Daredevil: My Favorite Superhero

In 2015, Netflix released the first season of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) series “Daredevil".  Despite having seen the lackluster movie that was released in 2003, I was excited about the new series because I knew the potential of that character, and his story, if properly adapted.

The Netflix series was some of the best television I have ever seen, and that’s coming from someone who can count the number of series that have actually held his interest on one hand.  I was extremely disappointed when the series was canceled after its third season.  So far, I am enjoying the “Born Again” series and am glad to see that it is maintaining the edge and storytelling of the Netflix series.

I have always preferred more grounded superheroes.  By that I mean heroes with limited powers who typically deal with threats that are more street level.  This is in contrast to heroes who have superpowers and abilities that put them at an otherworldly level with things they can do and who tend to face adversaries that are either intergalactic, or earthbound with immense resources and/or abilities of their own.  Examples of otherworldly superheroes include Superman and The Green Lantern.  Examples of street level superheroes include Batman, Spider-Man, and my personal favorite, Matt Murdock AKA Daredevil.

I’m not sure when Daredevil became my favorite superhero, but there are various reasons why that is the case.  For starters, Matt Murdock comes from a relatable background growing up in a working class neighborhood where he works hard at school while dealing with bullying and other common difficulties faced by many children.

His story takes a dramatic turn when he is about ten years old and sees his boxer father, Jack Murdock, roughing up someone for money at the behest of a mob boss for whom he is working to make extra money to take care of his son.  Matt runs off ashamed and despondent before pushing an old blind man trying to cross the street out of the path of an oncoming truck.  The truck is illegally carrying radioactive material, some of which splashes into Matt’s eyes and blinds him.  His father severs ties with the mob and returns to fighting, he believes, legitimately.

Sometime later, Jack’s old mob handler known as “The Fixer” approaches him and tells him that he has been fixing Jack’s fights for some time.  He then tells Jack that he will lose his next fight, Jack agrees to this but changes his mind when he sees Matt watching him from the stands and cheering him on.  Unwilling to disappoint his son again, Jack fights with all his might and wins his fight.  In retaliation, The Fixer has him killed.  This drives Matt to become a crime-fighter.

Matt never told his father that the chemicals that blinded him also enhanced his remaining senses to superhuman levels.  Under the tutelage of a mysterious blind sensei known as “Stick”, Matt becomes an expert martial artist.  He also attends college and law school where he excels in his studies and becomes a lawyer working out of his old New York City neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen.

After returning to his old neighborhood, Matt takes on the mantle of Daredevil and immediately brings his father’s killers to justice.  After this, he settles into a life where he deals out justice as a defense attorney who often defends the neglected and downtrodden, then acts as the vigilante Daredevil who can do the same thing without having to worry about repercussions or dealing with the bureaucracy and limitations of his day job.

The Daredevil character is unique in a variety of ways that, in my opinion, put him above all other superheroes.  One of his attributes that especially sets him apart is that he is technically disabled due to being blind.

It is rare to see a disabled superhero, and I find it inspiring that Matt Murdock doesn’t allow himself to be defined by his disability but is empowered by it.  In a kind of inner monologue he has in the comics, he brings up how as a result of the accident that blinded him he can hear, smell, and taste better than anyone else.  His sense of touch is also enhanced to the point that he can read regular printed material by running his fingers over the paper and has superior balance and strength.  Daredevil is an inspiration to not dwell on our limitations, but to use what we do have to the best of our abilities, and to let what makes us different empower us.

I also enjoy how Matt Murdock keeps a regular day job that compliments his activities as a superhero.  Most superheroes will have a conventional job when not operating in their hero guises, but it is often completely separate from their alternate identity.  Peter Parker is a freelance photographer when he isn’t being Spider-Man, Clark Kent is a newspaper reporter when not Superman, and Bruce Wayne is an entrepreneur/philanthropist/socialite when not Batman.  In contrast, Matt Murdock works as a lawyer trying to clean up his neighborhood by helping those who are often overlooked or victimized by those in power.  Matt Murdock often can’t prosecute those people as an attorney, but he can eradicate them as Daredevil.

Perhaps the attribute of Daredevil that I find most interesting, and that sets him apart from other superheroes, is that he is one of the only superhero characters that is religious.  Matt Murdock was raised Catholic and does his best to follow his faith as an adult.  This effort often leads to him feeling conflicted with his efforts to be a good Catholic seeming to clash with the calling he feels to protect his city from wicked people who would take advantage of it and its inhabitants.

