BIOGRAPHY -- Page 47
As they prepared to move out west, Matt and Foggy talked through the ramifications of him going public with his identity. In addition to losing their law licenses, Foggy was now more vulnerable than ever to retaliation strikes by Daredevil’s enemies due to his cancer treatment. Bullseye and the Sons of the Serpent had threatened to interrupt his treatments already, and they could only anticipate things getting worse. Matt came up with a crazy plan to fake Foggy’s death to give him the necessary privacy to complete his chemotherapy. Foggy was willing to go along with it but he was feeling his mortality and lamented how, for all his accomplishments, he would hardly be 
remembered after he was gone. When a new Leapfrog attacked them on the streets, Matt saw an opportunity to give Foggy the sendoff he deserved. Foggy publicly sacrificed his life to fly Leapfrog’s battle-bot into the air before it exploded, secretly surviving only thanks to Giant-Man and his Pym Particles. Foggy Nelson “died” as a hero who saved the city, giving Franklin the recognition he was looking for, even posthumously. [Daredevil (4th series) #5]
McDuffie & Murdock opened the doors of their new law practice in San Francisco, and Matt also made a point of announcing his potential services as a crime-fighter to the authorities. His services were warranted when Deputy Mayor Charlotte Hastert’s daughter was kidnapped by unknown flying assailants. Matt’s senses allowed him to locate their hideout and recognize signs of a micro-explosive device planted in the girl. He rescued the child and arranged for the bomb to 
be disabled before it went off in her mother’s arms as planned. These actions earned Daredevil a lot of leeway with city officials, and Deputy Mayor Hastert also helped Matt and Kirsten locate and set up their new office. In the process, they also arranged for Foggy Nelson to live in seclusion, so that only they and his oncologist knew he was alive. [Daredevil (4th series) #1]
As Matt “Daredevil” Murdock became a local celebrity in San Francisco, he found himself drawn into the center of a turf war between two new players in the bay area, the Owl and the Shroud. Owlsley was a familiar character for Matt, but Max Coleridge, the Shroud, was a crime-fighter who in the past set himself up as a crime boss to take down the underworld from within. Having lost his way, Shroud was desperately searching for his missing ex, Julia Carpenter, threatened by 
Daredevil’s presence in “his” city, and setting himself up to die fighting in order to bring down the Owl. The Shroud’s darkness powers and “second sight” came at the cost of his eyesight, which evoked sympathy from Matt, but the man was too erratic and unstable to be a trustworthy partner. He tried knocking Daredevil unconscious to use him as bait for entry into the Owl’s mansion, but Matt overcame his half-baked efforts.
Instead, Murdock offered to approach the Owl directly, brazenly drawing his attention so that Shroud could penetrate his security separately. Unfortunately, the Owl had become an information broker and taunted Shroud that he knew the whereabouts of Julia. Daredevil and Shroud’s partnership crumbled as Max betrayed him and absconded with the Owl in order to force information from the crime boss alone. The Owl forced the Shroud to help him acquire a bleeding-edge surveillance technology, and Daredevil caught up with them mid-burglary. Matt easily 
overcame the haggard and lost Max, but the Owl had time to expose his mind to a form of wireless, fiber-optic information processing. Owlsley was left for the police while Daredevil berated the Shroud and refused to let him commit “suicide by super-villain.” He promised to help Max find Julia through old-fashioned investigation. The Shroud vanished into his Darkforce, vowing to hold Daredevil to that promise. [Daredevil (4th series) #2-4]
While home visiting in New York, Daredevil was in a blast of psychic radiation from the Watcher’s severed eye, transmitting “secrets” directly into his brain. [Original Sin #2-3] Matt saw the flash of a damning scene: his father holding him as an infant, standing over the mess of their kitchen table and his mother, bleeding and cowering in the corner. Matt had long respected Sister Maggie’s privacy, letting the truth of their relationship remain mostly unspoken. Now, however, he needed to know the truth about why she left. Grace Murdock finally came clean with her son about how she 
suffered from postpartum depression. Anxiety and paranoia plagued her for months after his birth. It reached an apex when she fixated on blaming young Matthew for her depression and tried to claw him out of Jack’s arms. Jack shielded his boy, and Grace ran from their home out of guilt, never to return. She found peace with the Lord as Sister Margaret and dedicated her life to helping others to make up for her sins. Matthew and Grace made amends, truly coming together as mother and son for the first time in years. [Daredevil (4th series) #6-7]
As Matt and Kirsten’s relationship progressed, they were invited out on the yacht of her father, high society’s Wendell McDuffie, who had retired to the Bay area. Wendell and Kirsten had drifted apart since her mother died, making it a surprise. What started as reconnecting, though, veered into a business matter when Wendell made Matt a proposition. As a book publisher, he was interested in funding the autobiography of Daredevil for $8,000,000. Matt only promised Wendell he would think about it, as he wanted to make sure of Kirsten’s feelings first. She admitted their law practice was struggling to make ends meet, given Matt’s “second job” and covertly paying Foggy’s medical bills.
