6 Insane Daredevil Villains We Dare Marvel to Put on Screen

Okay, Marvel. You made talking trees and anthropomorphic raccoons work in Guardians of the Galaxy. We’ve seen seemingly unadaptable villains such as Mister Hyde and Lash work over on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. You even took Purple Man, a character who could’ve easily been lacklustre in the wrong hands, and moulded him into perhaps the most terrifying yet endearing villain in the entire MCU with Jessica Jones.

But don’t get cocky just yet. With Daredevil season 2 just around the corner, this is the perfect opportunity to take a look back at the Man Without Fear’s rogues gallery and really test your mettle.

From unbelievably bad back stories to laughable character designs, we’ve picked 6 of the most ludicrous Daredevil villains for you to try to give the “dark and gritty” treatment to.

6. Leap-Frog

Leap-Frog is the alias of two supervillains, both of whom don the ridiculous frog-inspired exoskeleton seen above. Created by failed inventor Vincent Patilio, the suit utilises electromagnetic coils that allow the user to… hop. High. That’s right, instead of using his knowledge of electromagnetism to craft some kind of weapon that could legitimately subdue his enemies, Vincent decided that the whole frog suit idea was his best course of action. It’s really not hard to see why his career as an inventor never really took off.

Oh, and later on the suit was given upgrades to increase the wearer’s strength. Because that makes him a much more credible villain, right? So go ahead Marvel, let’s see you try to dress this one up to make any shred of sense! There’s just something unavoidably hilarious about a self-appointed ‘bad guy’ hopping round dressed like a frog, and that’s something that the dark tone of the Daredevil Netflix series would only make more ridiculous.

5. Jester

I’m pretty sure even Matt Murdock could see how much of a blatant Joker rip-off this guy is. Employing a slew of toy-based weaponry, Jester is about as gimmicky as they come, with all the pageantry of The Joker but none of the menace.

That said, Jester can actually be fun in small doses, though it’s probably no coincidence that all of these moments seem to involve the various incarnations of the character being severely injured or killed. I mean seriously, why villains continue to take up Jester’s mantle is beyond me.

Take the latest version of the character for instance, who embarrasses the Superior Spider-Man by giving him a swift kick in the junk before dousing him in brightly coloured paint on a live internet stream. How does the Superior Spidey respond? By beating him nearly to death, naturally! His brief appearance in the Civil War storyline ends on a similarly violent note, after he’s unceremoniously shot and killed by The Punisher. So it seems the character is doomed to be the punch bag of the Marvel Universe forever, but that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Since The Punisher is confirmed for Daredevil‘s second season, this could be a fun way for Matt to come into conflict with the character, after witnessing the brutal murder of Jester – clearly a mentally unstable man – and deciding that this guy is not good news.

Still, explosive yo-yos and paint-filled balloons just aren’t the kind of thing that would fit the tone of this show, and his ostentatiousness would need to be dialled back tremendously; kind of defeating the point of the character in the first place.

4. Hammerhead

Okay, so I’ve cheated a little bit here as Hammerhead isn’t strictly a Daredevil villain, but I’ve chosen him anyway due to his history with both Kingpin and Hell’s Kitchen. Hammerhead is a member of the crime syndicate known as the Maggia, and has a strange obsession with prohibition era gangsters. He also has a steel-plated head, which explains his absurd head shape, apparently.

The twist here though is that despite his ludicrous appearance, Hammerhead may actually be a great fit for the show. In the comics, the power vacuum left by Kingpin’s incarceration causes Hammerhead to come out of the woodwork, hoping to fill the void that Kingpin left behind. This power vacuum is very likely to be present in Daredevil season 2, given how the first season ended. This would also give Fisk and Murdock a common enemy (Kingpin/Daredevil team up, anybody?) which would serve as an interesting concept. I mean, just imagine Kingpin playing the Hannibal to Matt Murdock’s Will Graham – really intriguing stuff.

Once again, I’m sure Marvel would change his character design to make him more palatable to audiences, which is kind of a shame, and given the character’s style he might be better suited to appear on Agent Carter. Still, I’d like to see Kingpin try to crush his head in a car door.

3. Matador

I can only assume that the conception of this character involved both lack of sleep and an extremely tight deadline, because I have a hard time believing that anybody thought this character was a good idea.

A disgraced bull fighter, Matador swears vengeance against humanity after being hospitalised by one of his rioting audiences – which may just be one of the worst origin stories ever conceived. But that’s not even the worst part. Along with his bull fighting skills, you know what Matador uses as his primary weapon? His cape. He distracts Daredevil… with a cape. Fun fact: Daredevil is blind.

There’s no doubt here that even Marvel would throw their hands in the air with this one, as it’s simply impossible to make this character compelling or threatening in any way, shape or form. I will say though, that it’d be hilarious to see an attempt at a “gritty, grounded” version of this character.

2. Death’s Head

Not to be confused with the cybernetic, dimension-hopping bounty hunter also known as Death’s Head, this character is a particularly obscure one, and probably for good reason. A scientist driven mad by his experimentation with cobalt-based weaponry, Death’s Head glows, wearing a radioactive suit as well as a hideous mask whilst wielding flaming bolas and swords. If that wasn’t crazy enough, he also rides round on a horse with irradiated flesh that renders it transparent (simply put, he owns a skeleton horse).

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Death’s Head though is his identity. As it turns out, Death’s Head is actually Paxton Page, father of Karen Page – a major character in both the comics and the Netflix series. Due to this, there’s actually a very slight chance that this character could crop up in the show to shake things up for Karen, maybe shedding some light on her past in the process. If he did show up however, it’d be much more likely that Marvel would stick with the ‘mad scientist Paxton Page’ angle rather than going full Death’s Head.

1. Ani-Men

Consisting primarily of Ape-Man, Bird-Man, Cat-Man, Dragonfly and Frog-Man (what is it with Daredevil and frogs?), the Ani-Men are a colourful collection of supervillains originally hired by mayoral candidate Abner Jonas to take out an obstructive Daredevil, who promptly defeats every single one of them. These guys are some of the least threatening villains in the entirety of Daredevil’s rogues gallery, and this isn’t helped in the least by their laughable designs. Essentially giant versions of the animals they’re named after, the Ani-Men are also squeezed into tight yellow leotards that make it almost impossible to see them as anything other than flat-out hilarious.

These characters would have a tough time fitting into a 1960s Saturday morning cartoon, never mind the ultra-violent Daredevil, so the odds of Marvel pulling this one off are one in a million; but hey, feel free to prove us wrong!

Actually, please don’t.