Being the significant other of a costumed hero is never easy, and examples of this are all around us in the comic world. Practically every hero in comics has faced some sort of tragedy, or at least a scare, regarding their romantic partner. Spider-Man famously witnessed/caused the death of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner infamously found his girlfriend stuffed into a refrigerator… hell, Lois Lane was used as bait on a regular basis in the Silver Age and I think that whole “Superman’s Girlfriend” thing greatly exaggerated.

However, there is none with so disastrous a track record as Matthew Murdock, Esquire. In his 50 years on the stands, Daredevil has proven that although he may have lost his sight in a childhood accident, but he gained an uncanny amount of GAME. He wines ’em, he dines ’em, and he often attends their funerals. On the plus side, he always shows up stag to the cemetery, it’s terribly gauche to bring a date. But, Ladies! Don’t fall for his charms, I beg you! Underneath this shiny veneer is a dark, dark man who destroys every relationship he enters.

7) Elektra Natchios

Let’s start with Daredevil’s most widely celebrated romantic clusterfuck, shall we?

Matt Murdock and Elektra met at Columbia University and soon fell head over heels for one another. Shortly thereafter, her father was assassinated and she left school to concentrate full time on her martial arts training. Now, none of that was Matt’s fault. In fact, Elektra made the first bad move on this one when she (having become a professional assassin) returned to New York and crossed paths with Matt in his vigilante persona. While Matt immediately recognized her, it took some time for her to nail down his identity.

Once things settle down and Elektra stops trying to kill Matt and his friends, Bullseye shows up and goes toe-to-toe with Elektra. As the Kingpin’s newly appointed chief assassin, he’s out to impress the boss by taking his predecessor out with style. Elektra’s love for Matt, and resultant reluctance to commit murder for hire, ended up getting her the kebab treatment.

I mean, sure… she came back from the dead eventually, but you get the picture. While Elektra has been in and out of Matt’s life in the years since her magic ninja resurrection, they’ve avoided a serious relationship because even a batshit crazy zombie assassin can tell that this boy is Poi-son!

6) Heather Glenn

While Elektra may have been the most famous flame featured in Frank Miller’s groundbreaking run on Daredevil, she was not Daredevil’s principal love interest. Although, much of the time he was clearly disinterested in his on-again-off-again flame Heather Glenn. As a wealthy heiress, she was a bit of a party girl. That didn’t bother Matt none, though, it was just the kind of low-level commitment he needed in a relationship. She could go out drinking all night while he was beating the ever-living fuck out of Turk and Stilt-Man (and one time Turk in a Stilt-Man suit). However, when her father died and she took control of the company, things got a bit more complicated. Her lack of business savvy wound up getting her company in bed with some very nasty people, and Daredevil sets out to take them down even if it means taking the company with them. Also, Matt for some reason approaches Heather in her weakest hour and sort of dares her not to marry him.

Shit goes sour because, duh, he’s Daredevil and that’s how he rolls. On her own again and reeling from the recent destruction of her life as she knew it, Heather finds solace in a deep, deep bottle. She drunk-dials Matt claiming she needs Daredevil’s brand of help and in his hurry to help her Matt fails to prevent a murder. Fed up with her nonsense, Matt beats feet and the next time he checks in on Heather… well, she’d certainly stopped drinking so much.

5) Milla Donovan

Spoiler alert! As of December 2013, Milla Donovan is not dead. A beating heart is an attribute possessed by fewer and fewer of Matt Murdock’s former conquests each day, so this is sort of noteworthy. However, the fact that she’s alive doesn’t mean everything is peaches and cream for Mr. Murdock’s blushing bride.

Unique among Daredevil’s lovers in that she shared his handicap (if not the fantastic abilities he possesses in turn), Milla also shared Matt’s indomitable spirit in the face of the hand she’d been dealt. The two fell in love at first sight (pun legitimately not intended) and the courting begins. And at the point where an average man would introduce a lady to his parents, Matt and Milla hit a little landmark of their own; Bullseye attempted to murder her as he so often does Matt’s flames. Milla survived, though, and she was rewarded for her trouble by another attempt on her life, this time by Matt’s sometime ally the Gladiator. Since the Gladiator had reformed, Matt sought answers as to why he’d been acting this way. It turns out that Mister Fear, one of Daredevil’s less prominent rogues, had been doping criminals with a toxin that made each and every one of them a “Man Without Fear”. A notable side effect of this toxin was that it made the subject entirely fucking insane. Fear dosed Milla with this toxin and then turned himself over to the police. Why, you ask? Just to fuck with Daredevil’s life. Mission accomplished! Between the drugs to which she’d been exposed and the never-ending flurry of bullshit that comes from personally knowing Matt Murdock, Milla ended up killing a man and severely injuring others. She was carted off to a mental hospital, and Matt was once again alone. Although he got over his wife’s commitment to an asylum pretty quickly, by almost immediately sleeping with…

4) Dakota North

Dakota North was a private investigator/bodyguard who ppremiered in a self-titled limited series in the mid-80s. She occasionally showed up in an issue here and there for the next 20 years but she was never exactly an A List character. However, when Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson went shopping for hired muscle, they scraped the bottom of the barrel and found this all-but abandoned Marvel property. Sadly, this did not cause a spike in prices of old Dakota North back issues, but she nonetheless ended up being a capable employee. And when the shit went down the aforementioned bride of the Daredevil, Dakota was there to comfort the put-upon attorney/vigilante.

