Daredevil Message Board

[Dimetre]

Is anybody else a little uncomfortable with Daredevil, the Marvel Universe's leading legal figure (I'd say he ranks higher than She-Hulk), boldly violating the human rights of his prisoners?

[Kirika]

Eh, I wish I could say yes. To be honest, it isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of horribly misplaced things Marvel has done lately, DD's own private Guantanamo isn't the first thing that pops into my head.

[Kirika]

Ugh sorry about the stupidity of that last little bit. I shouldn't post on two hours of sleep.

[Minion]

I understand what you mean. Yeah it kind of does seem like he is overreacting to the circumstances.

Perhaps his faith in the legal system has fallen so far that he believes that all the people he has captured deserve what he is doing just for being involved in Norman Osborn's regime. I mean come on is he really supposed to have interviewed ALL of these people personally and determined their guilt or Innocence? The first group of cops I understand but they left only one soldier from the riot in the streets topside.

Or maybe it is because Matt went to prison for helping people and he believes that these people deserve to suffer worse than he did because he was innocent and they are guilty. Or that if they have even a small amount of freedom they will acting like the prisoners that kept attacking Matt in prison did. Killing each other rather than serving their time.

Or of course it could just be that whole mental breakdown flaring up again.

In any case putting people in chest deep water in 2x2 cells and putting them on starvation rations is a bit much.

[Francesco]

Those guys had betrayed the people they've sworn to protect by dealing drugs/allowing drug dealing, who didn't care whether these drugs spread death on their city. ruthless and capable of killing in cold blood, certain that they would eventually go unpunished.

Usually DD hands them to the authorities. But things are made different by the fact that these people are allied with Norman Osborn, a guy who allows Bullseye to blow up buildings with innocents inside, and who also happens to control the judicial system. DD's usual approach wouldn't have prevented them to walk free in a couple of days.
The only way to protect the city and its inhabitants - and at the same time punish these evildoers - without killing anyone was to hold them captive.

I might add that they could also considered themselves lucky that DD hasn't killed them for having harmed innocent lives.

[DarkKnightJared]

Not any more so then when Superman put a bunch of people in a gulag. Much like Superman, Matt's going to come out of this thinking, "Yeah, that really wasn't my best moment, to say the least."

[Dimetre]

I know that the existence of H.A.M.M.E.R. and Osborn in control of everything complicates things. But Matt is a legal expert. That splash page showing him submerging people in water up to their chins in tiny cages is something he shouldn't be allowing himself to do. He may be justified in taking these people captive, but he is not justified in torturing them.

There was an issue of Captain America: Theatre of War that came out some time last year. It showed Steve Rogers fighting overseas during World War Two. In the issue, the regiment he leads takes a German soldier hostage. Cap emphasizes that they have to treat their hostage according to the Geneva convention. And these are soldiers fighting Nazis. Cap and the boys treated their hostage humanely, and in the end he turned into an informant for them.

I'm pretty sure that Matt has heard of the Geneva convention. He's a lawyer for crying out loud. This is completely uncharacteristic for him.

I hope Matt realizes he can't get away with this behaviour soon. Karen's murder has become a really tired excuse for immoral decisions. Bendis used it to justify the lawsuit against a newspaper that reported the truth, unmasking in Josie's, marrying Milla etc. Karen's murder even seemed to loom over Matt cheating on his wife some hundred issues later. When will this "mental breakdown" end?

[train]

i'm a little late to the party here, but i couldn't help but feel the same way. seeing the HAMMER soldiers in the sewer prison didn't sit well with me and the Gitmo comparison, ugh.
i know that Diggle was painted into a corner coming in and he's only been on the book for a little while, but i can't help but think that he doesn't have a very good handle on Matt.

[Francesco]

Dimetre:
I don't think DD being a legal expert has to act as who knows what moral compass to him. He's always been a legal expert and that has never stopped him from performing illegal activities such as dispensing justice all on his own by beating up people.

[Minion]

Daredevil's going out at night is not usually just about beating people up as 'justice.' He usually is searching for evidence in some manner. In more recent issues he has been just beating people up more and more, but he has often been yelling "Change your life!" or other things.

It does seem that he is following Luke Cage's advice to just get out and break faces as a way to prevent crime. I think the quote is something like, 'Do you hear anyone dealing drugs in my building? Do you even hear anyone doing drugs?'(Not accurate but I don't want to dig out the issue.) Then when he got tired of that and joined the Hand he started taking it farther.

Looking at it that way Shadowland is Luke Cage's fault. Of course I am always about looking at comics in many ways. It may be completely different.

[Gee]

Yes putting people in cages etc is a bit much, but remember that in the past few years the following has been done to Matt - he has lost 2 wives, both to super villans, he has been to prison, he thought for a long spell that his best friend had died, he has been beaten badly, he has cheated on his wife, to name but a few. Now the law has been taken from him, being a lawyer is pointless when the courts are being run by the bad guys, a bit like entering a fixed boxing match (eh, eh see what I did there?).
Anyway to think that Matt would simply react by giving the bad buys a wee slap on the wrists after all this is just naive and unrealistic, he is a very angry man and the fact that he is not just killing his prisoners is testament TO his respect for human rights and the law.
So in summary I think you are underestimating our hero and how good a man he is.
_________________
when walking just walk, when sitting just sit, above all don't wobble.

[The Mast]

I think he's just treating them as he feels they deserve to be treated.

He's simply reverting to a sense of vigilantism more in common with The Punisher. Normally he'd take the high-road and not even consider doing what he does currently, but I think he's realising that as long as he doesn't kill them, he's not as bad as The Punisher, but he's still operating in a way that may work out for the greater good of everyone else, even if he suffers moral pain over it later.

If this eventually leads to public safety, he probably would be willing to take the pain of knowing he got too dark. Whether or not he can keep the very hair-thin limits he has now, or whether he actually does go so far that it becomes an issue remains to be seen.

I guess that's what Shadowland is; Daredevil going too far but still trying to justify it. I haven't read any solicits.

[Minion]

[The Mast]

Oh I'm not saying he's going to be, though. Just that it's more in common with that.

Maybe he does become what he always thought The Punisher was wrong for being, who knows?

I think that Matt will edge more toward: "As long as I don't kill, this is all ok.". What he needs to understand is that cruelty starts coming into it when you do this.

[Darkdevil]

Based upon the initial question, I would think that Matt has forsaken the law in regards to his having to 'leave his previous life behind' in order to accept this new role.

Seeing the corruption that Osborn and HAMMER has brought to NYC may have compounded this incident. Matt may be acting more from his own personal sense of justice now than the legal system's view.

However one looks at it, leading the Hand, he couldn't simply let these criminals go or turn them in. Nor is he willing, or ready, to kill them. This type of imprisonment would seem to be a compromise on his part. But if he's willing to accept this, what else is he willing to accept?

Either way, because of the corruption he sees and the influences around him currently, I think it will be quite some time before Matt practices, or believes in, the law again, if ever.