Daredevil first came on the page in 1964, and in the 61 years since, Bill Everett and Stan Lee’s creation has graduated into a prominent Marvel A-lister. In the wake of his recent resurgence on TV and in games, io9 can exclusively reveal a look inside Marvel and Insight Editions’ new book chronicling the hero’s long comics history.
Releasing November 4, Marvel’s Daredevil: The Illustrated History will cover the character’s origin story, villains, and “relentless battle for justice.” Written by Alex Segura—author of comic book neo-noirs Alter Ego and Secret Identity and March’s Daredevil: The Enemy of My Enemy—the book comes with insights from creators with formative runs on the character, including Ann Nocenti, Ed Brubaker, Brian Michael Bendis, and Chip Zdarsky.
Art-wise, the book will feature full-color panels, covers, and interiors from famous Daredevil issues. Below, you can see pages of the book’s introductory chapter (featuring the cover and pages from the first Daredevil #1), Daredevil #165 (from Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, and Klaus Janson), and covers for Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada’s first issue of Daredevil Vol. 2 and Marco Checchetto’s cover to his and Zdarsky’s Daredevil #21.
In an email to io9, Segura highlighted a common trait of Daredevil nearly every creator he spoke to brought up: “the duality of Matt [Murdock’s] nature, as a vigilante who also happened to patrol the streets of Hell’s Kitchen and enact his own form of justice. This throughline for the character helped create the framework for the book and show the evolution of the industry and medium alongside his own development.” From “70s paranoia to 80s gritty noir to a more meta approach later on,” Segura called Daredevil’s ongoing adventures “a reflection of where superhero comics stood at any given time. […] But some things remained constant, even as the supporting cast and villains changed: Matt Murdock fought for justice and found himself in a position to try his best to ensure the folks who couldn’t fight for themselves were defended.”
Outside of picking creatives’ brains, Segura said Marvel was “very generous” with reference and reading material, which introduced him to some Daredevil eras he previously never read, like Marv Wolfman and Gerry Conway. All those one-on-one talks and rereads helped him understand Matt’s messiness was a key character trait, which further helped out with Enemy of My Enemy.
The novel may take place “a bit” outside regular Marvel continuity, but consistency is important, and Matt wouldn’t really be him if he wasn’t “a pretty complex and messy guy,” in Segura’s words. By working on the two projects simultaneously, he became completely immersed in “the history of a character while also trying to carve out a new space for story at the same time. The Illustrated History doesn’t cover every minute detail of Daredevil’s history, [but] it does give you a colorful, hopefully engaging, and big-picture sense of what DD’s story is like.”
Marvel’s Daredevil: The Illustrated History arrives on shelves and digitally on November 4, and Daredevil: Enemy of My Enemy on March 24, 2026, and Segura hopes the two books “[honor] both DD’s history and the new adventure I tried to tell.”