Daredevil Message Board

[Darkdevil]

The Jester's trap scenes in #32 along with some blog posts over at TheOtherMurdockPapers have raised an interesting point, I think.

The Jester likely knows that Matt Murdock is Daredevil yet he believes that Matt is faking being blind.

This is a logical assumption, one that other villains have likely reached after the publishing of Matt's 'supposed' secret identity. But it's an assumption that should fall apart if these villains took the idea further.

If you assume that Matt is faking being blind, then your first question would be why? The most obvious answer would be in some effort to dissuade suspicion that he is really DD. However, that seems to be a massive charade to undertake for minimal reward. This would require constant attention to detail in public over long stretches of time in order to not slip up and make a mistake. It seems rather pointless in fact when there are simpler and easier ways to deflect attention and suspicion.

Now, given Matt's actual blindness and how he utilizes his radar sense, I'm more surprised that some villains haven't thought that DD may be blind instead. The fact that DD can't see is noticeable at some points and could be commented upon. Yet villains take the other thought tract that Matt must be faking being blind for all the trouble.

Granted, my knowledge of DD history is incomplete, so if there have been instances where this type of scenarios have come up or been acted out, let me know. I find it an interesting conundrum over Matt's perceived blindness by supervillains in general.

Thoughts?

[Gianni]

I think the most sensational example of a villain misunderstanding Matt's blindness appears in Vol. I issues 37-38, wher Dr. Doom swaps bodies with DD and doesn't realize he's blind - instead, he thinks he deliberately obstructs his own view in order to develop his other senses - Stan Lee at his worst.

[Marcus Plato]

Can't remember the issue, but DD once faced off against Sabretooth. They found themselves in the sewers, and Sabretooth picked that Matt was blind by the way he tilted his head and sniffed the air. I believe he said something like "You're blind, aren't you devil-man..."
Of course Batman detected DD's blindness in one of their crossovers too.
_________________
Marcus Plato

[qtmxd]

Most of Lee's DD stories were so absurd that I'm grateful for having been a kid who didn't care... at least I got to care about a character who still moves me after 50 years, (and some runs as bad as Lee's). Why did Doom want to switch bodies with DD anyway?
Then again, there are fans now who swear Lee never plotted anything, and blame the artists he forced to come up these story-lines.
But it was a simpler time, and I give Lee credit for the vision.

[train]

If I remember correctly, in Born Again, Kingpin thinks that Matt is pretending to be blind.

[qtmxd]

Good question, and I don't remember. I'm sure he researched Matt's life, including the accident, but I don't remember what he concluded, or if Miller even said one way or the other.
Even now, with DD's identity as a kind of urban legend, I assume people have different ideas as to whether he's faking.

[train]

[qtmxd]

Thanks... I wonder if a future writer will be so diligent as to be consistent on this!

[Nightwing2001]

Somehow during Guardian Devil Kingpin seemed to know all about Daredevil's supersenses, blindness and his radar sense with no explanation whatsoever of how he suddenly learned this. He obviously had to learn it somehow off panel, how or why I don't know. It was some bad writing by Kevin Smith and bad editorial proofreading and checking I think.

[Bullseye11]

That Dr. Doom comic was pretty bad but Stan Lee did have an explanation to why Dr. Doom switched bodies with DD. The reasoning was that he thought he could get into the FF headquarters if he was DD. I'm not sure but I also believe he did it because he wanted to look like a normal man and not be scarred.

[Darkdevil]

[qtmxd]

I wouldn't look too hard for consistency on this. He could have been blind, then recovered, or had an "operation" like Kingpin and every blind girl in movies has.
I remember Kingpin's blindness as one of those ideas that a writer, in this case, Mack, has, but which is a dead end. Bendis had to resort to that "operation" to undo it.