Daredevil: Yellow

Daredevil: Yellow
Art by Tim Sale.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Genre	Superhero
Publication date	August 2001 – January 2002
No. of issues	6
Main character(s)	Daredevil Karen Page
Creative team
Written by	Jeph Loeb
Artist	Tim Sale
Letterer	Wes Abbott
Colorist	Matt Hollingsworth
Editors	Nanci Dakesian Stuart Moore

Daredevil: Yellow is a comic book limited series written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Tim Sale. It ran for a total of six issues and has been reprinted in trade paperback form. Loeb and Sale had also worked on the limited series: Spider-Man: Blue, Hulk: Gray and Captain America: White which also chronicle their respective Marvel Comics characters in their formative years.

Publication history

The 2001 miniseries, written by Loeb, presented another take on Daredevil's origins, purporting to illustrate letters written to Karen Page after her death. The series depicts the early rivalry between Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson for Page's affection, and incorporates many events depicted in the earliest issues of Daredevil. The supervillains the Owl and the Purple Man appear as antagonists. In this story, Daredevil credits Page with coining the phrase "The Man Without Fear", and she suggests to Daredevil he wear all maroon instead of dark red and yellow.

Plot

Matt Murdock's letters begin not with the radioactive accident that blinded him, but with the pivotal events surrounding his father, aging heavyweight boxer Jonathan "Battlin' Jack" Murdock. Operating in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Jack struggles to support his son and begrudgingly signs a contract with crooked gangster and manager Roscoe Sweeney. Sweeney successfully rigs a string of matches to stage a career comeback for the aging fighter. However, the arrangement shatters when Sweeney orders Jack to take a dive during a high-profile championship bout. Discovering that a young Matt is sitting in the front row of the arena, Jack refuses to compromise his son's pride and wins the fight. In retaliation, Sweeney's enforcers murder Jack.

Devastated by his father's murder and disillusioned when the corrupt legal system allows Sweeney to walk free, Matt decides to seek vigilante justice. Honoring a childhood promise to his father never to use violence to solve personal problems, Matt invents an alter ego to separate his civilian life from his physical actions. He sews his first costume out of his father's yellow and black boxing robes. Utilizing his heightened superhuman senses and radar capabilities, Matt tracks down Sweeney and his thugs at a subway station. Daredevil's ambush and sensory assault cause Sweeney to suffer a fatal heart attack. Shortly after avenging his father, Matt graduates from law school and establishes the "Nelson & Murdock" law firm alongside his college roommate, Foggy Nelson.

Needing an assistant for their newly opened practice, Matt and Foggy hire Karen Page to serve as their office secretary. Her arrival instantly sparks a lighthearted, competitive workplace rivalry between Matt and Foggy as both men attempt to win her affection. Concurrently, the struggling law firm receives a massive financial boost when Reed Richards hires them to handle the legal and technological patent issues for the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building. As the superhero Daredevil, Matt protects the city from early adversaries, including a bank-robbing encounter with the electricity-manipulating supervillain Electro.

The romantic dynamic complicates further as a "two-person love triangle" forms. While Karen politely deflects Foggy's overtures and finds herself charmed by Matt's gentle civilian persona, she openly admits to being deeply infatuated with the mysterious, daring vigilante Daredevil—completely unaware that Matt and the hero are the same person. The comedic office romance is sharply interrupted when a ruthless new antagonist, Leland Owlsley, aka the Owl, emerges in New York's criminal underworld.

Seeking to leverage legal dominance and expand his criminal enterprise, the Owl orchestrates the kidnapping of Karen Page from the Nelson & Murdock office. Distraught, Matt relies heavily on his acute tracking senses to trace her location to the Owl's heavily fortified hideout. Pushing his physical limits, Daredevil infiltrates the estate and discovers that a woman named Grace was blackmailed into assisting the villain. Daredevil successfully overpowers the Owl's guards and rescues Karen from confinement. Following a brief physical struggle over a precipice, the Owl evades final capture by escaping into the ocean. The event cements Karen's devotion to Daredevil, prompting Foggy to quietly abandon his secret plans to propose to her.

The final conflict arises when Zebediah Killgrave, aka the Purple Man, escapes police custody. Utilizing his mind-controlling pheromone aura, the Purple Man brainwashes Karen Page and uses her as a hostage to draw out the hero. Daredevil tracks them down, but his blindness renders him entirely immune to the visual components of the villain's hypnotic thrall. During the confrontation, Killgrave forces Karen off a high balcony, forcing Daredevil to make a death-defying leap to catch her mid-air. After subduing the Purple Man and returning him to authorities, Daredevil comforts a shaken Karen.

While expressing her immense gratitude, Karen tells the hero that a creature named "Daredevil" should wear all maroon or dark red—her favorite color—rather than bright yellow. Matt respects her advice, choosing to retire his father's boxing colors to adopt his all-red uniform. In the present-day framing narrative, Matt finishes writing his final letter. Having successfully confronted his grief, processed his sorrow, and honored Karen's memory, he finds emotional closure. Reinvigorated, Matt leaves his dark apartment and swings back out into the night, fully reclaiming his mantle as the "Man Without Fear".

Collected editions

Title	Material collected	Published date	ISBN
Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale: Yellow, Blue and Gray Omnibus	Spider-Man: Blue #1–6 and Daredevil: Yellow #1–6, Hulk: Gray #1–6	August 2014	978-0785188315
Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale: Yellow, Blue, Gray & White Omnibus	Spider-Man: Blue #1–6 and Daredevil: Yellow #1–6, Hulk: Gray #1–6, Captain America: White #0-5	December 2018	978-1302914059

In other media

• In Daredevil, the dynamics of Matt Murdock, Karen Page, and Foggy Nelson are based on Daredevil: Yellow.
• In She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Daredevil's yellow-and-red suit and character tone serve as a direct translation of the original 1964 comics and Daredevil: Yellow.
• In Daredevil: Born Again, the red-and-yellow costume has been visually referenced around the series, while Matt's primary suit remains the more familiar red design.

References

• Daredevil: Yellow at the Grand Comics Database

• Loeb, Jeph; Sale, Tim (2003), Daredevil: Yellow, Marvel Comics

External links

• Daredevil: Yellow on Marvel Database, a Marvel Comics wiki