In the meantime, Daredevil was unnerved to learn that Killgrave, the Purple Man, was in town. Years earlier, it was discovered that Killgrave had conceived a daughter, Kara Killgrave, who developed powers like him at adolescence and joined Alpha Flight as Persuasion. Inspired by this development, Killgrave went searching for other women he had slept with under his influence, seeking out other “Purple Children” who might provide him with the unconditional love he needed to feed his narcissism. Instead, the five Purple Children proved strong enough together to resist his influence and exert their own. Akin to a hive mind, the Purple Children were both emotional and persuasive broadcasters, and their feelings nearly pushed Daredevil over the edge into a very 
real depression he had been hiding since Shadowland. Matt managed to break through his feelings to protect the children from Killgrave and each other, separating them so that they were out of each other’s influence. “Happy Go Lucky” Matt tried to hide the effect the Purple Children had on his mental health, but Kirsten didn’t buy it, and eventually he let her in to talk about his depression. [Daredevil (4th series) #8-10]
Matt found himself in an uncomfortable position when a family in California reached out to him about filing a wrongful death suit against Steve Rogers, dating back to 1940. Murdock brought word of the suit to Captain America, who surprisingly told him to take the case. Cap insisted on being judged to the fullest extent of the law. He sought counsel of his own, meaning Matt Murdock would face off in court for the first time against Jennifer “She-Hulk” Walters. The entire case was based around the deathbed confession of a man Steve knew before Project: Rebirth. This account was hypnotically cultivated and encouraged by Cap’s old foe, Doctor Faustus, to be technically accurate but lacking key details. Cap felt Faustus’ hand in the case and he knew he needed to preserve his reputation by winning on the merits, through honesty, integrity and completely above-board legal tactics. Fortunately, Walters secured a Not Guilty verdict and Matt was never so happy to lose a case in his life. [She-Hulk (3rd series) #8-10]
Not all of Matt’s west coast team-ups went so smoothly. His city soon became ground zero for Tony Stark’s testing of the new Extremis app. Suffering from a mystical inversion of his morality, Stark’s genius was no longer restrained by any form of scruples. Extremis was a techno-virus which could rewrite genetic material, making anyone who used the app fit and beautiful by modern standards. After a free sample, though, exorbitant upkeep fees led to a rise in crime and other 
consequences as Tony used the Bay area to feed his ego and test his product. Daredevil tried to confront Stark and was struck down easily. Tony even tried to buy him with a free sample of Extremis that restored his sight. Matt refused but he used the hour or so of sight to track down Foggy, getting a rare glimpse of his best friend’s face. Matt finally proved too insightful for Stark’s amusement when he realized one could not transmit a bio-virus through an app. Tony had already illegally dosed the city’s water supply with inert Extremis, and the app was simply an activation signal. The corrupt Iron Man forcibly removed and distorted Daredevil’s memory using coordinated electroshock therapy, making this one case Matt Murdock didn’t even know he had lost. [Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #4-6, Superior Iron Man #1-4]
The autobiography of Daredevil suffered in the writing process due to Matt’s naturally terse style. Foggy was desperate for an outlet and activity to keep him busy, so he soon took up work as the “ghost writer” for the Man Without Fear. Meanwhile, McDuffie & Murdock were approached by Matt’s old acquaintance George Smith, the Stunt-Master. George was upset that a corporation bought the rights to his old stunt show and funded a new thrill-seeker to replace him as “Stunt-Master, the Man Without Fear.” The new Stunt-Master tried to cash in on Daredevil’s presence in the Bay area, calling Matt out and stealing his tag line. Initially, Matt shrugged off the bait, but his 
feelings changed when George reportedly committed suicide over his name being drawn through the mud. At first, it looked like the new Stunt-Master was responsible, but George was ultimately revealed to be alive and behind the entire plot. The whole shebang was intended to steal fame from Murdock and let Stunt-Master “rise from the dead” as the greatest showman alive. Instead, George Smith would likely die in prison after a lifetime of abusing his body, his reputation never to recover. [Daredevil (4th series) #11-12]