When Does Daredevil Get His Suit (TV Show & Comics)
Daredevil is a fan-favorite Marvel superhero, known for his incredible powers, high moral standards, and incredible work as a lawyer. However, one of his most recognizable traits is the awesome horned suit he wears both in the comics and the popular TV show streaming on Netflix. But, when, and where, does Daredevil get his signature suit?
In the TV show, Daredevil doesn’t get his horned suit until the last few frames of the Season 1 finale. In the comics, we see Daredevil in his first horned suit already in the first issue, Daredevil #1, albeit it’s a yellow-black version, not the most popular red suit.
Despite Matt Murdock wearing the horned suit in the first issue of the comics, it’s not the first suit he ever wore, neither in the comics or the TV show. Keep reading to find out when Daredevil gets his suit and where he gets it.
When (And How) Does Daredevil Get His Suit In The TV Show?
Daredevil Netflix TV show had three epic seasons before being canceled. Despite the abrupt cancellation, it gathered a huge fan base that loved Charlie Cox’s portrayal of the character. Although everyone recognizes Daredevil for his awesome red horned suit, he didn’t have it for the show’s entire first season.
During Season 1, Matt Murdock wears a makeshift costume with an all-black appearance. He usually has black shoes, pants, a shirt, and a rag covering his head and eyes to hide his identity.
Matt’s red costume is presented at the end of Episode 13 of Season 1, the season finale. It was still not complete, though. Melvin Potter designed, tailored, and gave the suit to Daredevil. It was the signature red suit with a helmet with the devil’s horns and eyeholes because Potter didn’t know the vigilante was blind.
In Episode 4 of Season 2, the suit gets its first upgrade after Matt gets a bullet to the helmet from the Punisher. After repairs, Melvin Potter gives it some new add-ons and upgrades. It still wasn’t the final version, though.
The last upgrade came near the end of the season when Elektra and Matt went to Melvin to get her a new suit as well. That’s when Potter gave Daredevil his signature, upgraded billy club. One might say that the billy club isn’t the part of the suit, per se, but still, it completed the look. The suit also had the DD mark on the chest.
Come Season 3, Matt abandons the suit, believing he had outgrown what the suit symbolized and represented, so he turns back to his old black pirate ninja attire.
Instead, Kingpin forces Melvin Potter to create a copycat suit, which Poindexter ultimately wears. They planned to do all kinds of crime and awful things and pin it on Daredevil. Unfortunately, the show was canceled before Matt Murdock returned to his signature outfit.
When (And How) Does Daredevil Get His Suit In The Comics?
Daredevil donned numerous different suits in the comics, but they weren’t created by somebody else. Matt Murdock made all the suits himself (as far as I can remember).
We see Daredevil donning a yellow-and-black suit with a billy club already in the first issue, Daredevil #1. Matt created the suit to hide his identity, even putting eye holes in the horned mask to cover up the fact that he’s blind.
The red suit came a bit later. We first see the signature, recognizable red Daredevil suit with red eyes and the big DD logo on the chest in Daredevil #7, where Matt Murdock first fought Namor the Sub-Mariner, and then joined forces with him to battle Krang.
Interestingly, even though the yellow-and-black suit and the red suit are the first two Daredevil costumes we’ve seen, they weren’t chronologically the first suits Matt Murdock ever wore. His first outfit looked much more like the Season 1 all-black attire that Charlie Cox’s Daredevil wore. Let’s look at all the suits Matt Murdock ever had.
Every Version Of Daredevil’s Suit
Prototype Suit
The first suit – or, better said, costume – that Matt Murdock ever had was the Prototype Suit. Matt created a makeshift suit to hide his identity while protecting Hell’s Kitchen from crime. It appeared in Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #4, and it was the first chronological appearance of any Daredevil costume ever.
Hell’s Kitchen was on the brink of collapse, falling into a state of horror and decay. Wilson Fisk was just becoming the Kingpin of the New York underbelly, while Matt wasn’t exactly Daredevil yet. His friend, a young girl, named Mickey, along with a bunch of other children, had been kidnapped by Kingpin’s men.
So, Matt put on black sweatpants and sweatshirt, his white-and-black sneakers, and a rag over his head and face (down to his nose) to cover up his identity. He also had a police baton and ventured on a saving mission to rescue Mickey and the other kids from Kingpin, who planned on using them for child pornography.
