BIOGRAPHY -- Page 20
Black Widow had also encountered the Hand. Natasha was struck by a slow-acting poison while on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., and she sought out Matt as she began to disintegrate under their dire toxins. The Widow died at Matt’s apartment, but Stick and Stone of the Chaste demonstrated their aptitude for moving life energy between hosts, restoring Natasha to life and purging her of 
the poison. Before Stick could fully explain the Hand’s moves, they attacked in force. Claw of the Chaste fell to the waves of ninja, and so Stick and Shaft sacrificed themselves, absorbing the life energy of forty or so Hand ninja until the two Chaste members’ bodies erupted, unable to contain all that energy.
Daredevil and Black Widow were left with only Stick’s protégé Stone, who needed to meditate to recover his strength. Matt and Natasha were restless and decided to patrol the city for any signs 
of the Hand. As they were leaving, Heather stumbled home drunk. She had nothing left in her life since Glenn Industries folded and had resigned herself to being Matt’s and only Matt’s. As they left, Daredevil made it clear to Black Widow he didn’t want to discuss his love life, so when they split up to cover more ground Natasha went to visit Foggy. He was just as concerned as she over how toxic Matt and Heather’s relationship had become. Matt was so desperate to feel love again after Elektra died that he was forcing Heather into the role he needed. At Foggy’s suggestion, the Widow forged letters to both of them, ending the engagement and asking never to see one another again.
Matt hardly had time to process the letter from “Heather” when Stone emerged from his meditation trance. He explained that the Hand always sought a champion as an avatar to represent their will. With Kirigi resurrected and destroyed once more, they would turn to another. The Hand would seek to bring Elektra back to life, corrupted by their magic and under their power. Daredevil, Black Widow and Stone tried to prevent Elektra’s body from being stolen, but they failed. Desperate for aid, Daredevil visited Fisk Tower and made a deal with the Kingpin. Fisk currently faced a potential mutiny since losing his two top assassins in Bullseye and Elektra, and having her return under the Hand’s control would only add to his problems. So, Kingpin agreed to use his informants to find the Hand if Daredevil brought down the mutineers’ hideout and turned them over to the police.
The Hand prepared for their ceremony in an abandoned church, set to have four ninja complete the ritual of transferring their lifeforce into Elektra to resurrect her. Daredevil and his allies attacked the church and disrupted the ceremony. Stone was ready to destroy Elektra’s body so it could never be restored, but Daredevil faltered when he heard the faint thump of a heartbeat in her chest. As the ninja descended upon them, Matt left Stone to fend 
for himself as he tried to call upon everything Stick taught him in order to move energy around and bring Elektra back. He exhausted himself and collapsed in apparent failure as the Kingpin’s men raided the church to save Daredevil and eradicate the Hand. As fire consumed the church, Stone was gone, apparently with Elektra’s body, and so Matt and Natasha escaped the conflagration. Matt resigned himself once again that Elektra was truly dead. It would be many years before he learned what he had truly accomplished that night. [Daredevil (1st series) #189-190]
Matt took what was meant to be a simple case, making it a form of therapy as Foggy said. Hank Jurgens of the Citizens Boycott for Morality was accused of embezzling money by his associate Sam Jutter. Jurgens wasn’t a very pleasant client, but Matt became interested in Hank’s son Chuckie after meeting the family for dinner. Chuckie idolized Daredevil and obsessively watched an old tape of Bullseye fighting Daredevil from the TV studio. Matt thought he would give Chuckie a thrill by meeting with him as Daredevil at school the next day. Chuckie’s behavior worried him a 
little, though – the boy sometimes seems to think he actually WAS Daredevil, not just playing pretend, and what he liked most about Daredevil was that he was free to hit people who got in his way. It was unsettling for Matt, but not as much as it should have been.
Daredevil tracked Sam Jutter into Central Park and found him meeting with Hank Jurgens. The embezzlement was real and Jutter was trying to blackmail Jurgens in exchange for him dropping the case. Hank brought his revolver from home to kill Jutter, but he didn’t expect both Daredevil and Chuckie to show up. Matt didn’t like Hank and made a show of disarming the man before turning him over to the police… yet another mistake. Watching his hero hurt his father had a serious effect on Chuckie. He knew that Daredevil only hurt bad people and, if his poppa was bad, then he must be bad too. On the day Hank Jurgens was found guilty and set to be sentenced, Chuckie brought his father’s gun to school and shot another child. The boy survived but Chuckie retreated so deeply into himself that all the therapy in the world couldn’t make him talk again.
To all of this, Daredevil had an unusual response. He got a .38 caliber six-shooter revolver, went down to the hospital where Bullseye still lay mute and paralyzed from his fall, and began to tell the story. As he went along, Daredevil also began a game of Russian Roulette. He pointed the gun at himself and pulled the trigger. Then he pointed the gun at Bullseye, and so on. Roulette is normally played with just one bullet in the chamber, increasing the odds with every pull of the trigger that the next pull would fire the gun. As he moved through the story and the chambers in the gun, Matt unearthed his own buried memories of why Hank Jurgens’ threatening attitude 
towards his son bothered him so. Battlin’ Jack Murdock lived on as a paragon of virtue in Matt’s memories, but even he had raised a hand in anger against his son. As he reached the last chamber of the revolver, pointed it at Bullseye and pulled the trigger, Matt’s game was over. Because the gun never had any bullets. [Daredevil (1st series) #191]
With Heather, Elektra and even Bullseye behind him, Matt tried to get back to his life. He got involved in some absurd but relatively tame cases like magician pirates and born-again Mennonite mobsters. Ben Urich and his wife Doris found a house out in Westchester that was their dream home. Matt became suspicious and determined the Kingpin was behind the sale. If Ben agreed to the creative financing for the down payment, then Fisk would have insurance to use against Urich in the future. Daredevil confronted Kingpin about using a man’s wife and his dream against him so maliciously, to which Fisk merely reminded him of how Daredevil dangled his wife Vanessa in front of him in much the same manner. Daredevil left, and the Urichs gave up on their house. [Daredevil (1st series) #192-194]
Heather Glenn was still a staple of the New York party scene. One night she had too much to drink and babbled to a man named Tarkington Brown that Matt and Daredevil were the same man. She confessed to Matt the next morning after she sobered up, but it did little good then. Brown was the mayor’s computer expert, liaising with the police department. He was also terminally ill and gathered like-minded civil servants to murder criminals who escaped the grasp of justice. 
