Every Daredevil writer since Miller has trodden in the footsteps he left — and amazingly, most of them have done a pretty good job (“Daredevil” is a contender for Marvel’s most consistently excellent ongoing comic). That means Catholicism has endured as part of the comic’s ethos, though some writers highlight it more than others. Zdarsky’s run is about Matt being challenged on how his ideals and his actions align (or don’t). At the run’s end, an amnesiac Matt has become a priest, but the ending suggests he’ll be just as compromised as a man of God as he was as a man of the law.
In Netflix’s “Daredevil” series, Matt’s priest Father Lantom (Peter McRobbie) is a recurring character. One of the first scenes is Matt in a confession booth, trying to explain his vigilantism as an undeniable urge: “I’m not seeking penance for what I’ve done, Father. I’m asking forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”
In the 2022 comic crossover event “Judgment Day” (written by Kieron Gillen), a Celestial comes to judge humanity, one by one. The story is centered on the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals, yet issue #4 focuses on Daredevil for just a moment. The Celestial’s judgment explains in four sentences what some comics have taken whole arcs to spell out:
“Matt Murdock dresses like a devil and tries to stop the streets from becoming Hell. He is a man with a firm moral code, which he has violated time and time over. I appear with a crown of thorns and a downturned thumb. Beneath the mask, he weeps, says I know, yet carries on.”
The laws that Matt Murdock observes, legal and spiritual, often stress conviction over action. Daredevil suffers inside because he values the inverse, yet this contradiction reveals his goodness. He cares about saving others’ souls more than his own.