Guardian Devil is a 1998 series by Marvel Comics, written by Kevin Smith and illustrated by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Daredevil is tasked with protecting a baby that might be The Antichrist.
Guardian Devil provides examples of:
- Actually a Doombot: Mysterio makes a robot duplicate that is so incredibly realistic, that he manages to convince Daredevil, the man who can hear heartbeats, into believing that Mysterio is dead.
- Armor-Piercing Response: As Daredevil expresses frustration with his life after the confrontation with Mysterio suggests that there are no real innocents and the heroes aren't actually helping anyone, he asks Spider-Man to tell him one thing from the last few weeks that makes sense. Peter simply responds that Matt saved the baby girl's life, leaving Matt with a new sense of hope for the future.
- Ate His Gun: Mysterio killed himself this way after finding that Daredevil would not kill him for the death of Karen Page (He also references Kraven's suicide beforehand). He came back but with half of his head missing.
- Balking Summoned Spirit: During the "Guardian Devil" arc, someone is messing with Matt Murdock, telling him that a baby was the Messiah reborn, while others claim it is an Anti-Christ. Daredevil turns to Dr. Steven Strange for help, and Strange summons Mephisto to answer the question. Mephisto balks at having been summoned to "serve as a Sunday School Teacher", telling Strange to have his "friend" reread Scripture. Jesus would return as he left, a full grown adult, not an infant. "How could he be so blind?"
- Dead Guy Junior: After the baby girl is put up for adoption and taken in by a childless couple, Matt tells Sister Maggie to tell the new parents that the baby's name is Karen, and expresses plans to occasionally visit as "Uncle Matt".
- Despair Event Horizon: Mysterio is dying and just wants to show everyone he's not a joke, yet Matt keeps brushing off his attempts and lists off why his plans are just rehashes. Break him by driving him mad? Kingpin already did that. Mess with him spiritually? Armageddon already did that with the X-Men. And at the end of it, Mysterio just says 'I guess I'll rip off Kraven now' and shoots himself in the head. One of the saddest lines from him was directed at Matt which was "If people think I'm a C-List villain. Might as well take down a C-List Spider-Man."
- Driven to Suicide: Mysterio learned he had cancer and wouldn't last long. After making Daredevil's life a living hell, Daredevil defeats him and accuses him of ripping off The Kingpin with his plan to drive Daredevil insane and repeating a "supernatural intruding upon the real world" scheme he had previously used on J. Jonah Jameson. Subsequently, Beck shoots himself in the head while claiming to steal an idea from Kraven the Hunter. What's worse? The only reason he went after Daredevil was that he didn't want to deal with the Spider-Man that was active at the time (implied to be the clone Ben Reilly).
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Mysterio complains that nobody gave him credit for his inventions about special effects and illusions while everyone knows George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, etc., despite their work, are less impressive.
- False Prophet: Not a deliberate version on the part of the individual in question, but Matt spends most of Guardian Devil trying to establish if a baby really is the second coming of Christ or the Antichrist, eventually turning to Doctor Strange for a definite answer.
- Friendly Target: Karen is the second of Matt's girlfriends to be killed by Bullseye.
- Kick the Dog: Bullseye murders a church full of nuns and Karen Page just for the sadistic pleasure of it all.
- Killed Off for Real: Karen Page is murdered by Bullseye.
- The Last Dance: Mysterio has terminal cancer that'll claim him in less than a year, so he decides to go out trying to take down a superhero, but quickly realized the last Spider-Man he faced was a clone — then he remembered that shortly after the crisis with Onslaught, when The Avengers were missing and thought dead, he fought Daredevil and, realizing they're both considered second stringers, decided for it to be Matt.
- Medical Rape and Impregnate: How the baby was really conceived; Mysterio kidnapped Gwyneth and artificially inseminated her.
- Motive Rant: Mysterio has quite a speech about his motives in the finale, and implies that there's more still about just how he became a "monster" who would do all these things. Matt, in keeping with acting utterly unimpressed in this issue, spends most of that same time "rambling about how clever" he is isolating the "hum" of his suit's main battery.
- Mystical Pregnancy: Played with. The baby at the center of the plot seems to be a case of immaculate conception but is really a case of Medical Rape and Impregnate.
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Defied In-Universe, Rosalind Sharpe believes that any attempt to defend Foggy after Mysterio frames him for rape and murder would result in bad publicity, so she fires Foggy and refuses to let Matt use company assets to defend him in court. Keep in mind, Sharpe is Foggy's mother, so she's trying to leave her own son(!) out of dry. Naturally, after other issues Matt had with her, this leads to Matt quitting the firm, Foggy distancing himself from Sharpe once he's cleared of the charges, and the two restarting "Neslon and Murdock".