Daredevil had already begun interfering with their operations, so Brown tried to have him eliminated. Daredevil caught the murder squad and turned them in, then met with Brown. He was forced to make a deal with Brown to keep each other’s secrets, hoping that Brown would die before he had time to reform his murder squad. [Daredevil (1st series) #195]
Daredevil received word that armed men had kidnapped Bullseye from his hospital room. He arrived to find Wolverine of the X-Men also interested in the case. Wolverine had been surgically altered against his will by unknown parties to receive an Adamantium skeleton, and his contacts indicated the same parties had shown an interest in Bullseye. Tarkington Brown was one of Wolverine’s contacts, though, which put Daredevil ill at ease. This and Wolverine’s brutal tactics made them uncomfortable allies, but Daredevil and the X-Man worked together and located the Osama Maru freighter at the docks, intent on smuggling Bullseye to Japan.
The Kingpin had an interest in Bullseye’s recovery, and he sent out twenty men to delay the heroes on behalf of Bullseye’s new patron, Lord Darkwind. As they fought on the docks, Tarkington Brown traced Wolverine in order to get revenge on Daredevil. He tried to shoot Daredevil from behind, but Wolverine stabbed Brown rather than let him kill his partner. Daredevil’s holier-than-thou attitude, even after being saved, irked Wolverine and he took off. The Osama Maru began to pull out, and Daredevil was forced to choose between pursuing Bullseye and getting Brown medical attention. Daredevil’s morality wouldn’t allow him to leave a wounded man to die, even an already terminally ill enemy who tried to kill him. Once Tarkington Brown was stabilized, however, Matt Murdock prepared to journey to Japan. [Daredevil (1st series) #196]
After making an excuse to Foggy about needing a vacation, Matt was preparing for his journey to Japan when he was attacked on the streets. A member of Tarkington Brown’s murder squad was released and sought revenge for Murdock setting them up for Daredevil. He tossed a lit stick of dynamite at the blind lawyer, who batted it away, only to get caught in the concussion as it 
exploded. Despite his injuries, Matt proceeded on to Japan. The plane trip meant he beat Bullseye’s freighter to Japan and was ready when the Osama Maru arrived. Bullseye was already missing aboard the ship, but Daredevil found a woman named Yuriko chained in the sick bay. They escaped the ship together and Yuriko explained Bullseye was offloaded to Darkwind’s private island off the coast of Hokkaido before they made port. Darkwind was Yuriko’s estranged father, who took the man she loved away, so she promised to help Daredevil seek out Bullseye.
Daredevil and Yuriko journeyed through Japan together and paid for a boat to reach Darkwind’s island. Matt had been experiencing headaches ever since the dynamite incident, unaware they were only part of a strange, psychic link which developed between him and Bullseye. Each man 
was now aware of the other in ways which could not be explained. Through Bullseye, Darkwind learned Daredevil was on the island and sent out his samurai to deal with the intruder. Daredevil and Yuriko defeated the guards but were forced to take shelter as a snowstorm and later an earthquake battered the small island. These delays allowed Darkwind to complete his work restoring Bullseye and send him back to New York. Daredevil fought through more of Darkwind’s men, but the quake’s damage to Darkwind’s temple brought the roof down on Matt, breaking his arm. He was saved from Darkwind himself by Yuriko, who struck down her mad father. Yuriko fought her beloved Kira, and Daredevil left them behind to pursue Bullseye back to America. [Daredevil (1st series) #197-199]
As Matt returned to America, he learned from Foggy that Tarkington Brown finally passed away 
after his long illness. Even with his broken arm, Daredevil was determined to finish his business with Bullseye as soon as possible. Matt believed the only choice he had left was to kill Bullseye, and the torment he had been feeling since that fight on the high wire was for failing to finish the job. Daredevil learned Bullseye was holed up at the abandoned St. James Arena, and he unearthed some repressed memories of his father fighting there as a staged wrestler called the Red Devil. Jack found the stage show disgraceful and he gave Matt advice back then to always be true to who you are.
Back in the present, Daredevil and Bullseye squared off in the arena. Though their psychic link had faded, the two men were clearly fixated on each other. Bullseye hated Daredevil for sparing his life when he could have killed him. Their personal feud continued into the ring where Bullseye threatened Daredevil with Elektra’s own sai. Daredevil turned the weapon back on the assassin, catching and hurling the sai into Bullseye’s shoulder. As the fight continued, Bullseye promised not to kill Daredevil, but he would constantly kill people around the Devil because that was the best way to hurt him. The Man Without Fear beat Bullseye senseless and was preparing to choke him 
to death with his billy club. In those final moments, however, Matt reflected on what his father had been trying to tell him. The torment he felt wasn’t from failing to kill Bullseye on the high wire… it was from the uncertainty over whether he had tried to at all. Matt Murdock resolved that he wasn’t a killer, regardless of the circumstances, and he released Bullseye. He chose to value the law and turned the assassin over to the police for justice. [Daredevil (1st series) #200]