Tired of being Daredevil, Matt Murdock decides to pack up the super hero suit. Before the dust can settle, Daredevil’s attacked by Starr Saxon’s robot! But who put out the hit? Willie Lincoln to the (unexpected) rescue.
Matt Murdock enters his apartment late at night and throws his Daredevil costume to the floor. He’s decided he’s finished with being the Man Without Fear forever as it has cost him the woman he loves and his best friend. He thinks it’s something he should have done a long time ago and how lucky he was to have had a girl like Karen Page fall in love with him despite his blindness. But he wasn’t happy to simply be Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law – he needed the thrill and glamour of being a superhero. Matt thinks about the years he’s spent making a legend out of Daredevil and how his costume is a symbol for courage and skill. But what good is a costume? It can’t put its arms around him and kiss him good night! All it’s ever done is keep him from being with Karen. Matt decides he’ll call Foggy and Karen and somehow make up for his past behaviour (see Daredevil #48). The blind attorney approaches his closet to put away his costume for the very last time… but inside he hears a mechanical noise. As he flings the door open an armoured robot leaps out from within and announces that his mission is to kill Matt Murdock!
The robot grabs Matt by the throat and slams him onto his bed. Murdock manages to leap backwards and avoids the next few blows that split his bed in two! Matt then grabs his blanket and throws it over the robot hoping to confuse him and lands a haymaker of his own. However the robots body is made of plastic and he simply snaps back. Deciding his target is too fast for him the robot adjusts his speed circuits and commences his attack. Eventually Matt is overpowered and his opponent begins phase two of his mission – to take his victim to his master. Soon after leaving the apartment, the robot hears an unrecognised sound. As his primary function is to protect himself, the robot calculates he mustn’t encounter unknown danger so drops his victim and flees. The sound was the tapping of a blind man’s cane as Willie Lincoln discovers Matt’s semi-conscious body. As Matt’s old friend helps him up a flashback shows how the robot came to attack Murdock. In a state prison Biggie Benson has a visitor named Starr Saxon. The crime lord has hired the inventor to build a robot to kill Daredevil for putting him in jail. Saxon says the robot is almost ready and as he drives back to his lab, he laughs as he thinks that he would have paid Biggie himself to provide a test subject like Daredevil. At the scientist’s lab, he feeds an aroma treated photograph to his creation enabling the android to track down Daredevil by his scent – no matter how he is disguised.
Back in the present in Willie Lincoln’s apartment, Willie patches up his friend who is impressed at how well Lincoln has adjusted to being blind. Willie thanks Matt for his help in the past (Daredevil #47) and tells him to thank Daredevil for helping him get a job with the Urban Corps. As Matt leaves he thinks maybe it’s worth being Daredevil if he can help a guy like Willie. Matt then decides to wait for his assailant to return as Daredevil in his private gym as he’ll have more room to manoeuvre in there and later that night the robot is back. DD uses his speed to keep out of his enemy’s reach and lands a number of kicks before he is finally grabbed. However to the robot’s surprise the Scarlet Swashbuckler easily slips away. DD says he’s greased his costume but the robot responds by adjusting his circuits to increase his power. When DD launches at the machine he is met with a more hardened body then he expected and is knocked to the floor. As a dazed DD tries to clear his head, the robot wraps the hero in a gym mat to stop him from escaping again and slowly increase the pressure…!
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