Marvel’s Daredevil Has Returned Alive, But Matt Murdock is Dead

Warning: contains spoilers for Devil’s Reign #6!

Marvel’s Daredevil is alive and well after the events of Devil’s Reign, but Matt Murdock is dead. Considering that Matt Murdock IS Daredevil, this may come as a shock for casual readers. But Devil’s Reign #6 end with Daredevil and Elektra swinging through the city skyline, the Kingpin escaping New York with his new wife Mary, and “Matt Murdock” remaining dead.

The Devil’s Reign event starts properly when the Kingpin, as Mayor of New York, announces legislation that outlaws all superheroes from operating within the city limits. As the Thunderbolts arrest more and more heroes (and Doctor Octopus hatches a secret plan to wrestle control from the Kingpin), the remaining Avengers plan to oust Fisk from power by running Luke Cage as a mayoral candidate in the hopes that the people will vote for him instead of Fisk. But Fisk has a secret: he’s using the power of the Purple Man to influence his supporters.

Unfortunately, Fisk still knows that his mind has been tampered with, though he doesn’t know exactly how. When he uses the power of the Purple Man on himself (issuing the simple command “Remember”), he suddenly realizes that Daredevil was the one who erased the knowledge of his secret identity from Kingpin’s mind…and that Daredevil is actually Matt Murdock. An enraged Kingpin meets Murdock in his apartment and savagely beats up the defense attorney so throughly that Matt is declared Dead (and a furious Elektra vows revenge when she hears it). Unfortunately, the man whom Kingpin killed wasn’t Murdock at all.

The man operating as Matt Murdock is actually Matt’s identical brother Mike Murdock; posing as Murdock for some time, Mike just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for his mistake with his life. Most people don’t even know that Mike Murdock exists – but they know Matt, and Matt is publicly dead. The real Matt Murdock must now assume his secret identity full-time.

In a grand reversal of the famed Spider-Man No More! storyline for Marvel’s famous webslinger, Daredevil is no longer Matt Murdock, and can never be him again. The mask must become the man, because the man is dead. Devil’s Reign, in a way, did end with the Kingpin “killing” Matt Murdock twice over – once, his brother Mike, and again, in the sense that Daredevil can never lead a normal life again. “I have nothing here,” says Daredevil as he leaves New York City – perhaps this time for good.