Daredevil’s Worst Costume is Back (And it’s a Hilarious Plot Device)

Matt Murdock has gone through a lot of changes recently. Not only is his MCU counterpart dealing with the fallout of going back to being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but in the comics he’s an entirely different person than the usual Matt Murdock we all know and love, or at least has lived a different life. Ever since he sacrificed himself to save Foggy’s life and was reborn as a new man and a priest, Matt has been struggling to find a way to be himself and the new person he grew into.

But the newest issue of Daredevil shows us one thing that will never change about Matt: his lack of fashion sense.Daredevil is back in his most notorious costume of all, the black armor. This costume is absolutely hated by any and all Daredevil fans, not just for the absurd design, but also because of the run it initially appeared in.



D.G. Chichester’s first run on Daredevil, where this suit first appeared, is not looked back on fondly given its general weak writing and out of character actions for the character.

However, this suit is certainly the best remembered part of the run, and for good reason. It makes a certain impression on the viewer, and not in a good way, but its newest appearance may completely flip that hate into something a bit more lighthearted.Saladin Ahmed’s current run brings the suit back in what might be the best way possible.

It comes when Matt decides he needs a change in his life after tragedy. In case you don’t know, in the previous issue the devil Wrath forced Daredevil to choose between either saving his best friend Foggy Nelson, or Bullseye. Normally, this is where the Man Without Fear would break himself to find some way to save both, but not this time.

Instead, without hesitation, Matt saves Foggy, knowing it would mean letting Bullseye die. The guilt from this choice wracks him day and night, leading him to want to throw away the costume he wore when he made the choice.RELATED: Marvel’s New Daredevil Series Reveals a Gruesome Fate for the PunisherIn the newest issue, Daredevil #20, Matt is estranged from the people he cares about most, and is spending most of his time at his girlfriend Nyla Skin’s apartment.

He’s investigating the disappearance of multiple people from the building when Ahmed makes the ultimate case for having Matt wear the black armor instead of his usual suit. While going into Nyla’s apartment Matt hears people coming to the door, and throws clothes over his costume to answer it. Before he can, he is knocked unconscious by a mysterious fungal infection growing on him, and two people in hazmat suits find him.

They pick him up to take him somewhere, and the robe Matt tossed on slips off slightly, showing them the suit. But instead of seeing it and assuming he was a superhero, they thought something very different: they assumed the suit was a bondage outfit.That’s right, because Daredevil was wearing his black armor suit instead of his red, yellow, or any other one of his many suits, the people taking him didn’t discover his secret identity.

If it had been any suit that looked remotely normal, he would have been found out then and there, and he couldn’t have stopped it. And this suit being a plot device that saves Matt’s secret is just hilarious. It’s the character’s most-hated costume and now, it’s the one that saves him.

This suit is so out of the usual field of Daredevil attire that random mooks thought it wasn’t even a costume at all, and that is the absolutely perfect way to employ the black armor. Ahmed addressed the fact that the suit is so strange, and used that as a plot point in the story itself, which not only keeps Matt’s identity safe, but gives him the chance to already be in costume when he wakes up and needs to save all of the kidnapped people. That’s some incredible meta writing if there ever was some.

I stand by the statement that no matter how long Matt wears this atrocious suit, this decision alone justifies it. And if Matt switches back to one of his other suits after this arc is over, that would make this scene even funnier, because then it would have only been brought in for the sake of that joke. That’s pretty clever, if you think about it.

Daredevil #20 is on sale now.The post Daredevil’s Worst Costume is Back (And it’s a Hilarious Plot Device) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

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