BIOGRAPHY -- Page 17
After hearing rumors of major activity in organized crime, Daredevil went over to Josie’s to shake down some informants. Turk threw himself through the glass window this time, but it didn’t help him escape. DD squeezed Turk for information and learned the top crime bosses had taken out a contract on the life of Wilson Fisk, their former Kingpin. As it happened, Matt Murdock was about to learn why. Fisk had retired and moved to Japan at the request of his wife Vanessa, but now he intended to turn over evidence on his former lieutenants to the Attorney General’s Office in exchange for clearing his own record and returning to the country. Vanessa contacted Nelson & Murdock at the Storefront to represent her husband in these negotiations. A contract killer opened fire on the Storefront during their talks, and Matt’s radar sense was the only thing which kept him and Vanessa alive. As he changed to Daredevil to catch the assassin, however, other men stormed the Storefront and kidnapped Vanessa.
Daredevil knew what the crime bosses’ next move would be, as Bullseye was being released that same day. Daredevil confronted Bullseye and the bosses at their tower office. He tried to reason with Bullseye – that he, Daredevil, was responsible for his life after saving it – but Bullseye wasn’t 
interested in talk and ended up throwing DD out the window of the skyscraper. With a broken billy club, Daredevil barely survived the fall. Naturally, the Kingpin returned to Manhattan and went to war over his abducted wife. In his disguise as Shades McGraw, Matt went to Josie’s and started asking questions. After beating up half the bar, he got Turk and Grotto to take him to their new boss, the Kingpin, as a potential new hire. “Shades” showed his skills to be impressive enough that a suspicious Kingpin accepted him on a trial basis.
Matt searched Kingpin’s underground lair for the criminal files, hoping he could turn them over to the D.A. Fisk kept them in a vault that only somebody with his strength could open, but Matt eventually succeeded. However, Fisk found the open vault and blocked him inside. “Shades” revealed himself as Daredevil and tried to fight his way past Fisk. Instead, he quickly learned the Kingpin was not simply an obese man, but a solid mass of muscle. DD nearly beat himself senseless trying to strike the Kingpin as he would a normal man, and Fisk’s sheer strength 
overwhelmed him. Turk and Grotto tied Daredevil up and tossed him into the sewer system to drown. Once he escaped, Daredevil caught up with Turk at Josie’s and learned things had gone south quickly. A planned exchange of the files for Vanessa had left the Kingpin’s wife believed dead under a collapsing building. Now nothing was holding Fisk back from war in the streets.
Daredevil made another attempt for the files, but Kingpin had replaced the documents with newspaper, something Matt embarrassingly was unable to notice until after he brought the files to Lieutenant Manolis. Bullseye also sought out the Kingpin for his employers but was nearly killed in a cave-in rigged by Fisk at his old headquarters. When Kingpin marched into the crime bosses’ tower and declared himself ruler of the mobs again, Bullseye decided to switch sides and support Fisk’s return to power. Daredevil assaulted the new “Fisk Tower” and came up against Bullseye. He was holding himself responsible for everyone Bullseye had killed in the gang war, since Daredevil saved him in the subway. The two men went at each other relentlessly and, in the end, 
it was a matter of stamina and will that allowed Daredevil to beat his nemesis. With Daredevil dead on his feet, Kingpin approached him afterwards and offered Bullseye and the criminal files to the super-hero. The files would ensure his rivals were finished, allowing him time to rebuild his criminal empire. Kingpin knew this would appeal to Daredevil’s sense of justice, while also twisting him inside that it furthered Kingpin’s own plans. Left with no better option, Daredevil did as Kingpin asked and turned over the files to the D.A. [Daredevil (1st series) #170-172]
The Storefront took up the case of Melvin Potter, defending to the parole board that the former super-villain had reformed and was no longer a threat to society as the Gladiator. One night as Melvin came to the Storefront for a consult, however, two people were brutally assaulted nearby by a man who matched his description. Matt and Betsy Beatty were concerned about how the new charges would affect Melvin’s delicate mental state. A new complication arose when Becky Blake 
accompanied Matt to meet with Melvin for the first time and fainted in shock. Afterwards, Becky told Matt for the first time the story of how she ended up in a wheelchair. She was assaulted on the way back to her dormitory at Harvard by a huge man in a leather mask. Becky scratched at his face and pulled his mask off, causing him to beat her brutally before running off. Her attacker looked exactly like Melvin Potter.
