Charles Soule and Steve McNiven Break Down the Cruel World of 'Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell'

When DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL #1 hit stands earlier this month, acclaimed creators Charles Soule and Steve McNiven invited readers into a cold, cruel, and contorted future where familiar faces wear the burden of a war-ravaged world. In this future, Matt Murdock's radar sense has faded and he's put away the Daredevil costume. However, when a tragic explosion rocks the foundation of Hell's Kitchen, he has no choice but to become the Man Without Fear once more.

Ahead of the release of DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL #2 next month, Charles Soule and Steve McNiven sit down with Marvel.com to discuss how this story came to be and to provide insight into the harsh world that Matt Murdock must navigate.

You’ve worked together before on books like DEATH OF WOLVERINE (2014) and STAR WARS: WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (2021). How did creating DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL (2025) differ from previous collaborations?

CS: For the other stories we've created together, I've given Steve a "full script," which refers to a script where every page is broken out into specific panels with descriptions of the images and the specific dialogue to be included within them.

We created DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL differently. We had the luxury of time on this one and wanted to really dig in and craft the story much more collaboratively. We talked a lot about the story before Steve drew anything at all, and when he did begin, he was working off those conversations and a plot document I created that incorporated our ideas. It was built to give Steve enormous latitude from an artistic perspective to figure out how he wanted to tell the story on the page.

Once Steve had the pages where he wanted, it was my turn to go in and figure out elements like dialogue, sound effects, and so on, to make sure the story worked on that level too.

SM: Structurally, it was a different approach, as Charles said. But also thematically and creatively, this story grew organically out of the conversations we had. Both in the initial stages of outlining the overall story, and also as we went along from scene to scene and issue to issue, we continually modified the story, exploring a variety of ideas.

We were also lucky to be given plenty of time to create something unique in the Marvel Universe, our own little place not tied to any other Marvel publication. Having that kind of freedom was not something we took lightly and we gave it our best to tell a complete story that hopefully readers will connect with. At the heart of it is two creators who trust each other implicitly and are having a great time playing with one of Marvel's best characters!

CS: It could never have worked if we didn't trust each other's skills implicitly... but we do. We were genuinely excited to see what working this way could create. I don't know if it would work for every project, but it sure as hell worked for this one.

SM: And I have to give credit where credit is due; Charles absolutely nailed the ending which I’m still in awe of him pulling off so well. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I read what he cooked up to wrap up this story. That guy was born to write Daredevil!

Charles, your run on DAREDEVIL is held in high esteem by both fans and critics alike. What was it like returning to a character whose history you’ve contributed so much to?

CS: You know, in some ways, it doesn't feel like I ever really left DAREDEVIL (2015). I've been working on this story since the spring of 2018, which was before my original DAREDEVIL (2015) run even ended. While the book had its ups and downs in terms of full-on productivity during the intervening years, I've certainly been thinking about it for all that time.

Long runs on a character have two lives: one when it's coming out and people are reacting in real-time, and then a reappraisal later when it's had some room to settle and can be viewed both as a whole and in the larger context of the character's history. I'm fortunate to be seeing that happen with the work Ron Garney and I did on the title (as well as my many other collaborators on the run).

The inclusion of key elements and characters in the Daredevil: Born Again television show has been really fun. It's honestly the perfect time for COLD DAY IN HELL to be coming out, because it's hitting right when people are thinking about my existing work on the character. It's great to give readers another shot at how I think about Daredevil, especially how I think about him these days. I'm not the same writer I was seven years ago, and it's been fun to demonstrate that so directly with this project.

Steve, DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL situates Matt Murdock in a very different context and setting to the main Marvel timeline. How did you develop the visual language to distinguish this dystopian world from the one fans know?

SM: A lot of the background of the story was developed first by Charles and me during our early conversations about doing a Daredevil story out of the main continuity. And many of those background concepts coalesced around a protracted worldwide war. That war sets the stage for this story. Many of the familiar Marvel heroes have been casualties of this war, and the world has suffered a lot of harm to its population and its environment.

Wireless communication is a thing of the past. Shielded hard wiring is necessary to run all electronics, so there are wires everywhere, up the side of buildings and wrapping around cars. Aerial attacks forced people living in large cities to dwell in the lower levels of buildings now. The tops of the skyscrapers went dark. Newspapers and hard-wired radios became the predominant source of information for most people.

Hopefully, if I did my drawing job right, it will help make an interesting backdrop to the compact Daredevil story we are telling. It's our hope that perhaps other Marvel creative types will like the seeds we planted here and, in the same way as my work on OLD MAN LOGAN, come in and flesh out the world we put together.

Check out the preview pages and variant cover by Esad Ribić for DAREDEVIL: COLD DAY IN HELL #2 now and be sure to it pick up on May 28, 2025 at your local comic book store.

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