10 Comic Characters Who Totally Changed After Appearing On Screen

6. Daredevil

Nick Fury MCU
Marvel

If you were to break down the most important aspects of Daredevil, it would probably go something like this: he's DARING, and he dresses like a DEVIL. The fact that he's also Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer with super senses who's been trained in the art of ninja fighting, should really be secondary to these two things.

And yet, on-screen adaptations of the character tend to shy away from this, especially the Devil part. Daredevil's first live action appearance was not his fantastic Netflix show or his considerably less fantastic Ben Affleck film: it was The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, a fantastically cheesy TV movie from 1989. This outfit completely disregarded the devilish look of the original, instead focusing on the 'blind' and 'ninja' aspects of the character. And, despite it being a bit of a cop-out and not at all comic accurate... It actually looked pretty cool.

Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. certainly thought so, and featured this black costume prominently in The Man Without Fear, the definitive version of Daredevil's origin story. This comic went on to inspire Netflix's Daredevil show, which clearly prefers this more realistic outfit and uses every opportunity to get Matt Murdock back into it.

Contributor
Contributor

Jimmy Kavanagh is an Irish writer and co-founder of Club Valentine Comedy, a Dublin-based comedy collective. You can hear him talk to his favourite comedians about their favourite comics on his podcast, Comics Swapping Comics.