Everyone now knows the Purple Man as one of the most heinous and despicable villains in all of comics, second only to DC's Doctor Psycho. But he hasn't always been that way...
First introduced in 1964 (DAREDEVIL #4), the Purple Man was a Croatian spy named Zebediah Killgrave who while on a mission he was accidentally doused with a chemical that turned his hair and skin purple. Caught and questioned, Killgrave offered a weak story but was able to convince his captors to let him go free. Calling himself the Purple man, he now took to crime and being a supervillain.
Following in a long list of not great, but very entertaining Daredevil bad guys, Purple man joined such 'C' listers as Leap Frog, The Jester and Stilt Man.
Then sometime in the 1980's.. he was gone!
But in the incredible series ALIAS; created by brian Michel Bendis and Michael Gaydos, Purple Man returned... only this time rude and as nasty as you could imagine. In the story, the Purple Man manipulated a young superhero named jewel and forced her to do and witness some pretty nasty things. Then, he sends her to kill daredevil only to find herself beaten severely by the Avengers. Later she would return as the detective Jessica Jones... and the rest is history!
Currently the Purple man can be seen. played by David Tennant on the Netflix series, JESSICA JONES.