What Everyone Gets Wrong About Daredevil (or the Unknowable Nature of Subjective Experience)

Daredevil, the acrobatic and wise-cracking lawyer by day/vigilante by night, introduced in 1964, was originally little more than a knockoff of Spider-Man, except for one essential gimmick. Matt Murdock, DD’s litigious alter ego, was blind. For those unfamiliar with the classic origin tale; young Matt was the rambunctious son of a down-and-out boxer past his prime. One poetic and beautifully unsubtle day, Matt rescued a blind man from being hit by an out-of-control supply truck hoisting radioactive material. The blind man was saved, but the resulting accident, in which our poor hero was struck in the eyes by the hazardous material, left Matt blind himself. BUT! In a miracle of radioactive science, the isotope that the truck was carrying endowed Matt’s remaining senses with super-human power. Additionally, Matt also developed a “radar sense” that allowed him to have a 360° awareness of his surroundings. This last power, perhaps the most far-fetched of all Daredevil’s abilities, has been the subject of discrepancy over the course of his nearly 60-year-long crime-fighting career. In his early days as a C-Grade Marvel hero, the radar sense served as a catch-all, deus-ex machina, designed to explain most of Daredevil’s superhuman feats. In the 1980s, the character was launched into best-seller status when revolutionary talent Frank Miller took up writing and drawing duties on the comic. Miller reinvented Daredevil, replacing the whimsical swashbuckling tone the character was known for, with a more grounded and gritty detective noir flavor. In fitting with the more realistic tone, Miller did away with the radar sense, opting to focus on how Daredevil relies on his heightened, natural senses to give him an elevated perception of his surroundings. Since then, creators in and out of the comics have taken liberties with Daredevil’s powerset, sometimes including the radar sense, other times omitting it. <a href="https://medium.com/@dhkull6/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-daredevil-or-the-unknowable-nature-of-subjective-experience-5623ac359000">Visit Now</a>