“Origin Stories”

Welcome back everyone to “The Good, the Bad, and the Pedantic”, a review series where I take a look at the most recent comic book and general geek interest adaptations and see how they translate to the screen. As the title of this series states I will see what works in an adaptation as well as what needs to be improved. After I’ve gone through the parts both good and bad about the series itself I’ll take a look at the subtle nods, mythology foreshadowing, and overt changes to canon that fans tend to obsess over.

In this installment I’ll be tackling Marvel’s Daredevil. As this is a thirteen part episode premiering all at once on Netflix I will be taking it in three parts for ease to myself and readers instead of in episodic chunks. I call this second arc “Origin Stories” due to the heavy emphasis on what made both Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk the men they are today.

*Spoiler Warning for those who haven’t seen episodes 7-10 of Daredevil.

Recap

After the tumultuous events of “The Russian Arc” we take a break from the immediate Kingpin storyline and explore Matt’s origins in “Stick”. After failing to interrogate Leland Owlsley, Matt’s blind nonagenarian mentor Stick returns to Hell’s Kitchen to enlist his help in taking down a strange weapon called Black Sky. Matt’s initial tutelage under Stick is explored throughout the episode and it shows just how brutal of training someone would need to become Daredevil. Back in the present day Matt and Stick’s investigation of Black Sky leads them to the mysterious associate of Wilson Fisk: Nobu. Matt and Stick’s temporary alliance ends when Stick kills a child that he believes to be the mystic Black Sky weapon. After Matt defeats Stick in a final fight and sends him packing the old man meets a fellow martial artist asking if Matt will “be ready when the doors open”[1].

The eighth episode “Shadows in the Glass” takes a step away from the supernatural in order to give us the long awaited glimpse at the origins of Wilson Fisk. As a child Wilson’s father Bill Fisk was a small time aspirational politician who got in deep to a local mobster and let his failures out on his wife and child. While Wilson is forced to sit and stare at a white wall similar to the all-important “Rabbit in a Snowstorm” he listens as his father beats his mother. After taking too much little Wilson picks up a hammer and beats his father’s brains, leading his mother to dispose of the body. There is also a plot Matt being brought into Karen, Foggy, and Ben’s investigation of Fisk but the real fireworks involve Fisk relating his past to Vanessa and adding layers to the sometimes childlike psychopath he has been portrayed as so far in the series.

After exploring Fisk’s origins the Nobu, and most definitely the Hand, plot returns in “Speak of the Devil” as the Japanese criminal seeks out Matt to get revenge for his actions with Stick. After their client Elena Cardenas is murdered and Fisk makes a public statement that absolves him of guilt Matt goes looking for the people responsible and finds Nobu waiting. The fight between Daredevil and Nobu is interspersed throughout the episode at three points and it serves as the most damaging fight for Matt we’ve seen yet. Matt and Fisk meet twice in this episode, the first as the civilian identities in Vanessa’s art gallery and the second as Daredevil and Kingpin in the aftermath of the fight with Nobu. Barely able to stand after his fight with Nobu, Daredevil is beaten senseless and has to flee Fisk by jumping into the river. Foggy and Karen’s reaction to Cardenas’ death is also explored throughout the episode, with Foggy visiting Matt’s apartment in a drunken stupor. After hearing a crash Foggy barges in to find Matt battered and bloodied while wearing his Daredevil uniform.

The final piece of this arc comes in episode ten’s “Nelson v. Murdock”[2]. After calling Claire to stitch Matt up Foggy rails at his best friend for keeping his double life from him all this time. This takes up the bulk of the episode as Foggy tries to rationalize not only Matt’s strange abilities but also his willingness to go out at night and fight crime in a mask. Interspersed through this episode are flashbacks to Matt and Foggy’s college days at Columbia Law where they formed the unbreakable duo of Nelson and Murdock. This storytelling culminates in Matt’s first foray into vigilantism by tracking down his pedophile neighbor and beating him senseless when child services would do nothing. As Matt and Foggy’s relationship shatters Karen and Ben take a trip upstate to meet Wilson Fisk’s mother who reveals his murder of his father. Meanwhile Fisk’s world is turned upside down for the first time as Vanessa is poisoned at a fundraiser. This arc ends with both hero and villain more desperate than ever before but the audience clear on who they were as boys before they became the most powerful men in Hell’s Kitchen.

The Good

Last review I noted that Vincent D’Onfrio’s portrayal as Wilson Fisk would likely be the most divisive piece of Daredevil’s production. D’Onfrio speaks with a strained and awkward diction whenever he interacts with anyone, especially the object of his eye Vanessa. His wooing of the art dealer paints him as almost childlike, which is also apparent whenever he is let down by one of his subordinates. Fisk’s constant demeanor whenever he’s not around Vanessa betrays a boiling rage rolling underneath his exterior ready to explode at a moment’s notice. We see this in explicit detail when he turns Anatoly’s head into pulp for interrupting his date with Vanessa and again when he flips a metal table when Madame Gao denies his wish to continue his romance. Wilson Fisk is a bull of a man both in appearance and temperament and Vincent D’Onfrio plays him more as a force of nature than someone Matt can reason with.