Yellow-and-black Suit
The Yellow-and-black Suit was the first Daredevil suit we’ve ever seen in Daredevil #1. It had a large red letter D across the chest and a red baton. Matt used it when he was chasing the Fixer, his father’s killer, which led to the Fixer dying from a heart attack caused by fright and fatigue.
Later, the suit was slightly modified with a second D over the chest – a logo that would carry over to the next suit.
Red Suit
The Red Suit is by far the most recognizable Daredevil outfit ever. The Yellow-and-black Suit lasted only six issues before Murdock retired it and presented the epic red devil suit in Daredevil #7. It had the red DD logo on the chest with a black outline and a head mask with epic red lenses.
This particular version of the suit lasted for decades before being destroyed in a fight against the Wild Pack.
Armored Suit
After the awesome Red Suit had been destroyed in a fight with the Wild Pack, Daredevil decided to go for a bit more protection with his next suit. The Armored Suit premiered in Daredevil #321 (yeah, the Red one lived for a long, long time).
The Armored Suit was mostly black with red gloves, chest, and abdomen, along with silver-white kneecaps and stripes on the shoulders. The signature red lenses and DD logo remained; only the logo was now only on his left chest.
This particular suit gave Daredevil more protection, which he most certainly needed to fight against Hellspawn (Daredevil’s demon-like doppelganger).
Shadowland Suit
Last but not least, the final canonical suit that Daredevil ever wore was the Shadowland Suit. Premiering in Shadowland #1, Matt wore this suit while possessed by a demon called The Beast. It was a very dark period of Matt’s life where he frequently broke his no-kill policy – not by his will, but still; it weighed on him later.
During the storyline, Daredevil became the leader of the Hand, the ancient Japanese ninja gang he fought in Hell’s Kitchen for so long. The suit resembled the storyline – it was dark grey (almost black) with a few red highlights and details, including the big overlapping DD letters across his chest. You might’ve guessed it – the red lenses were still here.
Later, Murdock got rid of the demon and returned to Hell’s Kitchen from San Francisco. He modified his Shadowland appearance and wore a similar dark grey suit with red details, closely resembling the Shadowland Suit.
Alternate Reality Suits
The suits I mentioned so far all belonged to Daredevil from Earth-616. Daredevils from other realities had different suits, but just as epic.
In Daredevil 2099 #1, Sam Fisk is wearing a suit honoring his predecessor. The suit was dark red with compartments hidden on the thighs where Fisk could hide the billy club, as well as two guns. The bulletproof suit also had a surveillance system, aimed the guns for him, and even had rockets embedded into the boots, allowing Fisk to jump hire.
On Earth-10245, namely in the What If?: Daredevil Vs. Elektra #1 issue, we see a completely different Daredevil costume. It resembled a traditional Japanese samurai suit or a kimono much more than the regular Daredevil outfit. It was all-red with dark grey/black gloves, red lenses, and big longhorns on the mask.
Also, this Daredevil donned a katana instead of a billy club, which he used to chop off the heads of Nick Fury and Stick.
On Earth-701306 – or the Ben Affleck Daredevil film – Matt Murdock has an all-red leather suit with red lenses, boots, gloves, and tiny horns. He also donned a leather case for his billy club and the DD logo on the left side of his chest.
The Earth-199999 version of Daredevil is the Charlie Cox version in the TV show, which we now know wore a suit created by Melvin Potter, and a copycat suit worn by Benjamin Poindexter later in the show.
Finally, on Earth-TRN852, Matt Murdock was a cleric who wasn’t a religious Catholic or Jew like his other iterations. Instead, in Heroes Reborn: American Knights #1, we see Daredevil donning two baseball bats and a suit with a snake emblem on his chest and belt.
You see, this Matt Murdock was a member of the House of Mephisto. He believed that sinners would sin no matter what and that all people were created in the image of the devil, Mephisto. Still, they needed to be punished, and this Daredevil usually did so by using the baseball bats to bludgeon them to death.
Once, he put a guy in the hospital, then came to visit him in the hospital only to finish the job and bludgeon him to death. As for the snake symbols, they represented the form Mephisto once took.
There you have it – every suit Daredevil ever had, along with the when’s, what’s, and why’s!