These things happen, but he’s not the only one to blame for that. They made a choice, and she knew full well what she was doing hopping into with bed with a married man. however, she couldn’t have been prepared for the long term effects of exposure to Matt Murdock’s genitals. As you’ve hopefully already realized, she was pretty much doomed herself the moment she got physical with Murdock, and she learned that herself when her private investigator license was revoked as part of one of the Kingpin’s many plots to ruin Matt Murdock’s life. She managed to keep her career floating throughout two decades of publication limbo but the instant she hit the sack with Ol’ Hornhead everything went all pear-shaped.

Dakota and Foggy (who’d been disbarred) worked toward uncovering the conspiracy and getting their jobs back and were able to do so with minimal interference from Daredevil. But it wasn’t as if he was keeping his distance because he’d stepped over a line with Dakota. That would be a tasteful and mature decision, and Mr. Murdock is not terribly fond of such decisions. You see, Matt Murdock had fallen under the influence of an ancient demon and, having taken control of The Hand, had rebranded Hell’s Kitchen as Shadowland. But we don’t like to talk about that. Suffice it to say that Dakota was among the Marvel street level characters swept up in the shit storm that was Shadowland and that seems to have been the last straw for her.

3) Typhoid Mary

In the case of Milla Donovan, we saw a well-balanced woman driven to insanity by a relationship with Matt Murdock. If this life can get a sane woman hopelessly committed to an asylum, imagine what it can do to a woman who’s already got mental issues! Now, to be fair, her Dissociative Personality Disorder was inadvertently caused by Matt Murdock, but it was long before they’d ever fooled around. Once more proving his knack for destroying the lives of women, Matt accidentally knocked young Mary Walker out of a window and knocked a few extra personalities loose.

And then he went and took advantage of the damaged psyche he created by pursuing a sexual relationship with Mary, a woman he knew to be unstable. I shouldn’t be surprised at the overwhelmingly lack of ethics displayed by a lawyer who dishes out vigilante justice on his nights off, I suppose, but it’s still shocking that he would continually prey on this shattered woman. She’s clearly not all there, as she is also romantically involved with Wilson Fisk. Daredevil, thanks to his heightened senses, can doubtlessly smell crazy a mile away and yet he still returned periodically to the well that was Typhoid Mary. There is absolutely no chance that that kind of behavior had any positive effect on Mary’s already fragile mental state.

2) Glorianna O’Breen

Foggy Nelson was, once upon a time, married to a woman named Debbie Harris. She had a niece named Glorianna O’Breen and since Matt Murdock is a scumbag he decided to move in on that action. You will not be surprised to learn that this relationship did not pan out and… and this the weirdest bit… Glorianna started dating Foggy. Glorianna was “Comic Book Irish” so her dialogue was laughable and she frequently mentioned leprechauns and the blarney stone.

But so tainted is Matt Murdock’s seed that even after moving over to Foggy, Glorianna is still doomed. The mere fact that she knows Matt Murdock is reason enough for the Universe to want her dead. And she doesn’t go peacefully in her sleep or anything… No, it’s not even a little bit peaceful. Glorianna O’Breen is thrown out of a high rise window onto the New York sidewalk.

Ah, yes. The cold, lifeless face of a former lover… a feeling Matt Murdock knows all too well. You know how in today’s world you feel naked without your keys and/or cell phone in your pocket? You’ve become so used to the weight that it’s absence almost unsettles your nerves? That’s probably how Matt Murdock feels when he’s not touching the corpse of a chick he used to fuck.

1) Karen Page

A presence in the Daredevil comic since the first issue, Karen Page was the trusted secretary at Matt and Foggy’s law firm. Both attorneys had eyes (I’m honestly not going for these cheap puns) for Karen, but she wasn’t interested in Foggy. She and Matt got together, and he ended up sharing with her his most private secret, that of his dual identity. This act, however, did not do wonders for their relationship and she said goodbye to Matt and Foggy, heading out west to try her hand at acting.

And then, presumably after trying the notorious gateway drug marijuana, Karen became hopelessly addicted to heroin. You can never trust a junkie, folks… and that’s a lesson that Daredevil learned in the Born Again storyline. After giving prostitution the old college try, and still desperately in need of that sweet horse, Karen resorts to selling the only thing of worth she still has: Daredevil’s true identity. Needless to say, that rascal Wilson Fisk gets a hold of this info and has a field day fucking up Matt Murdock’s life. Like, hardcore. Matt ends up homeless, jobless, disgraced, and mentally unhinged. Then Karen shows up in his life again and, in a sort of sweet turn of events, they help one another to rebuild.

Things were just plain swell for a bit. Karen stayed clean, she helped others get clean, and started a radio program where she offered advice to others. She and Matt do eventually part ways, but under good terms, and she moves back out west to further her career in radio. But just when things are looking up for ol’ Karen Page, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire. Mysterio, in an attempt to totally fuck with Daredevil (this is sort of a recurring theme in Daredevil comics) convinces Karen Page that she is HIV Positive. She tells Matt and he, although furious, doesn’t have too hard a time believing this… she was after all a junkie whore. Shortly thereafter, Matt’s old buddy Bullseye pays a visit to the convent where Karen has taken up residence and kills her.

So, now do you see why it’d be in your best interest to avoid a romantic relationship with Daredevil? No good can come of it. Everything this man touches turns to shit. There’s a very decent chance you’ll end up dead, and even if you don’t you’re gonna be whackadoo bananas for the rest of your life. Some people are better off single, and as sad as it is I do believe Matthew Murdock is one such man.

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