I touched on Charlie Cox’s portrayal in the previous post but a lot of the success comes from how the writers have chosen to place Matt Murdock amongst his supporting characters. Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson is a revelation compared to most portrayals of sidekicks in superhero fiction in that he’s affable but extremely competent and worthy of partnership with a superhuman like Matt. I believe that Matt and Foggy are friends in the early episodes of this series but their relationship is cemented in the series highpoint “Nelson v. Murdock”. Henson’s charm carries on in his scenes with Deborah Ann-Woll’s Karen Page, who is far from the stereotypical superhero girlfriend that have been prevalent in many Marvel productions. It’s a smart move to not make her a love interest for Matt in this first season and we can still see that they’re friends through the natural interactions of Cox and Woll. Charlie Cox’s ability to play with his supporting cast makes his time spent as Daredevil all the more impressive in that he comes across as a real devil to his enemies[3].

Though I’m usually ambivalent about flashbacks being overused in serial television Daredevil uses them so perfectly the case can be made for them still being a useful storytelling tool[4]. The series is smart to start off the series with Matt’s blinding so that the audience can understand what gave him these powers without dwelling on something that doesn’t have real standing in comparison to the main storyline[5]. The second episode does a great job of showing Battlin’ Jack Murdock’s decision to prove his worth to his boy but it also makes sense in conjunction with the themes of the episode and the series up to that point. Many times a series decides to tell a flashback that can add shades to a character but are overall unimportant to the bigger narrative[6]. Other times a single flashback storyline can run in tandem with the entire series as a second narrative. Often this will cause the writers to struggle to find relevance in two stories at the same time when it should be focusing on the modern day plot[7]. Daredevil doesn’t marry itself to its flashbacks and uses them when appropriate to strengthen its characters’ motivations[8].

The Bad

I called this arc “Origin Stories” because it heavily explored the events that made Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk become Daredevil and the Kingpin, respectively. What also occurs during this four-episode stretch is the jarring introduction of supernatural into Daredevil’s world. Introducing supernatural elements into Daredevil isn’t a negative in-and-of itself as the character has a long history dealing with the Hand and it serves well to prepare him for the inevitable meeting with the heavily mystic-infused Iron Fist in the Defenders. What is jarring is that these supernatural ties to the larger world interfere in a story that is so front-loaded on the confrontation between Daredevil and the Kingpin. We get some shades of the supernatural in later episodes involving Madame Gao but those aren’t as intrusive as the ones in episodes seven and nine[9].

The Pedantic

I will say that a character I have never been able to get past in the Daredevil mythos is Stick. I can understand the appeal of having a wise old blind master teaching Matt the ways of the ninja but he always seemed a bit too over the top in a series that prided itself as a gritty crime story[10]. Maybe there’s just something about Matt using his father’s boxing roots to become a brawler only relying on his wits and the senses granted him by the radioactive waste that appeal to me. Either way Stick is an established part of Daredevil’s world and to not include him would be a disservice to the fans that enjoy his presence.

As I noted in “The Bad” section of this article Daredevil is delving deeper into the supernatural world of Marvel. So far we’ve had nothing on the supernatural front, Scarlet Witch seems to be completely rooted in the science side of how her powers are portrayed, and Dr. Strange doesn’t come out for a few years. Even Thor has used the old Arthur C. Clarke method of explaining away the magic/science paradox but the Defenders seems to be embracing “real magic” in full force. But even with magic being introduced into this world part of me worries how they are going to portray Iron Fist. Madame Gao certainly alludes to K’un Lun in her scenes as being from a faraway place and the image on her heroin packets is the same as the Steel Serpent’s logo. Iron Fist’s origin begins with him punching a dragon’s heart out before he gets powers so I hope this slow burn leads to the epic martial arts mayhem that an Iron Fist series needs. If Daredevil is any indication we won’t need to worry about ole Danny Rand.

[1] I initially thought this man to be the Steel Serpent and his question alluded to the opening of the gates of K’un Lun, connecting him to Iron Fist in a way to set up the fourth series of this Defenders series. Apparently it’s Stone, a peer of Stick’s in the Chaste in the comics, which would allude to a war between their group and the Hand. We’ll see our first glimpse at K’un Lun later on in the series.

[2] It was originally Nelson v. Murdock: Dawn of Justice, but Warner Bros already took that incredibly clever title.

[3] A very wise choice by Cox is to play Daredevil with a different intonation than Matt Murdock but without the “gravel voice” that Christian Bale made more hilarious than menacing. This would be the second thing I call that we put a moratorium on in superhero adaptations in exchange for performances such as Cox’s or the ultimate Batman portrayer Kevin Conroy.

[4] Think LOST season one as opposed to LOST season three.

[5] And judging by those Rand Corporation trucks transporting the radioactive chemicals DD and Iron Fist are going to have some very awkward conversations.

[6] Seriously LOST, did we need to know how Jack got his tattoos?

[7] I call this the Arrow-syndrome.

[8] My main vote for flashback subject next year is Vanessa Marianna. Seriously, that is a character whose head we need to see inside sometime soon because she is just fascinating.

[9] But that fight with Nobu was exactly the kind of action you need in a Daredevil story and it does excite me for the potential of seeing the Defenders facing down a horde of Hand ninjas.

[10] And even for a Daredevil adaptation there seems to be a lot of blind people on this show. Not complaining about including blind characters in fiction because I am all about representation of people with disabilities but they really go all out on that trope. And it is used to good effect with Madame Gao’s super creepy blind heroin mixer people.