Matt struggled in the courts and inside his own office to continue providing a defense for Melvin. Becky couldn’t bring herself to assist in the defense and Foggy had been acting strangely for weeks, spending all night at the Storefront one minute and then never showing up at all the next. Matt tried talking to Debbie Nelson about it, but she didn’t know of any problems at home and Foggy forced Matt from his home when he discovered them talking. Melvin escaped from jail under pressure and went to the museum where his Gladiator armor was on display. Matt found him there and gave Melvin the encouragement he needed not to return to crime. In a strange twist of luck, the leather-masked man attacked Betsy Beatty in her home at the same moment Melvin 
was turning himself back in to custody. Her neighbors chased him off but now Melvin was in the clear for the new charges. Daredevil tracked down and captured Michael Reese, the leather killer who did bear a striking resemblance to Melvin. Matt also encouraged Becky to finally come forward and identify her attacker, ensuring he went away for life and getting her the closure she deserved. [Daredevil (1st series) #173]
Daredevil found several old foes return to prominence in rapid succession. The Jester still held a grudge against James Martin, the director who fired him as Cyrano and sent him down the road to crime. He and his cellmate Ace Taggert made plans to take revenge on Martin and Taggert’s enemy, Moon Knight, as they were released. Daredevil and Moon Knight crossed paths as Jester prepared to fleece the entire crowd who dared entertain Martin’s return to Broadway. [Moon Knight (1st series) #13] The Purple Man also returned to New York and discovered the Kingpin shared Daredevil’s iron willpower and ability to resist Killgrave’s commands. Fisk lured the heroes Daredevil, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Power Man and Iron Fist to a charity event, where he intended to have Killgrave speak and turn the entire audience against the heroes. Killgrave taunted Daredevil in particular with his knowledge of Murdock’s secret identity, but fortunately the Purple Man was defeated and taken into custody. [Marvel Team-Up Annual #4]
With Foggy increasingly absent, Matt fought alone to prepare Melvin’s defense for his crimes as Gladiator. At the Storefront, he confronted his partner and Foggy finally broke. Without Glenn Industries’ initial backing, the legal aid clinic had relied upon a government grant to offer their free services. Unfortunately, the grant had been severed and Foggy had been desperately and without success looking for another sponsor to help them keep the doors open. He failed, and now the Storefront would be closed. Matt comforted Foggy, who shouldered the blame personally, and told him how much he needed his partner back in court.
Matt had another problem, though. Agents of the Japanese ninja cult of assassins known as the Hand began moving into the Kingpin’s territories. Instead of attacking them directly, Fisk hired the Hand through intermediaries to assassinate Matt Murdock and his client Melvin Potter, knowing that Daredevil had shown an interest in Nelson & Murdock in the past. Kingpin hoped to turn Daredevil and the Hand on each other and reap the benefits. The Hand attacked Matt in his home 
but were surprised by his skills. Next, they threw a bomb through the Storefront window, while also attacking Melvin at the jail. Matt recovered from the bomb, but his radar sense was left fuzzy after the impact. Meanwhile, Elektra had once trained with the Hand, and she returned to New York after hearing they were targeting Matt. She brought Melvin Potter his Gladiator armor as he was being transported to a new facility. Together, Daredevil, Elektra and Gladiator fought off the Hand, killing many of the ninja or leaving them to disintegrate when they fell in battle. [Daredevil (1st series) #174]
Daredevil’s radar sense was not returning on its own, and he sought out Elektra for aid. While she still cared about him, Elektra wanted to keep her distance from Matt. She treated the rescue of the previous night merely as a repayment of the debt between them from Wallenquist. Heather was furious at Matt for missing another date and broke up with him (for the third time this month), so Daredevil focused on watching over Foggy, in case the Hand tried to reach Murdock through him. Sure enough, he stopped another attack and retrieved a business card from the body of a ninja. Although obviously a trap, Elektra swiped the card from Matt to pursue the address. She used him to draw out the Hand to complete her own personal revenge on the ninja clan. Despite his handicapped radar sense, Daredevil pursued Elektra to the Hand lair, where she battled and 
defeated the legendary Kirigi as he handled the other ninja. Elektra’s murder of Kirigi and the Hand jonin infuriated Matt, but he was too weak to stop her or her escape. Meanwhile, Foggy pressed on with the Potter defense in Matt’s absence, and his knowledge of obscure legal precedent got the entire case dismissed. The Storefront was closed but Nelson & Murdock successfully bolstered their reputations to continue on as the best legal counsel for hire in the five boroughs. [Daredevil (1st series) #175]