Daredevil Message Board

[Punisher74]

I mean his radar sense makes him see things sort of. Like he can see whatever is in front of him with his radar sense right? So he's nor exactly blind, right?
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"Helpful. Cooperative. Stupid. That's my boys." Frank Castle (a.k.a. The Punisher) Welcome Back Frank Series.

[Francesco]

He's really blind, in the sense that his sight doesn't work, like that of any other totally blind man.
His powers sort of mitigate his inability to see, but he's still effectively blind.

[jumonji]

Okay, long post! I know how much everyone likes them.

First a couple of basic things:
1) In real life, there is a wide range of visual impairment ranging from just below normal vision to total blindness. Not being totally blind does not automatically make you fully sighted.

2) 10% of the legally blind (below 20/200 acuity) are totally blind, and the vast majority can see color. People at the "better" end of the legal blindness spectrum often do not use a white cane and you could pass such a person on the street and not even know that he or she was "blind." Also, most legally blind people read print and do not even know how to read Braille. The point here is that blindness is not an all or nothing thing.

So, counting his radar as a form of vision and including the ability of his other senses to fill in some of the blanks (really, colorless shapes don't tell you that much about the world around you other than where things are), is Matt totally blind? I would say no. Is he moderately to severly visually impaired? Absolutely.

One way of testing whether Matt does in fact have certain problems related to not seeing is to imagine him in something like a college classroom. Making out shapes, hearing heartbeats and smelling what everyone had for breakfast does not enable him to read blackboards, see a PowerPoint presentation, see movies, slides, or maps/pictures demonstrated by the teacher. From an academic stand point, he has much more in common with a totally blind person than a sighted person. I know that the "DD isn't really handicapped*/blind" theory is a popular one, but I would ask anyone who supports that theory if they truly believe that someone like Matt would have been successful in college without a certain amount of special accomodation - keeping in mind that even something as simple as bringing a tape recorder to class is something most universities only allow for students that have a documented disability.

Matt doesn't have any problems with mobility (quite obviously), but he most definitely has a an "access to information" disability related to his inability to see by natural means. If you can't read a street sign from five feet away, then I'd say you have a problem seeing things. Same with not being able to see a TV screen or decipher a photograph. Even reading by touch is a fairly inefficient means of information gathering. Since he can only "see" what he's touching at any one time, it would be like trying to read through a narrow tube. It's certainly doable, but for quickly scanning large amounts of text, it's inferior to natural sight.

Okay, so that was the long version. Short version: Totally blind? No (though in some ways, yes). Visually impaired? Without a doubt. In any way less credible as a superhero because of this? Not at all.

*) Bonus points to Bru for deliberately retiring the "handicapped" label, and replacing it with "disabled" (in issue #93). The latter has been the preferred term for the last thirty years or so.
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The Other Murdock Papers

[james castle]

At the risk of sounding negative again: this is one of the reasons I can't stand Stan Lee. Any time he talks about Daredevil Stan The Man goes off about how Matt is disabled and THAT'S what makes him a great hero. Which is, of course, complete nonsense. As I understand it, the "problem" with being blind is that you can't see. But it's not that you can't see, it's that you can't sense things. Blindness is a disability because those who are blind are not able to tell what's around them as easily as people who have sight. Of course Matt can tell what's around him much, much better than anyone else. He can't "see" what's in front of his eyes but he can "see" what's all around him...for blocks and blocks. He's a great deal more abled than anyone else. Once again Stan misses the point entirely.
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JC

So why can't you see the funny side?
Why aren't you laughing?

[jumonji]

[Dimetre]

One thing I always found cool about Daredevil's blindness is that it actually seemed to liberate him at times. He would jump off the top of a skyscraper with no trepidation, with thought bubbles about his current adventure popping out of his head all the way down. I always thought he could do that because he couldn't see how frightening what he was doing actually was.

I thought Denny O'Neill explored this beautifully in #223. (An issue that lost in the first round in the recent stand-alone contest. Pppph!) The second the Beyonder gave Daredevil the ability to see, he became completely uncoordinated. I always thought his inability to see freed him, and allowed him to operate with very little fear, and seemingly completely without it. I think he's oblivious to many of the serious risks he takes.

[Neilan]

[staringatangels]

Is Dardevil really blind? I don't think that's really the important question so much as how does the comic handle his abilities and lack thereof?

I feel that the comic really doesn't explore the issues Christine mentioned, so that his "powers" do tend to portray him as over-compensated to the point of him appearing not to be blind, or of his blindness not really mattering.

I am legally blind myself, though I have enough vision to read the comic without assistive technology (though it can be hard sometimes, especially with those old, faded comics!). So Christine has a good point that "legal blindness" encompasses a broad range of visual ability, but when we speak of blindness we generally mean someone without any sight at all or hardly any really useful vision. This is the condition I believe Daredevil is meant to be in, and yet his radar sense and other heightened senses tend to negate whatever obstacles he usually faces, at least in his career as a superhero.

We don't get much of how his blindness affects his personal life. Most of that is taken up with his lovelife or how he deals with people like Foggy (which may be indirectly related to his condition, but it's hard to say).

I feel that Stan Lee had a good idea that didn't really get explored in the way that he thought it would work, though I still give props to him for coming up with the idea in the first place. And DD is still a great comic, deficiencies aside.

[jumonji]

Okay, so I said I'd stay out of this thread after my first couple of posts, right? Yeah... That's not going to happen.

