Doing for The Man Without Fear what he did for Wolverine with Old Man Logan, artist Steve McNiven, along with writer Charles Soule, is turning up the heat on a grizzled, older Matt Murdock in Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell.
The new limited series is set in a grim vision of the future and stars an older, almost powerless Matt Murdock who has given up his career as a superhero. When a catastrophe restores his enhanced senses, however, he leaps back into action. But the clock is ticking...
Having previously teamed up on 2014's seismic Death of Wolverine, 2018's sequel Return of Wolverine, and 2015's Uncanny Inhumans, Cold Day In Hell marks McNiven and Soule's first work together for the best part of a decade. Newsarama sat down with the duo – who are credited equally for the script – about reuniting on what could turn out to be Daredevil's darkest night.
Newsarama: How did you come to work together again after so many years?
Steve McNiven: Charles and I started kicking around the idea of this story way back in pre-pandemic times as something we could work on following up on our previous collaborations. We are always kicking around different ideas for stories to tell and this one spun out into interesting places. Luckily for us, Marvel thought it sounded like a project they could get behind as well so off we went with it.
Charles Soule: I'd had the basic premise for this story in my mind for a while, as something I was considering doing toward the end of my run on the main Daredevil title. When that wrapped up, the idea that became Cold Day In Hell stuck in my mind, and at some point I discussed it with Steve as something we could do together. Fortunately, he was interested, and Marvel was willing to let us both take the time we needed to do it right. Of course, that idea – and yes, this would have been back in 2018 or 2019 – was just the seed of what the book eventually became. We've both poured a lot of thought and sweat into this one to make it what it is. I think it's some of our best work.
Charles, what drew you back to Matt Murdock again?
Soule: Daredevil is a character that's almost infinitely malleable. You can tell many different kinds of stories with him, and it's always challenging and fun. I suspect I'd be able to keep going back to him for a long time, if the audience wants it.
Did you conceive Cold Day in Hell as an unholy combination of Dark Knight Returns, the Daredevil TV series and Old Man Logan?
McNiven: I believe that all of those things were at play in some fashion but this story really just grew organically out of us bouncing ideas back and forth. As far as I was concerned Daredevil was always a character I wanted to explore and as Charles had done some tremendous work with the character already it seemed like a perfect fit.
As I got into the technical aspects of drawing the book I had more concrete influences that I wanted to explore. In a way it turned into my love letter to Frank Miller’s work as I went forward putting pencil, and ink, and colour to the page.
Soule: We're all products of our influences, and the 'retired hero called back for one last job' template happens to be one I particularly love. It's a pretty well-worn road in and out of comics, whether you're talking about Dark Knight Returns, Unforgiven or John Wick and, of course, Old Man Logan.
The trick with doing one of these stories is to put your own voice on it. Tell it the way only you can. Between the uniqueness of Daredevil as a character, my own sense of him and the lens Steve brings to it, I think we've found a way to tell this story we haven't seen before. I hope so, anyway. For me, I very consciously tried to avoid retelling something like Dark Knight Returns. As much as I love it, we've already got it.
Have you mined any past Daredevil storylines to create this dystopian vision of Matt's future world?
McNiven: Sure, there are a number of past storylines that we touch upon in a general sense, from how Matt gets his powers to his interactions with some of the prominent characters in his life both as Daredevil and Matt Murdock, as well as his involvement with Hell's Kitchen. But the future world we have set up in Cold Day is one we put together outside of these storylines and has no attachments to any other Marvel stories.
Soule: That's right. We built the world we needed to make this story work, and I think readers will find it to be pretty unique and interesting. We took a "less is more" approach with it – you come to understand that the Marvel Universe has gone through some dramatic changes since its present day, but it's more implied than directly stated.
Bearing the title in mind, are you delving into Matt’s religious background?
Soule: As far as Matt's religious background as both a believer in God in a general sense and being an on and off practicing Catholic – that's a key element to the story. For me, that was the special sauce as far as how Matt Murdock would approach the things that happen to him in the book. It was interesting, too, because it's not something you see attacked head-on with most superhero characters. Matt Murdock is a character of faith, and it drives many of his choices – both in this story and in his history in general.
With Matt having lost his powers at the beginning of the story and then subsequently regaining them, are you exploring the nature of his powers and how he relates to them?
McNiven: Absolutely. How he originally got his powers, how he gets them back and what he does with them is integral to the story we put down in Cold Day.
Soule: Look, the "What gets the hero back into the game?" question is one of the most important points on the road map for one of these stories. Another is "Does he still have what it takes?" Then you get "What's he going to do now that he's back?" All of those tie into Matt and his powers.
Matt Murdock's always been interesting because, like Batman, he's essentially a highly-trained ordinary human. Yes, he has his radar sense, but beyond that, his abilities rest in his human physique, his skill and his will. Here, though, he's old – like seriously old. Much older than he should be to think swinging around the city on a wire is a good idea. Getting his radar sense back doesn't make him 22-years-old. So, that's been interesting to play with in the story, and Steve did a phenomenal job conveying both Matt's frailness and his strength, even (and especially) when he's in the suit. I think his design for Matt/Daredevil here is one of the best advertisements we have for the book.
What can you tell us about the situation Matt finds himself in, and can we expect appearances from other familiar faces from the world of Daredevil and beyond?
Soule: As the story begins, Matt is in what I'd say is his 60s. He is firmly retired, without his powers, and spends his time running an outreach center in Hell's Kitchen. The time of superheroes and supervillains is long over, though its impact and repercussions are something everyone living in New York City feels every day. One day, a dirty bomb goes off in Hell's Kitchen – an explosion laced with radiation – and since Matt's powers originally came from being soaked in radioactive waste... well, using comic book logic, the result is obvious. Boom! Daredevil's back, though the powers begin to fade immediately.
He's got 72 hours to solve the mystery of who set off the bomb. And yes, there are some familiar faces, too – although they aren't how you remember them but that’s part of the fun!
Steve, how did you go about designing this older Matt and the futuristic world around him?
McNiven: Some of the earliest designs that I made were done before we had solidified the overall story. I had Matt much larger and bulkier initially but we decided that a leaner sinewy look worked much better. The Daredevil costume that Matt puts on in this story is all stitched up from having been torn up in a battle long ago. That design didn't take shape until issue two but looked so good that I went back and added it into previous drawings.
As far as designing the rest of the world, well Charles and I have a ton of notes on the background of how the world came to be in the state it is in when we start this story. While not all of this information can be conveyed, as we have kept the story tight and focused on Matt's life in and around New York City, the reader can glean information about what state the world is in as they follow Matt on his journey through a Cold Day in Hell.
Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell is published by Marvel Comics on April 2.
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