This leads to many compelling interactions between Matt Murdock and different priests in confession as he seeks council, or permission, regarding his activities as Daredevil.  Most superheroes are dismissive of religion and it never really comes up in the course of their activities.  Matt Murdock’s concerns about the morality of his activities, and the welfare of his immortal soul, make this character unique and his story more compelling than his superhero peers.  This is also welcomed as someone like me, who is religious and whose faith plays a major role in his life, can relate to the character on a deeper level.

I talked about grounded, or street level, superheroes earlier and how they differ from others.  I find Daredevil to be more grounded than most other street level heroes as he deals with more real world problems than a lot of other heroes.  In addition to the conflict of conscience I mentioned earlier, Murdock also has to juggle keeping the law firm that he runs with his best friend and former roommate profitable.  This proves difficult for them in the early years as a lot of their clients can’t afford to pay them in money and instead use other goods that accumulate in their law office.

He also deals with the internal conflict of having to balance being a respectable by-the-book defense attorney and then donning a mask and costume to serve a decidedly not completely by-the-book brand of justice as Daredevil.  Murdock deals with the question of why even be a vigilante/superhero at all, and questioning the point of it, to an extent that I don’t see in other superhero stories.  The level of this is only possibly equaled by the graphic novel “Watchmen”.

I also like Daredevil because, like all of us, he is flawed.  Matt Murdock’s flaws are manifested in many ways, one of the most dramatic is in his romantic relationships.  Almost every woman with whom he has been involved ends up either dead or damaged emotionally and/or mentally.  This sometimes happens because Matt is either dismissive of a given relationship, or outright emotionally manipulative.

Another flaw of Murdock’s is that he regularly doubts himself and others.  This emerges as a result of him being immersed in the ugly side of the city he inhabits in both aspects of his life.  Anyone can relate to being weary of the world and feeling powerless to make a difference.  I also like that, as opposed to a hero like Superman who is invulnerable or one like Batman who almost always seems to get through a physical altercation with minor damage, Daredevil sometimes gets his ass kicked and even loses a fight.  While he may have superhuman senses, Daredevil/Matt Murdock is still a mortal man and only human.

Despite, or maybe because of, his flaws Matt Murdock is inspiring because no matter how beaten down he is physically or mentally he gets up and keeps moving forward.  I didn’t like the Daredevil movie, but there was one line of dialogue in an introductory segment that I thought did a good job of summarizing the character.  In a voiceover, the Matt Murdock character says that his father’s death made him determined to “help those that others wouldn’t” and “seek justice…one way or another”.

I single out Superman and similar heroes because I find myself not enjoying them very much due to it being hard to relate to them, and their stories not being interesting because their immense abilities make them able to handle just about anything without even a thought that they might not succeed.  In contrast, Daredevil sometimes doesn't succeed, but he always gives his all and does his best to do the right thing. He stays grounded as he lives and works in his childhood neighborhood, the Hell’s Kitchen portion of the Manhattan borough of New York City, where he devotes his life to improving the city he loves by using his skills as a lawyer and his gift of heightened senses as Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law, and as the Guardian Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Most heroic characters are inspiring by design, I find Daredevil to be especially inspiring.  Matt Murdock could have given up on doing good in the world after doing a good deed cost him his eyesight, but he didn’t.  He could have given up on trusting in the legal system after his dad was killed and his murderers were never brought to justice, but he didn’t.  Dealing with the ugly side of humanity during almost all waking hours of his life as a lawyer and a vigilante could easily have left him irreparably bitter and cynical toward humanity.  But, despite often getting weighed down by that immersion and feeling that his efforts are for naught, he goes back to doing all he can if for no other reason than because it’s the right thing to do.

Daredevil is flawed, limited, and vulnerable while also being susceptible to grief and despair like me and everybody else in this world.  He also deals with a lot of the same problems, and faces the same struggles, as a regular person.  With his flaws he also has gifts, like we all do, and even finds a way to turn his greatest weakness into what makes him strong.  The Daredevil character reminds me to make the most out of what I have been given, and inspires me to continue on no matter how much I may feel beaten down by life.

Daredevil is my favorite superhero because it is easy to see myself in him and be inspired by his dogged persistence in doing his best to make the world around him a better place.  It is also inspiring how he succeeds despite his limitations, and that even when he falls short he never gives up his fight for a righteous cause.  In a world where real-life role models can be difficult to find, it is great to find realistic ones in fiction who we can emulate in life.  Daredevil is one of those for me, and in that way Matt Murdock has managed to achieve his goal of making the world around him a better place even outside of the Marvel Universe.