Ethics and Morality
Balancing Grace and Retribution in “Daredevil: Born Again”
What we can learn about the balance of ideals from the new "Daredevil" show.
Posted March 7, 2025 Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Key points
- Matt Murdock opposes killing his foes, even the most murderous ones such as Bullseye.
- There are many reasons for this, such as his personal responsiblity and the redemption he hopes for Bullseye.
- Matt says he was raised to believe in both grace and redemption, which he must reconcile in his actions.
**Major spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again**
In the first episode of Daredevil: Born Again, Matt Murdock (Daredevil) is fighting the deadly assassin Benjamin Poindexter (Bullseye) on the roof of a four-story building after Poindexter shot Matt’s best friend Foggy Nelson in the chest on the street below. Matt has beaten Poindexter into submission, but when he used his enhanced senses to hear that Foggy’s heart has stopped, Matt flings the grinning assassin off the building. Even though Poindexter survives, later in the episode Matt admits to Wilson Fisk that he did try to kill him.
This shocking development in the new Disney+ series parallels the ongoing battle between Daredevil and Bullseye in the comics. There, Daredevil repeatedly refuses to kill Bullseye, and even saves his life, despite knowing full well that if he lives he will only kill again—a moral struggle that reaches to the core of who Matt Murdock is as a person, a hero, and a Catholic.
Refusing to Kill
As many superhero conflicts do, the situation with Daredevil and Bullseye resembles the classic philosophical thought experiment of the trolley problem, in which a person can prevent the deaths of five people only by killing one. Bullseye is a murderous psychopath who kills with glee, and as long as he lives he is almost guaranteed to continue doing this.*
Why, then, does Matt make the choice, time and time again, not to kill him and even to save his life? In my book A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Daredevil: From the Beginning to Born Again, I suggest several reasons:
- Bullseye’s future murders are only possible, maybe probable. However, taking his life now, or failing to save it, is real and actual. Ideally, Matt can prevent Bullseye’s death (or save his life) now and devote himself to stopping him from killing anybody later, which would be the best of both worlds.
- Matt’s Catholicism teaches that all life is not only valuable but redeemable, that all sin can be forgiven and even the most broken soul can be saved through confession and repentance. Even though Bullseye is unlikely to repent, Matt has to believe that this is possible, and as long as this is true, Matt cannot stand by and let him die (or take his life himself).
- Matt feels strongly that it is the role of the courts (on Earth) and God (in heaven) to judge and punish, not his or any one person's.
- Matt has also admitted that he dearly wants to end Bullseye’s life, which provides yet another reason not to do it: he would never be sure if he did for the right reason or the wrong one, which is essential to Matt's conception of his own moral character.
An Ambiguous Act
After Bullseye kills Matt's first great love Elektra, however, everything changes.
Following a long battle, Matt and Bullseye end up balanced on a wire between two buildings. Matt jumps up to unsettle Bullseye, who starts to fall, but Matt catches him. Bullseye moves his free hand, holding the knife he killed Elektra with, towards Matt’s wrist. In the next panel, we see Bullseye’s hand dropping from Matt’s, while Matt says, “You’ll kill no one—ever again!” Bullseye drops to the ground, and by the end of the issue, we see him bandaged from head to toe in the hospital, his spine shattered, no feeling in his extremities and no power of speech, but full of hate for the man who put him there (Daredevil #181, April 1982).
As drawn in the comics, it is left ambiguous whether Bullseye stabbed Matt in the wrist before Matt let go of Bullseye’s hand. Even if Matt did drop him before he was stabbed, it could be seen as perfectly rational: Bullseye was going to fall either way, but at least Matt saved his wrist by dropping him before he was stabbed. Even Matt’s ominous statement as Bullseye plummets toward the ground can be interpreted as simple relief that a murderous threat is gone, whether or not he actively had a hand in eliminating it.
The ambiguity behind Matt's intention is resolved in a later story, when he is pursuing Bullseye again, considering killing him and remembering that “I failed the first time I tried” (Daredevil #200, November 1983). Now we know that he didn’t drop him out of rational self-preservation—he dropped him in the hope of killing him. The impending stabbing may have made him feel better about it for a while, even trick himself into thinking he didn’t mean to do it, but this makes clear that he very much did.
What Changed?
How do we explain this change of heart? One explanation comes from the episode of the show we started the post with. A year after Foggy was killed, Matt meets Fisk in a diner to talk and says that he was raised to believe in grace, “that we can be touched by the divine and transformed into a better person. He then adds that he was also raised to believe in retribution, by which the wicked must be punished for their sins. Matt meant this for Fisk, who claims to be running for the mayor of New York City as a new man, but it also applies to his struggle with Bullseye in both the show and the comics.
Grace and retribution are two dueling motivations in Matt’s mind regarding Bullseye: the belief that he can be redeemed if given the chance, and the need for justice in response to his wrongdoing. Matt normally believes that it is not his place to judge or punish, but he is only human. On the show, after hearing his best friend take his last breath, Matt chose to take justice into his own hands, just as he did in the comics after he found Elektra murdered. Even if both choices were made in the moment, the result of impulse more than deliberation, Matt feels the weight of responsibility for them nonetheless.
On the show, Matt clearly regrets this almost immediately, falling to his knees, tossing his mask away, and giving up being Daredevil. After losing Foggy and becoming estranged from their friend and partner Karen Page, he starts to rebuild his life with a new mission, partner, and legal practice. This suggests that his words about grace may have also been meant for himself, as he is clearly trying to forgive himself for what he did and do better, refusing to hurt any more people as Daredevil. I suspect, however, that future episodes will test this decision as more dangers reveal themselves (as often happens in the comics).
References
* This is also relevant to the perennial question, "why doesn't Batman kill the Joker?" I discuss this at length in chapter 6 of my book Batman and Ethics.
