Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin has been the nemesis of Daredevil since his early days in Marvel Comics continuity, though in one instance he actually gave Matt Murdock his sight back. But that act of kindness was only a ruse that would end up destroying Daredevil in more ways than one. In a dark timeline within Marvel’s ever expanding multiverse, this Daredevil variant suffers a gruesome fate by the hands of his Kingpin, one which Earth-616 Kingpin would assuredly love to carry out himself.
In the Avengers: Halloween Special story titled “The Eyes Have It” by Rob Fee, Eoin Marron, and Mike Spicer, Matt Murdock receives an eye transplant as he is no longer satisfied seeing the world through the use of his other heightened senses. After the surgery is a success, Daredevil’s new eyes begin to play tricks on him immediately as he believes his friend, Foggy, is the murderous villain Bullseye, and his troubles only get worse from there.
When Daredevil mistakes Foggy for Bullseye, he attacks and kills his long-time friend and only realizes his mistake after Foggy is lying dead on the floor. The same thing happens when Daredevil encounters Karen Page, he sees her but believes he’s looking at Bullseye and once again he attacks and kills his friend. After his friends are dead, Daredevil can’t handle the guilt of having killed them so he rips his new eyes from his head in a brutal fashion. Once Matt Murdock is blind once more, the Kingpin arrives at his house wielding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to finish Daredevil off once and for all.
In the issue, fans learn that Kingpin discovered Daredevil’s secret identity and orchestrated Matt Murdock’s eye transplant surgery. Before the surgery, Kingpin contacted the doctor who would perform it and threatened him and his family unless he followed Fisk’s directions. Kingpin forced the doctor to fill Matt’s tear ducts full of a powerful hallucinogen, one that would never wear off. The hallucinogenic drugs forced into his system was the reason behind Daredevil’s reluctant killing spree as well as the reason he ripped out his eyes at the end. Finally, Kingpin himself delivered the final part of his master plan and brutally beats Daredevil to death with a serrated baseball bat.
While this story is a traumatic one for Daredevil fans, at least it didn’t happen to him in the main Marvel Comics continuity. At least, it hasn’t happened yet. In one of the latest installments of the ongoing crossover series Devil’s Reign, the Kingpin learns Daredevil’s secret identity once again. If his multiversal thought process became aligned, Kingpin could potentially come up with the same plan as the dark variant present in Avengers: Halloween Special. Whether or not Kingpin will repeat his vile actions remains to be seen, but fans know that in at least one universe Kingpin gave Daredevil his sight back, and it absolutely destroyed Matt.