[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again episode 5.] “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Marvel’s Daredevil began with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) in a confessional booth, recounting something his grandmother, a God-fearing Catholic, used to say: “‘Be careful of the Murdock boys. They got the devil in ’em.’” For his father, boxer “Battlin’” Jack Murdock, that meant he would batter his opponents into the corner of the ring and “let the devil out.” For Matt, that meant battling his demons as the guardian devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
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Matt hasn’t let the devil out since Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) shot and killed Foggy (Elden Henson), and a wrathful Daredevil sinned by breaking his no-kill rule. Bullseye survived only because of his Cogmium-reinforced skeleton, but a line was crossed, and Matt still has yet to suit up as Daredevil a year later.
That nearly changed in Tuesday’s “With Interest” episode of Daredevil: Born Again. On St. Patrick’s Day, Matt visits New York Mutual Bank to secure a loan for his law firm, Murdock & McDuffie, which is regretfully turned down by assistant manager Yusuf Khan (guest star Mohan Kapur, reprising his role from Ms. Marvel and The Marvels).
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When five armed robbers storm the bank, each wearing a different colored balaclava — Green (Cillian O’Sullivan), Red (John Ford-Dunker), Yellow (John Anthony Gorman), Blue (Cameron Moir), and Purple (Ryan Ward) — Matt feigns the role of an unassuming blind man to embed himself within the group of hostages rounded up by Green (a.k.a. Devlin).
They’re Luca’s (Patrick Murney) men, there to steal a diamond worth the $1.8 million that Luca owes Viktor (Gino Anthony Pesi) as restitution to keep the peace among New York’s Five Families. (Devlin is the gunman who committed a double homicide in a truck hijacking at Red Hook Port back in episode 3.)
He Who Is Without Sin
Wearing a green balaclava and wielding an assault rifle, Devlin’s look resembles Sin-Eater, a short-lived villain who had a run-in with Daredevil and Spider-Man in “The Death of Jean DeWolff,” a four-part storyline spanning 1985’s Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110.
After Spider-Man’s friend, Captain Jean DeWolff, is found murdered in her apartment as the victim of a double-barrelled shotgun blast, the wall-crawler investigates her murder with Detective Stan Carter. But it’s blind defense attorney Matt Murdock who is the first to encounter Sin-Eater in Spectacular Spider-Man #107, when Matt’s radar sense detects the assassin lying in wait in Judge Horace Rosenthal’s chambers.
Matt’s old friend is gunned down as Sin-Eater’s second victim, making him the target of both Daredevil and Spider-Man. Sin-Eater’s next kill is a reverend in a confessional booth, the third victim of the masked murderer proselytizing about his mission to purge “sinners.”
Spider-Man and Daredevil both turn to Wilson Fisk, Kingpin of Crime, for information on the Sin-Eater, who’s next target is The Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. The Sin-Eater turns up at the Bugle offices with a shotgun and takes hostages, but he’s disarmed by editor Robbie Robertson and an uncostumed Peter Parker. Unmasked as Emil Gregg, Daredevil’s hyper-senses determine that the schizophrenic Emil is a copycat.
Guilty as Sin
In Spectacular #109, Spider-Man and Daredevil discover that Stan Carter is the real Sin-Eater just as he targets the Jameson residence. When he instead finds the Bugle‘s Betty Brant with Marla Jameson, Sin-Eater reveals his reasons for killing: He killed the “sinner” priest for opposing capital punishment, he killed the judge for coddling criminals, and he wanted to kill Jameson for opposing masked vigilantes.
When Daredevil tries to stop an enraged Spider-Man from brutally beating Carter, the two costumed vigilantes come to blows, and Spider-Man nearly leaves Carter at the mercy of mob justice before pulling him out of the crowd. Once the Sin-Eater is exposed as a police sergeant and Carter is back in custody, Spectacular #110 ends with another unmasking: Daredevil deduces that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, so he reveals his secret identity as Matt Murdock.
All My Sins Remembered
Carter was eventually released from a mental hospital, and the voices in his head caused him to resume his Sin-Eater alter-ego (who he came to believe was a separate person). To free himself of the Sin-Eater, he took a young boy hostage and was gunned down by the police in 1987’s The Spectacular Spider-Man #136. It was then revealed that Carter never loaded Sin-Eater’s shotgun.
While other masked men took on the identity of the Sin-Eater, Stan Carter remained dead until 2020’s Amazing Spider-Man: Sins Rising Prelude. It was revealed that Carter was in Hell for his sins, only to be resurrected as a sins-cleansing supervillain by Spider-Man’s demon archvillain Kindred (in the Nick Spencer-penned “Sins Rising” arc in Amazing Spider-Man #45-48).
New episodes of Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again air Tuesday nights on Disney+.
