Daredevil's Christmas tales

Word Balloons #1193: Marvel's Man Without Fear has often been featured in holiday stories

Though he dresses like a devil, Matt Murdock does his best to walk with the angels. 

The blind Catholic lawyer who secretly fights crime as the vigilante Daredevil has celebrated the Christmas season multiple times in the pages of Marvel comics. 

Here are some of the highlights! 

Daredevil #7 (2011) 

It’s the Christmas season, and Matt is chaperoning eight blind elementary school students on a field trip. An oncoming blizzard and a sudden dashing deer cause the bus driver to crash, causing his own death. The kids are stuck in freezing weather on the side of a mountain with no way to contact help. Matt pulls on his Daredevil mask for warmth and attempts to read the kids to safety.  

Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, Joe Rivera, and Javier Rodriguez are the creative team for the issue, which won the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.

Daredevil #229 (1986)

One of DD’s worst Christmases happened during the Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli “Born Again” run. Matt Murdock catches frequent antagonists Turk and Grotto stealing a Santa Claus costume on Christmas Eve. Matt is living on the streets after the Kingpin has blown up his brownstone and dumped him in the river. So Matt’s in no shape to take on another fight. The punks beat him up, stab him, and leave him defeated. But Matt must find the strength to go on, even in his weakened state. Foggy, meanwhile, stops a mugging, and Karen Page continues to search for drugs as each story intertwines around Matt’s fall and reporter Ben Urich’s investigation.   

The entire “Born Again” can be read as a Christmas story and is one of the strongest comics of the 1980s, but this issue in and of itself has the most specific Christmas content – even if it’s a bit of a downer for Matt in the moment. 

Daredevil #253 (1988)

Ann Nocenti (writer) and John Romita Jr. (artist) created multiple holiday tales for the Man without Fear. One of the best is in “Daredevil” #253, inked by Al Williamson, where Matt Murdock, Daredevil, and Kingpin each make Christmas plans. Matt Murdock is a thorn in Kingpin’s side, and his holiday plans are to bring him down. Matt, meanwhile, deters kids from joining gangs, puts a stop to a crime spree as Daredevil, and donates Christmas trees and presents as Matt Murdock. While Matt has nearly nothing at this point in his life, he knows how to find joy; while Kingpin has nearly everything, he can’t appreciate what he has.    

Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.