Daredevil’s Name Finally Makes Sense In His Darkest Comic

As far as Marvel Comics heroes go, Daredevil has a name that isn’t exactly congruent with his values and methods as a vigilante. Occupied by both his quest for justice as well as his desire to be a morally-upstanding Catholic, Matt Murdock’s identity doesn’t entirely mesh with his alter ego’s devilish costume and name. And while this has been addressed in the recent Heroes Reborn event, an earlier comic, Daredevil Noir, finally made sense of the Daredevil name in its alternate take on Matt Murdock’s story.

As the title suggests, Daredevil Noir is a noir-inspired vision of Matt Murdock’s activities as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, set in Prohibition-era New York (written by Alexander Irvine, inks by Tomm Coker, colors by Daniel Freedman and Dan Brown, letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna). And while it deals with some core aspects of Daredevil’s origin story, namely the murder of his boxer father, Jack Murdock, it changes some other details of Matt Murdock’s early life. Originally, Matt had been called “Daredevil” by other children as a way to taunt him for being introverted and bookish. But in Daredevil Noir #1, he gains the name after doing risky stunts like jumping off of buildings shortly after he became blind. Matt’s antics lead him to become a vaudeville performer called Daredevil, and he is shown performing onstage in a costume nearly identical to the one that Marvel Comics fans associate him with.

Daredevil Noir makes Matt Murdock’s superhero persona a reflection of his disregard for personal safety, as well as the role that the community in Hell’s Kitchen plays in his character’s mythos. It is no accident that Daredevil is associated so closely with his Manhattan neighborhood, and the fact that his neighbors gave him the nickname after seeing his stunts is in keeping with the specifics of where he comes from. Thus, Daredevil’s name origin in Daredevil Noir brings out everything that defines his character, rather than being a sarcastic nod to how he was bullied as a child. In this way, Daredevil as a persona emerged from his community’s amazement surrounding his behavior as a blind child, making him a larger-than-life figure not despite of his disability, but because of it.

That said, the origin of Daredevil’s name in Daredevil Noir carries its own set of consequences, namely in the fact that it was memorable enough for Wilson Fisk to identify Matt Murdock as the man behind the mask. Fisk had seen Matt perform as Daredevil years earlier, and after crossing paths with him later on, realized that the new Daredevil exhibited the same acrobatic feats and costume as the old vaudeville act. Coupled with the fact that Matt had motive to investigate Fisk’s activities because of his role in his father’s murder, Matt’s Daredevil persona did little to conceal his civilian identity.

With this in mind, the transparency of Matt Murdock’s identity as Daredevil begs a question of why he used the persona in the first place in the story. As his narration reveals, Matt was aware that his stunts caught the attention of Hell’s Kitchen because he was blind. So is his reuse of his old persona an acknowledgement of his own exceptional status, or is it an open challenge for his community to consider that the new crimefighting Daredevil is, in fact, a blind man? Either way, this alternate take on Daredevil‘s origin brings new significance to his name, emphasizing how his persona is as much a social construct surrounding his blindness as it is a personal reflection for Matt Murdock.

About The Author

Jules Chin Greene
(245 Articles Published)

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Jules Chin Greene is an editor, filmmaker, and animator based in Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in English and Cinema Studies from Oberlin College, where she was awarded Excellence in Critical Writing for her thesis on Indigeneity and Anti-Imperialism in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In her free time, she enjoys roller-skating and horror movies. You can find her on Twitter at @JulesChinGreene.

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