredevil’s relationship plays out; just swap in Hawkeye’s Ronin with the Devil from Hell’s Kitchen. Debuting in Daredevil Vol. 2 #9, Maya Lopez was a lead dancer on Broadway. She was born deaf, lost her father at a very young age, and was “taken in” by Wilson Fisk afterward.
Maya grew up under the Kingpin’s wing, training in all kinds of martial arts to prepare herself for her vengeance. Though she cannot hear, Maya’s visual senses and natural cognition are so heightened that she can keep pace with conversations through mere lip-reading and can perfectly mimic any movement she happens to glance at, making her a lethal weapon in the wrong hands.
And indeed that’s why Kingpin nurtured her, preparing her to take on his worst enemy while keeping her in the dark about her father’s fate. He finally answered the question Maya had been asking him her whole life and set up Daredevil to take the fall for him, hoping to get rid of two nuisances at once.
And we have to admit, when Echo first fought Daredevil, we thought the slimeball might actually get away with it. Echo’s photographic reflexes are only rivaled by Taskmaster’s, making her one of the deadliest assassins and hand-to-hand combatants on Earth. She has studied tapes of every major combat sportsperson and event- including showdowns featuring Matt’s father “Battling Jack” Murdock, Bullseye, and Daredevil himself.
These three case studies alone make her one of the best martial artists and marksmen in Marvel history, a fact that was on full display in Daredevil Vol. 2 #11. If it hadn’t been for the day-long date Matt and Maya had had that same day, Daredevil wouldn’t have recognized Echo’s scent and the whole scenario could have played out like a Shakespearean tragedy. Instead, Echo enacted her revenge against the man who actually killed her father, blinding the Kingpin and going on to become one of the strongest female superheroes in Marvel history.
THE BEAST
This isn’t a Daredevil villain you’re gonna hear from a lot, and that is just fine if you ask us. Because if you can turn Matt Murdock into a blood-thirsty, sorcerous tyrant bent on humanity’s destruction, then we’d like to stay a million miles away from you. The Beast is a primordial demon who seems to be the very embodiment of destruction and evil.
He’s the mystic focal point of the organization known as The Hand- whom we will discuss in a bit- and is responsible for the clan’s extraordinary occult powers and general penchant for cynicism and annihilation. The Beast or the Hand never takes a direct interest in the clan’s operations, but he is all-pervasive in that he influences every action they take.
In fact, it’s thanks to his powers that the Hand can perform resurrections in the first place. Usually, this involves the subject also becoming enslaved to the Hand’s will, as their souls are corrupted by The Beast, who takes advantage of the negative emotions dwelling inside a person’s heart.
This is exactly what happened to Matt Murdock during the Shadowlandsaga. Having lost so many loved ones to death, insanity, or sheer abandonment, Matt Murdock was at an all-time low after he got out of jail and cleared his own name and became increasingly irrational as a result.
All the pain and conflict in his heart culminated in him taking control of the clan he had fought against his entire adult life, and being exposed to The Beast’s malevolent essence in turn. After taking over his soul, the Beast made Murdock’s physical body virtually indestructible while drastically boosting his strength; he was outclassing Shang-chi where he couldn’t lift a finger to him and brushed off a head-on collision with Wolverine’s claws.
It also planned on using Murdock as a conduit for his full destructive might and would have laid waste to planet Earth if it wasn’t for Iron Fist’s soul-fixing chi-strikes that managed to repair Matt’s damaged heart & psyche. Though he only appeared for a handful of issues- less than a dozen in total- the Beast of the Hand brought out a side of Daredevil that will haunt him forever; with Matt getting PTSD flashbacks of killing Bullseye under its influence till this day.
IKARI
They say that the worst enemy you can face in life is yourself. If that’s the case, then Ikari is the spitting image of Daredevil; if you swapped out the billy clubs with kusarigama and turned Matt’s wardrobe into a Japanese homage to every Daredevil costume, ever. Nothing is known about his identity except the fact that he’s most likely from Japan, because his villain name is the Japanese word for Fury, and he uses weapons that look like they’re from an episode of NarutoShippuden.
But if you think for even a second that Ikari is just a copy-paste job done on Terry Jeffords’ fancy Japanese printer, you’ve got another thing coming for you. Debuting in Daredevil Vol. 3 #25as the hired gun of Bullseye and Lady Bullseye, Ikari wasted no time in handing Matt Murdock his own ass, backward.
Daredevil made the same mistake that most “confident” superheroes make when they meet a copycat version of themselves; he underestimated Ikarias’ strength- a cheap knockoff and it almost got him killed in their first match-up. Matt wasn’t even able to take advantage of his own weaknesses, because as it turns out, Ikari’s radar sense is at least on par with his, if not superior.
And the fact that he isn’t trying to batter some sense into people with Billy clubs gives him that lethal edge over Daredevil. He left Matt a battered mess, bleeding out from at least a dozen different wounds, and didn’t even finish the job, choosing to let him suffer in pain and humiliation.
The next time they meet is for a proper fight to the death, as Daredevil Vol. 4 #16-17 reveals that Kingpin has kidnapped Foggy and Kirsten, and has sent Ikari to take Daredevil out -once and for all. The two combatants throw down for HOURS with no clear victor in sight.
It would take Shroud’s intervention for Daredevil to finally score a win over Ikari, and even then, he’s going to have to live with the fact that he couldn’t beat Ikari all by himself. He’s easily one of the most enigmatic and deadly villains that the Devil from Hell’s Kitchen has gone up against in recent times.
THE HAND
Many versions exist regarding the obscure, secretive origins of the organization we know today as the Hand. Some say they originated 4 billion years ago when the Elder Gods roamed the Earth and were opposed by their progeny, the Sickly Ones. Other stories state that they’re fighting the Oldest War in existence- that between Life and Death- and that they worshipped. The Beast joins him in his quest to “dishonor God and everything He’s created”.
Regardless of which version you choose to believe, the Hand, as an organization was formalized in 1588 by the disgraced samurai and his arch-rival Daisuke Sasaki. They were meant to be vigilant protectors of feudal Japan’s provinces, spreading to all 5 islands before the turn of the century.
Sadly, fate had other plans for Yoshioka’s Hand and by the time Matt Murdock was born, the organization had become a global occult terrorist organization that even Hydra didn’t want to mess with; initially, anyway. It’s as if they were pre-destined to end up on Daredevil’s radar, given his affiliation to the Chaste and his close relationship with Master Split; eternal rivals of the Hand.
Matt has gone up against the organization under multiple figureheads but with their army of well-trained, magic-wielding ninjas and their patented resurrection technique, it is very hard to get rid of The Hand. How hard? Well, Daredevil fought against them for most of his adult life and ended up becoming their leader; because if he couldn’t make them go away, he might as well steer them in the right direction.
And The Hand has probably never been more of a threat to Matt than in the immediate aftermath of the Shadowland storyline, which saw Kingpin and Lady Bullseye take control of the mystic organization. No matter how many ninjas he seems to put down, they just never stop coming for him, and that is why the Hand is easily the most intriguing and disorienting antagonist in all of Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery.
They managed to literally infect him with a demonic spirit, for crying out loud! Hydra would have to throw Bucky in the brainwashing machine for a solid month to break him down as badly as The Hand- did Murdock. For better or for worse, The Hand has defined and fuelled Daredevil’s existence as much as the Chaste, Jesus, and Elektra; not in that order.