Warning: spoilers ahead for Daredevil #36!
In the latest issue of Marvel Comics' Daredevil, Matt Murdock chooses to take an unexpected and surprising approach when facing the Kingpin. Having been finally released from prison, Daredevil's time behind bars has changed his perspectives on the efficacy of the justice system, motivating him to adopt new tactics not only with the average crooks of Hell's Kitchen, but also with Wilson Fisk himself, his greatest rival and the current mayor of New York in the Marvel Universe.
Despite his longtime day job as a lawyer, Daredevil has become disillusioned with the law, seeing it as altogether unjust with specific regard to the corruption and inequalities within prisons. While Matt Murdock's whole point in giving himself up and accepting his sentence for involuntary manslaughter was to prove to the public that not even superheroes are above the law, the inequalities that were already prevalent made his argument pointless, and he ultimately took a deal from the FBI to investigate the warden in return for cutting his sentence short.
Now that Murdock has been released in Daredevil #36 from writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Manuel Garcia, it seems as though a new Man Without Fear has been born, electing to follow more of a personal code when doing what's right. Case in point, he tries to convince a thief to drop his gun and the items he stole, giving him the chance to leave without any further trouble rather than simply beating him up and leaving him for the cops as he would have before his time behind bars. Furthermore, upon hearing that Kingpin is getting married to Typhoid Mary Daredevil decides to visit Fisk. However, Murdock chooses a very unexpected strategy when it comes to his great rival: doing nothing. Instead of fighting Fisk, Daredevil believes the key to defeating the Kingpin could be allowing his foe to experience contentment and happiness through his marriage.
Could contentment and happiness really be the key to stopping Kingpin? While Daredevil certainly seems to hope so, Elektra has her doubts. It definitely seems as though Fisk doesn't appreciate Daredevil's words, and it's likely that Murdock counting Kingpin's happiness as a victory won't sit well with Fisk, potentially tainting any real contentment he might have found. At the same time, Matt is more right than he knows - a relationship depicted in Ed Brubaker and David Aja's Daredevil #116 saw Fisk set aside his criminal life for love, only for the Hand to destroy his happiness. Of course, Typhoid Mary herself is unlikely to desire the same type of quiet life, and could even make Kingpin worse given her own murderous tendencies.
Furthermore, the upcoming Devil's Reign event is coming soon to the Marvel Universe, seeing Fisk outlaw superheroes from New York and declare war against them with his supervillain Thunderbolts. As such, contentment and happiness for the Kingpin probably won't be achievable until he's defeated Matt Murdock once and for all. Here's hoping Daredevil will be up to the challenge when Devil's Reign #1 releases on December 8 and Kingpin reveals the true extent of his remaining discontent.