Daredevil’s Original Costume Upgrade Saved the Character From Obscurity

Daredevil #7 was written by Stan Lee, with art by Wally Wood. The issue is best known for featuring one of the best 1-v-1 fights of the 1960s: Daredevil vs. Namor the Sub-Mariner. Yet it features an even more important milestone: the debut of Daredevil’s recognizable red gear.

Let’s take a look at the circumstances of the costume change, and why it still matters today.

Daredevil Debuted His Signature Red Costume A Year Into His Existence; Why Ditching His OG Colors Was The Right Move

Daredevil #7, Written By Stan Lee; Art By Wally Wood; Published In 1965

“I’ve secretly worked for months to redesign my fighting costume,” Matt Murdoch narrates early in Daredevil #7, specifically noting that he wanted to make it “more distinctive.” This was a playful bit of metafiction in Stan Lee’s script. The last issue of Daredevil had hit stands two months earlier, and in the time since, artist Wally Wood had overhauled the hero’s look.

The Daredevil suit itself didn’t change substantially, but the big difference was its color. In Daredevil #1-6, the hero sported a yellow-and-black outfit with red accents. It’s not that it was a bad look. We don’t have look any further than Wolverine to know a badass hero can rock yellow. But a decade before Wolverine joined the X-Men, Daredevil’s attempt at a yellow costume just didn’t fit.

Superhero costumes aren’t always the most logical fashion choices, but there’s often a practicality to the best of them. Daredevil’s yellow-and-black outfit makes sense when you think from the perspective of an acrobat, a carnival high-flyer, but not so much for a vigilante stalking criminals on the street at night.

That’s what makes Daredevil’s red costume perfect. Its dark hue allows him to lurk and keep a low profile at night, but makes him just visible enough to strike fear into his targets, when he’s ready to. That seems to be the thought that went into Daredevil’s redesign, which arguably helped keep the character alive.

Daredevil’s Second-Ever Artist Had An Outsized Impact On His Iconic Design

Opening Page Of Daredevil #5; Written By Stan Lee, Art By Wally Wood; Published In 1964

Daredevil #7 was Daredevil’s first full-on costume change, but it wasn’t the first alteration artist Wally Wood made to the costume. Wood replaced Bill Everett as the series’ illustrator starting with Daredevil #5. That issue opened with a note from the book’s editors explaining that Wood had “redesigned certain portions of D.D.’s costume!“

“We in the bullpen felt he should be allowed to do so,” the note went on, “and we sincerely hope that you will agree!” The big change, on full display alongside the editorial missive on Daredevil #5’s opening page? The addition of a second “D” to the crest on Daredevil’s chest. Up to that point, there had been only one “D.”

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Two issues later, Wood introduced Daredevil’s new red costume, with two “Ds” on his chest. The other thing that makes this an upgrade is that Wood’s redesign has a cohesive quality to it that the yellow-and-black costume lacked. Daredevil #7 traded in clashing colors for the sleek, imposing, singular red, and it was the right choice.

Daredevil Took Years To Become A Proper Marvel Legend; What If He’d Kept His Yellow Costume?

Exploring Alternate History Possibilities For Daredevil

The “What If” question we have to ask about Daredevil is this: how long would the series have lasted if Marvel hadn’t introduced his red costume? Fans of the Man Without Fear know that it wasn’t until Frank Miller’s run with the character in the 1980s that Daredevil was really elevated to A-lister. But it’s fair to ask, would he have made it to the ’80s wearing red-and-yellow?

We can imagine a world where Daredevil is a deep-cut ’60s Stan Lee creation who never fully caught on, a character who is intermittently brought back like Star-Brand, or Black Knight, or countless other minor league Marvel heroes. Or, maybe Daredevil would have been canceled like Stan Lee’s original X-Men run was in the late ’60s, and later revived in the ’70s.

Perhaps Frank Miller still reinvents the character in the 1980s, but it’s after a decade or more of Daredevil lying dormant. It was a different era, but even in the 1960s-70s, Marvel books had to sell well enough to stay in production. Daredevil wasn’t a massive hit in his first few decades, but his title justified its existence. Would it have sustained an audience without the Daredevil #7 costume change?

Maybe, but looking back, that change was likely inevitable. Whether it was Daredevil #7, or #20, or #50. In retrospect, Daredevil’s red costume feels like the moment where the character “clicked.” Like many of Marvel’s great early “What If?” stories, even a divergent path was still inevitably going to end up in the same place.

Daredevil’s Yellow-And-Black Costume Has Its Fans, But It Wasn’t Right For The Hero

Today, It’s A Nostalgic Throwback; In The ’60s, It Could’ve Sunk The Franchise

Today, there’s a nostalgia factor when it comes to Daredevil’s original yellow-and-black costume. 60+ years later, it’s a look Marvel is happy to revisit occasionally. Contemporary artists have contributed their own takes on the look, helping to elevate it to a cooler status than it ever had in the 1960s.

In itself, that is a product of the switch to a red costume in Daredevil #7. What people celebrate when they honor the yellow-and-black gear is its place in Marvel history, rather than the design itself. And again, it’s not a bad design, but it is in the unfortunate position of being the precursor to one of Marvel’s greatest hero costumes.

Daredevil’s yellow-and-black costume puts a spotlight on how the success of all the most famous Marvel heroes, really all the greatest characters in comics, and pop culture in general, comes down to small creative choices that the people behind-the-scenes make. And how those choices resonate with fans. Daredevil might have survived in black-and-yellow, but he ultimately thrived in red.

Costume changes are always a big deal for Marvel heroes. That’s especially true for their first major redesign. For some characters, like The Fantastic Four, that didn’t come for decades. For Daredevil, it happened a year into his existence, and it helped solidify his long-term viability as a Marvel hero.