Matthew Michael Murdock is a fictional character primarily portrayed by Charlie Cox in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name—commonly known by his alias, Daredevil. In the MCU, Murdock is a lawyer by day who specializes in legal defense alongside his colleagues Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, while also aiding other superpowered individuals within New York City. He further pursues a personal crusade to inflict his own brand of justice at night, masquerading as a masked vigilante hoping to remove the corruption facing Hell's Kitchen following the Battle of New York from The Avengers (2012).
Murdock is blind, which with training enabled him to develop his other senses to superhuman levels. His activities would eventually bring him into conflict with enemies such as businessman Wilson Fisk, former FBI agent Benjamin Poindexter and The Hand organization in the process, the latter of which he combatted alongside the Defenders when they successfully resurrected and weaponized a former ally and lover from his past, Elektra Natchios. Following Fisk's defeat, Murdock returns to his law practice, successfully defending Peter Parker against criminal charges pressed against him as well as entering a brief romantic relationship with fellow superhuman lawyer Jennifer Walters. He would also come to the defense of and befriend other vigilantes, namely Frank Castle, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Hector Ayala, Angela del Toro, and Jack Duquesne. Following Nelson is murdered by Poindexter, Murdock retires as Daredevil, and Fisk is elected Mayor of New York City, leading a group of corrupt NYPD officers known as the Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF). With Murdock resuming his role as Daredevil, he discovers the truth about Fisk's ambition to control all of New York and that his wife Vanessa Fisk was responsible for Nelson's death at Poindexter's hands, and decides to assemble a team to save the city. Murdock remains hidden and protecting civilians from Fisk's AVTF officers. After revealing his identity as Daredevil to the city to free Page from criminal charges, Murdock leads an army to confront Fisk and the AVTF, and convinces Fisk to resign. Murdock and Page attempt to move on with their lives, but Murdock is arrested and imprisoned for his actions as Daredevil.
, the character has appeared in the Marvel Television series Daredevil (2015–2018), the miniseries The Defenders (2017), the Marvel Studios film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and the Disney+ television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022), Echo (2024), and Daredevil: Born Again (2025–present). An alternate version of the character appears in the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2025–present), with Cox reprising the role.
Cox's portrayal received significant praise critically and from fans, with the "#SaveDaredevil" campaign and petition being launched for his return after Daredevil cancellation in 2018, which Cox attributed in October 2022 as having been responsible for his return to the role.
Concept and creation
The character Daredevil made his first appearance in his own self-titled issue, Daredevil #1 (April 1964), written by Stan Lee and art by Bill Everett with unspecified input provided by Jack Kirby, who devised Daredevil's billy club.
In 2013, Marvel Television and Disney announced that they would provide Netflix with television series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, leading to the Defenders crossover miniseries. In May 2014, Charlie Cox was announced to portray Murdock, with Steven DeKnight being brought in to be the showrunner of the first season.
Casting The idea of casting Cox as Daredevil came from Marvel's chief creative officer Joe Quesada in 2012, before Marvel Studios gained the rights to the character from 20th Century Fox. Cox wanted to be involved with the series after reading the first two scripts for Daredevil (2015), telling his agent "These are two of the best TV scripts I've read". Skylar Gaertner portrays a young Murdock in Daredevil.
Cox later explained that, unlike the Marvel comic book character, his version of Daredevil would not be a "man without fear", saying "Someone who does not have fear – literally does not experience fear – is not that interesting. The way I like to think about it is that he is a man with fear, but he on a daily basis decides to confront that fear and to overcome it. So the title of 'the man without fear' is almost a title that the public in his world gives him just because of what he does. But inside himself, he's very afraid at times. And he finds a way to confront those fears and punch through it." Cox "had to do a lot of gym work" to change his physique to equal that of the more muscular character as drawn in the comics.
Series cancellation and revival In November 2018, Netflix cancelled the series after three seasons. Though the seasons would remain to stream on the service, the character would "live on in future projects for Marvel". Cox was saddened by the cancellation, since it "felt like we had a lot of stories to tell", especially since he had been excited by what had been discussed for a potential fourth season, adding that he was hopeful for an opportunity to portray the character again. Following the series' cancellation, fans launched a petition to revive the series with the "SaveDaredevil" hashtag. The petition amassed over 300,000 signatures.