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: A dying Mysterio decided to try and drive Daredevil so insane that he almost murders an infant with a ridiculously convoluted scheme, just because at the time Ben Reilly was Spider-Man, and the dying Mysterio wanted a grand exit and felt it would be wasted on Reilly, who Mysterio had subconsciously picked up was not the original Spider-Man.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mysterio, after learning he's dying, launches an Evil Plan to ruin Daredevil's life and goad him into killing him. Daredevil beats him down; and then after denying him what he wants, verbally tears both the plan and Mysterio to pieces. Not disagreeing, Beck then admits that he does have one more idea to steal — Kraven the Hunter's — and promptly shoots himself in the head.Mysterio: D... Do it, hero... K... Kill me.
Daredevil: I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. You think you can break me? You're a joke and a fraud. Now give me the baby and let's end this.
Mysterio: A... fraud?! I'm... an artist! I n... nearly drove you... insane!
Daredevil: You drugged me and killed people. There's no talent in that... just savagery.
Mysterio: B... but... my dystopian nightmare...
Daredevil: ...was nothing more than B-Movie material. An amalgam of whorish, clichéd devices. The supernatural intruding on our world? Didn't you use the same schtick on J. Jonah Jameson years ago? And trying to drive me insane? Kingpin nearly did it once. But you're no Kingpin. You're not even close. You think you've spun some sort of grand swan-song epic? Think again. You've just told yet another tale of a so-called super-genius endeavoring to drive his arch-nemesis — or, in this case, his adopted arch-nemesis — insane. Your whole existence is counterfeit. You've never had an original thought in your life. You're a product of too many movies and too much TV. Regurgitating only what's gone before. You're a Human Xerox, at best. - Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Mysterio, a Spider-Man villain, had Daredevil as his "adopted" nemesis during an arc because The Clone Saga deal kept Mysterio from knowing if Spider-Man was the real thing or just a clone.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Rosalind Sharpe decides that PR matters to her more than Foggy, her own son, and thus refuses to even let Matt use the firm's resources to help defend him, Matt decides to quit. Naturally, even after he's cleared, Foggy wants nothing to do with Sharpe again after she abandoned him, so he and Matt decide to restart "Nelson and Murdock".
- Spanner in the Works: Part of Mysterio's plan involved infecting Daredevil with a toxin that would provoke him into a rage any time anyone suggested to him that the baby wasn't the Antichrist, but Doctor Strange is able to detect the toxin and purge it from Daredevil's system. He subsequently helps Daredevil confirm that the baby genuinely isn't the Antichrist, allowing Matt to get a better idea of what he's up against.
- Start My Own: Or "Restart Our Own" in this case, as Matt and Foggy wash their hands of Sharpe (Foggy because Sharpe, his own mother, was more concerned about bad PR than helping her son clear his name and Matt quitting in disgust of Sharpe's leaving Foggy to dry) restart "Nelson and Murdock" at the site of the home of Matt's the Kingpin had blown up in Born Again with the money Karen's will left Matt.
- Taking the Bullet: Bullseye was aiming for Daredevil when he hit Karen instead. For once, he isn't bothered that he missed.
- Teeth Flying: During their confrontation at the church, Matt hits Bullseye in the face with his billy club, which causes Bullseye's two upper front teeth to loosen. Bullseye responds by yanking them out and tossing them at Matt with enough force to embed themselves into the club.
- Too Broken to Break: This happens again in a later storyline when Mysterio tries to break Daredevil as his dying act, only for him to deliver a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech and explain why that's not possible.Daredevil: You think you can break me? You're a joke and a fraud. [...] And trying to drive me insane? Kingpin nearly did it, once.
- Trauma Conga Line: The arc itself is hellfire for Matt: Karen gets a false diagnosis of HIV, and then dies in the crossfire of a fight between Matt and Bullseye, Foggy nearly loses his mind thanks to Mysterio making him think he killed someone, and Matt himself ruins his friendship with Black Widow, though he reconciles with her at the end.
- "The Villain Knows" Moment: When Matt and Dr. Strange go to Mephisto, bound and blindfolded, for help in determining the truth about Gwyneth's baby, Mephisto points out that the Bible states Jesus would return as he left, an adult, then mocks Matt by asking how could he have been so "blind", showing he knows Matt's there.
