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Daredevil
Beginning date 1970s
1980s
1990s
Writers Martin Pasko
Mark Evanier
Stan Lee
Original Channel ABC
NBC
Fox Kids
Previous Series Hulk Hound
Next Series Fury Force

There were three notable attempts to create a Daredevil animated series.

1970s[]

Martin Pasko wrote the first draft for a Daredevil series on December 4th, 1979. The series was titled Daredevil: The Man Without Fear. It would have been produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. In addition to Daredevil/Matt Murdock it would have featured his well-known co-stars Foggy Nelson and Karen Page.[1]

1980s[]

The Man Without Fear and Lightning the Super Dog!

Following the success of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Marvel attempted a Daredevil cartoon. A preview was seen in Comics Feature #33 released in 1985.[2]

The series would have seen blind attorney Matt Murdock and his seeing-eye dog fight crime as Daredevil and Lightning, the Super-Dog.

Mark Evanier stated:

"I wrote the bible and pilot and pilot for that Daredevil cartoon series...or rather, I should say I wrote a bible and pilot for it. Others had done several of each and ABC wasn't happy with any of the approaches. I was hired to take over and much of what I did involved throwing out concepts and alterations that others (including Stan Lee) had done to the basic premise. By that point, there were a lot of characters and gimmicks a lot less faithful to the premise than any superdog."
"I basically turned it back into the version of Daredevil drawn by Wally Wood. Matt Murdock did have the seeing-eye dog, which was not an illogical thing for a blind guy to have, and the dog sometimes aided him a la Lassie but wasn't any sort of superdog."
"ABC agreed to buy the series and it was even announced in the Hollywood trade papers...but then a gent who worked for Marvel said the wrong thing to a top exec at ABC who, I suspect, was looking for an excuse to not buy the show and to give the time slot to another project that he preferred. Whatever the reason, we woke up one morning to find that Daredevil was off the schedule, never to return. My agent and I had a brief argument with Marvel over a bonus I was to receive if the series was picked up...and they finally paid it to me because they had to admit the series was picked up. It was just dropped again."
"I think NBC later considered the show but networks generally don't like picking up things that their competitors have passed on."[3]

Coincidentally, ABC was later purchased by The Walt Disney Company who then purchased Marvel Entertainment. In 2015, they began producing the live-action series Daredevil.

Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort stated[4] that a cover of an issue of Daredevil caused the series to be pulled.[5] The cover to Daredevil #184, created by legendary artist Frank Miller, featured the titular hero holding a gun pointed to the reader. This allegedly caused the executives considering the show to believe the character was too violent for a Saturday morning cartoon.

1990[]

Would have been Elektra's only animated appearance

Marvel tried once again in 1999 to pitch the idea to Fox Kids. Fox accepted, spinning off from his appearances on the Fantastic Four episode "And a Blind Man Shall Lead Them" and the Spider-Man episodes "Framed" and "The Man Without Fear". Marvel reportedly halted production so that it would coincide with the Daredevil film. Nothing was heard of it since.

Concept art showed Daredevil along with Kingpin, Punisher, Namor, and Elektra.[6]

References[]

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