The human body is fascinating. We’re
filled with specialized organs and cells that help us survive our environment.
Even when one of our senses is lost, our other senses get sharper to
compensate. A blind person has better senses of smell and hearing, or a deaf
person having sharper eyes and nose. Not sure if your eyes and ears get better
if your tongue gives out. Something to ponder… Our next hero has taken this
idea of sharp senses to an entirely different level.
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| Anyone else think the horns are a little much? |
Before I get started with the
Profile, I feel that I should let you all know that Matt Murdock/Daredevil went
through a major rewrite in the 1980s. Before then, one of Marvel’s favorite
anti-heroes was more or less a brightly colored, blind Spider-Man. I mean, the
guy fought with a cane. A Sheppard’s Crook style cane. Yeah, it’s about as
silly as you can imagine. This changed when Frank Miller took over as head
writer for the Daredevil series. He reworked Matt Murdock’s background and
interpersonal relationships, turning the 60s superhero into one of the most
well-known anti-heroes of all time. Now, on with Daredevil.
Matthew Murdock’s story really
beings with his Dad, Jonathan “Battling Jack” Murdock. Now, Ol’ Jack was an
over-the-hill boxer that had never amounted to much. Unlike a number of
characters in a similar situation, Jack realized that it was his lack of
education that had him pretty much trapped in a dead end situation. Like any
halfway decent father, Jack wanted a better life for his son, and thus stressed
that Matt study and study hard. Matt was forced to study rather than play
sports or just goof off as kids tend to, and was thus given the ironic nickname
of Daredevil. It’s like when they taunt a big dude by calling him Tiny, or
calling the guy who’s always getting shot down by girl Casanova. Kids are jerks
that way. Feeling frustrated by his Dad’s instance on, you know, not being a
kid, Matt would vent in his father’s gym whenever Jack was away for fights.
This went on for a few years, until
Matt had his date with destiny. He was walking home when he came across a blind
guy trying to cross the street. Which wasn’t all that dangerous or unusual,
that is until an out of control truck came hurtling down the street. Matt
shoved the man clear, and got out of the way himself, but was struck in the
face by radioactive chemicals when the truck crashed. The chemicals blinded the
young Murdock. While recovering in the hospital, Matt began to notice that his
other senses were sharper. Like, absurdly so. But I’ll cover that in the powers
section. Just know that his senses are superhumanly sharp, and he developed his
“radar sense.” So while Matt lost his sight, he could still see via his radar
sense, which is essentially echolocation. So he can’t see, but he does get the
general sense of his environment.
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| Year One costume. Much like with the original X-Men costumes I feel I need to point out how non-stealthy Yellow is. |
While Matt was still getting used
to being blind and yet not blind, he had a few more fateful encounters. The
first, was a man known simply as The Stick. The Stick was a ninja master of a
group known as the Chaste. He detected a kindred spirit in Matt and gave him
some basic training. Basic Ninja training. Basic Blind Ninja Training. So, okay
it’s not that basic, but essential training to his future…career. At the same
time, Jack was getting desperate. He was pushing forty, which for a Boxer is
like pushing sixty. As such, he wasn’t winning fights, and worse, he wasn’t getting
fights. Raising a kid is expensive, more so when you’re a single parent, and
even more so when said kid has a serious disability. So, yeah, finances at the
Murdock house were tight. Jack became so desperate that he eventually signed up
with a crooked fight promoter named Roscoe Sweeney, aka the Fixer. Did I
mention that Jack Murdock isn’t all that bright? Jack then had a string of good
luck, beating several young fighters and eventually became a heavyweight
contender. He then found out that the Fixer had fixed the fights (shocking, I
know) and now expected Jack to take a dive. In a moment of weakness Jack
considered it, but instead chose to fight for real. He won his fight, but paid
the price when Fixer and his men murdered him.
By this point, Matt was still
several years away from being Daredevil, but he was in his late teens and had
had a few years of ninja training under his belt. He set out to get payback. He
tracked down Fixer’s gang and beat them all within an inch of their lives. He
saved the Fixer for last. Fixer pulled a gun on Matt, but suffered a heart
attack before he could use it on Matt. Apparently, seeing his crew being beaten
up by a teenager was too much stress for Fixer’s ticker. Matt turned his
sights, figuratively speaking, on the last member of Fixer’s gang that escaped
his wrath. The guy, Angelo, was taking it easy in a brothel. Matt confronted
Angelo, but the various working women sprang to Angelo’s aid. In a panic Matt
fought as hard as he could, and defenestrated a woman. Knocked her out a
window, for those who don’t remember the Defenestration of Prague from history
class. Matt ran a way, he was disgusted with himself for hurting someone not
involved with his personal vendetta. He tried to get advice from the Stick, but
apparently the old blind ninja heard of Matt’s actions and departed.