In June 2020, Cox was unexpectedly contacted by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about reprising his role as Matt Murdock in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) projects Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Cox's return to the role was confirmed by Feige in December 2021. Jessica Henwick, who co-stars with Cox as Colleen Wing in The Defenders, indicated that he had known about the opportunity to reprise the role in a Marvel Studios production years prior. The writers of She-Hulk initially believed they would not have been able to feature the character in the series, and were eventually told by the studio that they were able to use the character. In October 2022, Cox explained that he approached Marvel Studios' Daredevil as the same character from the Netflix series, saying it "should be and is always", and Murdock changed to fit tonally, attributing his MCU return to the "#SaveDaredevil" campaign and petition later that month.
Design
Murdock's suits are differentiated more by texture than color, with a limited palette, "Because, obviously, he can't see his colors, but he has to know anything he chooses is going to coordinate with one another". Cox's size changed throughout the series as he continued to work out. Murdock begins the first season wearing a black costume (called the "vigilante outfit" by production), inspired by the one worn by the character in Frank Miller's and John Romita Jr's The Man Without Fear, rather than the more traditional red, horned suit. This was done to highlight the formation of Matt Murdock as Daredevil, with the costume evolving over time as the character develops. Quesada conceptualized the look based on DeKnight's specifications.
Maslansky noted that they wanted the outfit to "look like something that Matt Murdock could put together himself, that he could either order off the Internet or shop around town. ... I went to army/navy stores. I went online. I looked at athletic clothing, compression clothing, military stuff and construction stuff....we wound up with pretty practical choices for him. His shirts are compression shirts and his pants wound up being from an army/navy store". Concerning the black mask, Maslansky noted that a balance between aesthetic and safety was required, and that "It's made out of a cotton mesh. Layers and layers of it. It has to really conform to his head, but at the same time, he had to be able to see through it."
On the red suit that Murdock gets at the end of the first season, Maslansky said, "We wanted something that looked militaristic and functional, but also dramatic and sexy" adding that it was "tricky" making it practical. To begin the process of creating the suit, Quesada contacted Ryan Meinerding and the costume artists and design team at Marvel Studios, who all contributed design ideas, with one of Meinerding's ultimately being picked. Quesada, who previously worked as an artist on Daredevil comics, gave several suggestions, including the use of rivets and "architectural" shapes as a reference to the creation of New York City. The suit is intended to look like a Kevlar vest, and the black sections are an homage to comic panels where the artists highlighted certain areas with red, with "deeper portions" in shadow. On the mask, Meinerding noted the difficulty in designing the entire top half of a face that is intended to match the bottom half of an actor's face, "because half of his face has to be covered and has its own expression and the actor's face is going to be doing something else".
Evolution into Daredevil Talking about why the traditional "DD" does not appear on Murdock's red suit, and other difficulties with adapting the suit to live action, DeKnight explained that "he got the suit before he got the name. We talked a lot about DD on the suit, which is one of the more problematic emblems in superhero-dom. It's a little wonky. His suit in the comics is very difficult to translate to screen, especially in this world that is grounded and gritty. There are some practical difficulties. The Daredevil outfit in the comics, his mask only covers half his nose. It doesn't come all the way down to the tip. We discovered when we were trying to design it that if you didn't bring it all the way down, you could clearly tell it was Charlie. Not only did we have the suspension of belief that nobody would know "hey, that's Matt Murdock" we also had the practical problem of it becoming almost impossible when it came to switching in and out our stunt double. So we had to make that adjustment".
In She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Daredevil's costume is similar to the red one he wore in the Netflix series, but with an updated color scheme to include the yellow helmet and accents from the character's debut comics design in Daredevil #1. Marvel Studios had clear intentions as to what his costume would look like for the series.
Characterization DeKnight has explained that Murdock is "not super strong. He's not invulnerable... he just has senses that are better than a normal human's". On the character's "grey" morals, he noted, "He's a lawyer by day, and he's taken this oath. But every night he breaks that oath, and goes out and does very violent things". The character's Catholicism plays a large role in the series, with DeKnight calling him "one of the most, if not the most, religious characters in the Marvel Universe". Cox, who was raised Catholic, found that helpful, saying, "You grow up steeped in that. If you're in church, standing in front of the altar, you sort of automatically know how to respond. It all kicks in – you genuflect, you sit in the pew. I didn't have to pretend any of that". On how the name Daredevil is revealed in the series, DeKnight explained that "We talked about, do we do one of the versions in the comics where when he was a kid people used to taunt him with the name Daredevil, but that didn't quite feel like our world. At one point we were going to have Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall) give him the name, but the timing wasn't right from where he's in his black outfit and then gets his suit, which is after Ben's untimely demise. The solution was to play that off-screen and then hit it in the paper that he's been given this name Daredevil".