The natural phenomenon of certain types of cordyceps fungus taking over the nervous system of other living things, like ants, has been extrapolated into some truly terrifying horror tales, most notably in the current smash hit streaming series The Last of Us, which is of course based on the also-smash-hit video game franchise. Now, in Daredevil #21, the Man Without Fear is facing a similar kind of fungus-zombie, who seems to have a connection to one of Matt Murdock's weirdest and most dangerous foes.
Spoilers ahead for Daredevil #21
Daredevil #21 by writer Saladin Ahmed, artists José Luis Soares, Carlos Nieto, and Oren Junior, colorists Jesus Aburtov and Erick Arciniega, and letterer Clayton Cowles picks up where the previous issue left off, with Matt Murdock infected by a strange, psychedelic fungus and shoved in a holding pen with other infected people.
Quickly overcoming his hallucinations, Murdock dons his recently revived Daredevil armor, helping to free the other captives. But the problem isn't just localized to the building where they were being held, as Daredevil uses his super-senses to track a massive underground network of the strange, psychedelic fungus.
Tracing it all the way across the city, Daredevil descends into the basement of a building that is fully overgrown with the fungus. There he encounters several people whose bodies have been taken over by it, turning them into creepy, mindless mushroom zombies – much like how the cordyceps fungus in The Last of Us reanimates the bodies of people it infects.
Daredevil fights his way through the mushroom zombies, taking care not to injure them too badly in the hopes the infected people can be saved.
As Daredevil reaches the core of the fungus pit, a voice speaks out to him from the fungus itself, taunting him. He quickly finds the source of the voice – a super creepy mushroom man, whose purple pallor seems to indicate he's got some kind of connection to the Purple Man.
The Purple Man is of course Zebediah Killgrave, a brutal sadist with the power of mind control who is also an arch-enemy of Jessica Jones (portrayed by David Tenant in Jessica Jones season one). He was killed by Wilson Fisk in the story Devil's Reign, but as we all know, death in comics is rarely permanent.
Could this new fungus-based villain be an evolved version of the Purple Man, or at least somehow connected to him? Perhaps some kind of product of his decaying body? The solicit text for June 4's Daredevil #22 hints at a "familiar face" behind the fungus, so it seems entirely possible.
Purple Man is one of the best Daredevil villains of all time.