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| Only seen at the end of the last episode. So worth the wait. |
Despite these personal tragedies
Matt did his best to perceiver. He got through College and became a law student
at Columbia Law School. There he met and started seeing Elektra Natchios. The
two fell fast and hard for each other, until Elektra’s father was killed. She
disappeared after that. Matt graduated from Law school and got a job with a
major firm. He quit said firm a short time later, opening his own practice in
his home neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen with college buddy Franklin “Foggy”
Nelson. He also fashioned his first costume from his father’s old boxing robes
and started fighting crime as the Daredevil. So yeah, he’s kind of like Batman
in that regard, using a symbol of his boyhood torment to torment others. He
built up a rogue’s gallery, including his on-again off-again girlfriend Elektra
and the working girl he knocked out of a window who took up the name Typhoid
Mary. He also split the local crime boss Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin, with
Spider-man. His most well-known rival is Bullseye, a crazed assassin that
almost never misses his target. The two have duked it out on more than once,
sometimes because he was paid to fight Daredevil and sometimes because he was
just in the neighborhood. As superhuman/vigilante laws became more prevalent,
Matt became an expert and advocate for his fellow superheroes. He’s often
called upon by guy like Captain America and Nick Fury, not only to give legal
advice, but to also act as a lie detector for more…difficult prisoners. He’s
shifted from a street level vigilante to ninja master of the evil Hand Ninja
Clan, and then back again. That’s the life of a superhero for ya.
Matt Murdock is blind, but his
powers mix together in such a way that if he honestly wanted to, he could
probably pass for a sighted person. Provided you never ask him about colors. Or
what’s on a computer screen. His sense of smell is on par with a bloodhound.
His sense of touch is so extreme that he doesn’t actually need to read braille.
If I were to stick a book in front of him, he’d be able to “read” it just by
feeling the subtle variations between the parts of a page with and without ink.
His hearing is so great that it works on par with echolocation or radar. With
it, he can perceive objects around him, movement of people and animals, and
also helps him work as a lie detector. Well, it’s one major part. Mixing his
ability to hear how fast a heart beats, feel the heat of the body increase or
decrease, and smell specific pheromones/chemicals the body excretes together
and you have a man that is several times more accurate than a lie detector.
Matt’s senses are so sensitive that he can feel the tiny atmospheric changes in
the air just before the teleporting Nightcrawler “bamfed” in front of him. He isn’t supernaturally strong, but years of
training in martial arts and ninja arts have resulted in a man that has above
average strength, speed, reflexes, and dexterity. He’s a master at several
forms of martial arts, which he mixes together for varying situations. His
signature weapon is are a pair of batons. The seemingly simple weapons are
actually a multi-tool that have things like a lock picking kit,
mini-microphone, and several feet of steel cable housed within them. He can
combine the two baton’s together to use as a bo-staff, or connect with the
steel cable to use as nunchaku. Matt also has an encyclopedic knowledge of the
law, specifically New York statutes, and is a trained detective, tracker and
interrogation expert. He’s also a pretty good marksman. Yeah, that’s as strange
as it sounds.
Daredevil has been used somewhat sparingly
over the years. As a matter of fact, until this year, barring his less than
stellar film, Daredevil had only been a guest on other people’s series. But
I’ll get to that in a sec, first, the less than stellar film.
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| Sucks, sucks SOOO much. |
Daredevil
was a 2003 film from 20th Century Fox. It stared Ben Affleck as
Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Jennifer Garner as Elektra, Colin Furth as Bullseye,
and Michael Clark Duncan as the Kingpin. The film is really, really bad. So bad
that it remains the number one bit of evidence for some fans that Ben Affleck
is going to suck as Batman. And based solely on Daredevil I understand their caution. They cover all the major plot
points, father’s death, rise of Daredevil, battling Kingpin, but there’s no
real passion to the film. Also, it appears no one told director Mark Steven
Johnson that Matt has 1. A ninja master, and 2. Doesn’t have superstrength. He
just seems to get super fighting skills from the chemicals to his eyes, and
crazy weird jumping powers. It’s a little messed up.
Earlier this year Daredevil got the
series that he’s always deserved. On Netflix. Daredevil, hm… not really imaginative with the names guys, centers
on actor Charlie Cox as the titular hero. The first season focuses on the birth
of Daredevil, as well as his modern nemesis Wilson Fisk. The Devil of Hell’s
Kitchen (as he’s known until the final episode) works to liberate his part of
New York from Fisk and his cohorts, whom were using the chaos created by the
whole Chitari invasion a few years back to line their pockets. The only really
refer to it as the “incident” which seems to detract from the importance of the
ALIEN INVASION! Sorry, that was building for thirteen hours of viewing. Cox
does an excellent job as the hero trying to balance his vigilante lifestyle,
with his catholic beliefs, and his faith in the law. It is interesting to note
how the series does try to distance its from the film. Like, instead of
focusing on the echolocation aspect of his powers, and describes his vision as
“seeing the world on fire.” While it’s odd, the one image they showed of how
Matt sees the world is pretty awesome. I highly recommend this show for anyone
that wants a darker superhero series, but be warned, it gets intense. You
should not watch episode four if there is a risk of a young child seeing the
last ten minutes. It’s pretty gruesome.
Daredevil is a pretty amazing
character. The modern version of Daredevil is considered to be Marvel’s version
of Batman, a dark hero that is arguably as damaged as the criminals he fights.
His shtick of being “disabled and yet not,” is a different take on superpowers.
He’s also one of only a handful of characters whose civilian identity is as
useful to the heroes of Marvel at large as his costume identity. You’d be
amazed how often spy agencies need a super lie detector on hand. If you’re a
superhero that needs legal help, the perfect legal team would be Matt here and
Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk. And, I mean, come on, he’s a literal modern
ninja. Who doesn’t love… ninja? Ninjas? Whatever the plural is on that. He’s
the dynamic, dangerous, dexterous, do gooder, Daredevil, the man without fear.
Next time, Green Arrow’s nemesis, Count Vertigo.
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