I Love Ya But You're Strange - The Utter Inanity of Matt Murdock's "Twin Brother," Mike

Every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Here is the archive of all the installments of this feature. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!

Today, in honor of his new Netflix TV series, we take a look at perhaps the most embarrassing moment in Daredevil's history - the extremely silly but strangely awesome tale of Mike Murdock, Matt Murdock's fake twin brother!

So in Daredevil #16, Spider-Man and Daredevil face off. Unluckily for Spider-Man, he was facing off against just Daredevil and not an entire team of X-Men, as Daredevil handled himself very well against ol' Spidey, even capturing him for a time. When Spider-Man escapes, he tracks down Daredevil to the office of Nelson and Murdock. Once there, he figures Foggy Nelson, despite being chubby and thus obviously not Daredevil, must be Daredevil because the other dude, Matt Murdock, is blind. Foggy goes along with it, because he sees that it makes their secretary, Karen Page, think better of him. He eventually goes so far as to buy a Daredevil costume to further the illusion. This goes poorly for him when a bad guy mistakes him for the real Daredevil. This leads to him being proven to be NOT Daredevil. Daredevil is off on a couple of missions that take him away from New York. While gone, Spider-Man sends a letter to Matt Murdock telling him that he figures that HE must be Daredevil then. Karen opens the letter and now she and Foggy believes Matt is Daredevil.

This leads to Matt coming up with the most logical solution to the problem possible, as we see in Daredevil #25, by Stan Lee, Gene Colan (who write and draw every issue featured today, with a host of different inkers for Colan, from Frank Giacoia to John Tartaglione)....

Having now written himself into an absurd corner, Matt has to continue this ridiculous fiction, but luckily for him, Foggy and Karen are two of the most gullible people alive, so we get the following...

The following issue, Lee and Colan go into greater detail explaining how Matt is able to pull off this perfect con...

Beyond everything else silly about this thing, how about just the general "Matt is blind and Mike always wears sunglasses" thing. Wouldn't even a slightly curious person try to get Mike to take off his sunglasses at one point?

But no, Foggy and Karen are fully on board...

In Daredevil #27, the evil Marauder kidnaps Matt, Foggy and Karen because he figured out that Daredevil has some connection to the law firm (as it turns out, the Marauder is their landlord, as that's just how things go in the Marvel Universe). So Matt gets into trouble by quickly giving up his brother's secret identity...

Karen and Foggy are naturally shocked that Matt would sell out his brother like that, and that drama continues into the next issue...

To her credit, later in the issue, Karen scrapes together enough brain cells to wonder "Huh. Mike didn't seem to care at all that his brother sold him out. And Matt's not the type of guy who would so something like that, so maybe there's something else going on..." before "Mike" shows up to convince her otherwise.

In the following issue, continuing the weirdness of this storyline, Matt decides to propose to Karen (say wha?!)...

But since people still believe that Nelson and Murdock are tied to Daredevil, Karen gets kidnapped AGAIN and at the end of the issue, Matt decides that Karen is already in danger just WORKING for him. He can't put her into further danger by making her his wife.

Daredevil #30 is a weird little issue where Matt is disguised as Mike disguised as Thor....

The real Thor finds out about someone trying to look like him and gets pissed, and a brief fight occurs.

On the next page, discover how Karen and Foggy are so gullible that they even buy "Mike" turning out to be blind and STILL not think he's Matt! Plus, the DEATH of Mike Murdock!

In Daredevil #31, Daredevil is blinded for real by the villainous Mister Hyde and Cobra. No radar senses. Since he's fully blind now, he has to reveal this to Foggy and Karen, but decides to sell it as Mike Murdock just going blind, as well...

Oh, Foggy...

Oh, Karen...

So Matt defeats them and gets his radar sense back. In Daredevil #33, he decides to deal with the whole "Wait, Matt and Mike have never been in the same room before? What's up with that?" scenario with a plan that, by all logic, should have no chance of succeeding...

Later in the issue, Matt discovers the troubles of vying with himself for Karen's affections...

In Daredevil #35, the Trapster attacks Nelson and Murdock because, like everyone else, he figures that they know Daredevil. He tells them to tell Daredevil that he's coming for them. But Matt being, you know, Daredevil, can't very well warn himself, so he has to instead look like a jerk again...

Daredevil's next few adventures kept him away from Foggy and Karen. This gives them time to forgive Matt. Finally, in Daredevil #41, Karen has realized that she loves Matt and not Mike...

Which is good news, as that's the same issue that Matt figures out a way to get rid of Mike once and for all...

He stops the Unholy Three (who have also made Foggy's girlfriend of the time turn invisible) but also rigs their weapon to seemingly kill Mike Murdock...

Matt gets one last chance to look like a jerk the next issue where he, for whatever weird reason, can't be bothered to even fake being upset over his brother's death...