Daredevil Is More Popular Than Ever, But Marvel Had a Clever Trick for Selling His First Comic

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe now dominates the live-action superhero genre, some of you may remember that Netflix also tried to do the same with its own Daredevil series and larger Defenders universe. Of course, the comic book hero was undoubtedly popular before that (no thanks to the Ben Affleck movie), but the TV show made him more popular among broader audiences with it’s iconic hallway fight scenes and Vincent D’Onofrio’s brilliant portrayal of Kingpin. In fact, it was so popular that Disney took a lot of time and effort bringing it into the MCU as Daredevil: Born Again. Daredevil now has such a massive following that fans were hoping to see him in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. If not, perhaps Doctor Doom will be unlucky enough to encounter him in a hallway in Avengers: Doomsday. It’s clear that Daredevil is currently one of the most popular superheroes on the market. While the TV show definitely propelled him to new heights, it all started in 1964’s Daredevil #1.

While many popular heroes made their first appearance in other titles, Daredevil got a standalone issue right from the start, and a copy of this issue just went for $8,540 at Heritage Auctions. Also unlike many other heroes, modern adaptations of Daredevil’s origin story haven’t changed much over the years. The issue starts off with the hero bursting into Fogwell’s Gym, looking for a crime boss called Fixer. During the course of the ensuing fight, we get a flashback of how Matt Murdock got his powers: thanks to a road accident which spilled radioactive chemicals into his eyes. We also learn that his father “Battling” Jack Murdock was murdered by Fixer for refusing to throw a fight, pushing Matt to start training in martial arts. While the first issue isn’t too far away from what we’ve seen in recent adaptations, what really stands out is how Marvel decided to advertise it.

Daredevil #1 Goes For Over $8,500 At Auction, But Its Cover Is More Interesting

Vintage comic book covers have always been pretty on-the-nose about the narrative of issue and its plot twists. This was a way to entice readers into picking up the issue at a time when there were very few other avenues to advertise them. They sometimes went overboard, showing certain scenes completely out of context, but Marvel was very clever with how it handled the cover of Daredevil #1. The main artwork wasn’t too fancy, showing him swinging into action against some goons, but the text blocks and panel on the right certainly make it a bit more interesting to prospective buyers.

Marvel attempted to remind fans of how successful Spider-Man was, and tell them that they’re following the same process for Daredevil. In case name-dropping Spidey wasn’t enough to turn heads, they also decided to double down on how “unusual” of a hero Daredevil was. Of course, all of us now know that he’s blind, but Daredevil #1 attempted to play it up on the cover, before revealing it in the issue. To be fair, a differently-abled superhero was quite revolutionary for the ’60s. Since then, he’s gone on to become one of the most popular movie superheroes of our time, with fans hoping and praying that he finally makes an appearance in one of the mainline MCU movies. With the heights that Daredevil has reached in recent times, it’s no surprise that his first appearance comic sold for such a price.