Because staringatangels brings up another aspect in all of this that (probably) contributes a great deal to how people view this aspect of the character. I have always based my own personal assessment of what Matt's abilities and (yes) "disabilities" should be based on simple logic. To me, it's simply a matter of looking at his powers and lack thereof and doing a little real-life simulation in your head. When you do that it's obvious that his powers (even when you take them to their most extreme) do not, in fact, compensate for every situation where good vision is required, or at least preferred. I would even say that many of these situations are very common and would be of the kind he would find himself in every single day. Being 100% color blind (a condition which, of course, doesn't exist in real life without the person also being functionally totally blind) is not merely a matter of esthetics. Color carries an enormous amount of information about the world around you which most people rely on heavily to recognize what things are (not everything has a distinctive shape, scent or sound).

However (and this is where I get to the point of not simply repeating what I've said before), the book has always been written as if the problems associated with Matt's rather unique "condition" didn't exist. He's had his share of "blind moments," but these are incredibly few and far in between. They have also been almost exclusively restricted to his in costume activitites when it really should be Matt - out of costume - who gets stuck with the lion's share of the rather obvious inconvenience of not seeing normally. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the whole concept of how and why Daredevil works as a superhero is awesome. The way his senses work to his advantage when engaging in battle, throwing himself of buildings, tracking people and picking up on subtle clues that others may have missed make perfect sense to me. The whole concept actually works. He's a very believable character in this sense.

Where the concept doesn't work is when they are trying to sell the idea that not seeing (normally) is never a problem. It would be. Yes, even in the Marvel U. Unfortunately, most writers would never be willing to touch this issue with a ten foot pole, and instead it becomes the proverbial elephant in the room. I'm not actually suggesting that writers deliberately play this up, just not pretending that the elephant isn't there would be quite enough. Incidentally, I think Brubaker has been the best writer so far at not having Matt do things he shouldn't be able to, so it's obvious that this can be done without messing with the feel of the book.
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The Other Murdock Papers

[Francesco]

[jumonji]

All good points Francesco (though I know you weren't talking to me, I just sort of like to write long posts about stuff and saw this as an opportunity to clarify my own points... ).

I agree with you that this area shouldn't be explored for the sake of exploring it, because that would (as you say) seem a little odd to most readers and would take the focus off what's really important and what the book is basically about. It would also be counter-productive. However, I would also say that Matt's blindness has often been denied to the point of ridiculousness (though this is mostly restricted to Vol 1 issues). At the end of the day, any themes having to do with this (or other aspects, such as his Catholicism) need to be seamlessly integrated into the book when appropriate, not treated as separate plot elements. One good example of this was something as simple as showing Matt and Milla having a talking caller I.D. in issue #95. Little things like that are more than enough as I see it. It's a cool, completely natural little thing that does not in any way detract from the story but adds a dose of realism. (And I would still like for the current team to give the poor guy a computer, for the exact same reason. No need to make a big deal out of that either.)

As for whether readers realize that Matt's blindness does have actual ramifications to the point of appropriately being labeled as a disability, it's obvious that many do not. Whether or not writers need to educate them about this is another question. With this primarily being a superhero comic, I would say no. Nothing that isn't relevant to the plot should be shoe-horned in, regardless of what it is. But, I would still say that many (or even most) writers have gone further out of their way than they really had to in order to avoid the issue at all cost, and that's what I was referring to with my "elephant in the room" analogy. There is a happy medium in there somewhere, and I think Brubaker comes extremely close to striking the perfect balance. And, he does so without specifically bringing it up at all. Not denying Matt's blindness is not the same as making a big deal about it (and I don't think that was what staringatangels was suggesting either). The latter would be a distraction, seem completely out of context, and be outside of the focus of the book.

The key here is to find the balance of having this aspect be seemlessly integrated without being high-lighted, the same way every other aspect of the character should be handled. In fact, I would point to Kevin Smith's Guardian Angel as a perfect example of taking what should have been a seemlessly integrated part of the character (his Catholicism) and high-lighting it to the point of being completely distracting and almost out-of-character. This just goes to show that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Not a big Kevin Smith fan, as you can clearly see...
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The Other Murdock Papers

[Darediva]

I would like to say that I agree that Brubaker has integrated some of the challenges blind people would face in reality into the fictional world of Matt Murdock. He's done so without making it the focal point; rather he uses the situations to add to the believability of the story.

[Spoiler]


Case in point: When Matt rushes into his home and finds the nurse beaten and bloodied, he does not appear to locate her immediately, as a sighted person would definitely see the blood everywhere and the woman on the floor. He had more of a panic-stricken reaction because he thought it would be Milla who had been harmed. It added a lot to the tension and shock of the scene, to me.
[end spoiler]

Contrast this to some of the things we see in the early days of the comic, when Matt is shown using his cane not only in his office, but also in his own home! Come on! That's just plain ridiculous. Not that most people think about this kind of stuff, but it sort of grates a little on people who know blind people can navigate just fine, thank you, in a familiar space. It was just shown in that ham-fisted manner to drive home the point that Matt is a blind guy. Sort of like the melodramatic junk with Karen always thinking "Poor Matt. If he weren't BLIND, he would know how much I care." (Pardon me while I gag.)

Brubaker gives us the modern view that disabled people can hold decent jobs. That little discourse at the dinner table when Becky was invited to be a partner in the law firm was priceless. Thanks for acknowledging the elephant, and that he's not a fearsome beast.
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Alice




Those who throw dirt merely lose ground.

[staringatangels]

[Darediva]

[Francesco]