Netflix’s Daredevil reclaims the comic series’ dark night

The Marvel comic universe has no shortage of peculiar, underdog, and underwhelming characters, which makes sense for a publishing titan’s decades of attempts to strike gold. Namely, you can’t make a Deadpool omelet without breaking a few Dr. Bong eggs. But of all the larger-than-life characters that have wavered in Marvel’s limbo zone of semi-fame, none are more tortured than Matt “Daredevil” Murdock.

That character is the company’s most obvious yang to Batman’s yin, what with a chip on the shoulder in the shape of a dead parent, a lack of otherworldly superpowers, and a vigilante jones that drives him to beat the crap out of city-slum hoodlums. Daredevil enjoyed a Frank Miller-penned resurgence as a lovable anti-hero in the ’80s, but the character and series never tipped over in a mainstream way—unless you count the giant turd that was Ben Affleck’s 2003 motion-picture take on the character, and you probably don’t.

But Marvel has really done wonders with its giant deck of cards since allying with the House of Mouse in 2009—really, who thought that Rocket Raccoon would ever be attached to a billion-dollar movie franchise?—and its mainstream push has only intensified with an ABC partnership and a slew of new TV series. After launching two network-TV series, Marvel has found a way to play its Daredevil card once more: as a dark, online-only Netflix crime drama that drips equal parts quality and blood—and does things no other live-action, comic-inspired TV series has ever done.

Heightened senses

In the series premiere, which launched on Friday (alongside the entire first season, in typical Netflix fashion), our hero only needs eight minutes to reveal himself as a tortured badass. Hell’s Kitchen resident Matt Murdock talks in a confessional booth about his boxer of a father’s amazing ability to take a beating, and about the disconnect between father and son: “I didn’t understand what he was feeling inside,” Murdock says behind a pair of jet-black sunglasses. “Not back then.”

After a priest offers thoughts and counsel, Murdock makes it clear that he’s in the booth for different reasons that one might expect: “I’m not seeking penance for what I’ve done, father. I’m not asking for forgiveness… for what I’m about to do.”

This scene is shown after Murdock’s origin story plays out in a flashback, one in which his elementary-aged self gets his face covered in toxic goo after he shoves a man out of the way of a car accident. He’s left blind and angry.

Once Murdock leaves that confessional booth in the modern day, we see both of those traits play out in a scene where somehow, some way, his blind self beats the living crap out of four men in an abandoned dockyard. The rest of Murdock’s senses are heightened, as it turns out, a fact made evident when a criminal cocks and aims a gun. The scene slows down, and the sound echoes across your TV set’s stereo channels until Murdock echolocates it and dodges accordingly.

This fight sets the Daredevil series’ tone for combat—one that cannot be overstated, considering we’re talking about a comic book series whose blind hero spends a lot of time punching faces and breaking bones. We at Ars Technica have seen our fair share of on-screen fistfights, so what’s so special about Daredevil’s? Namely, how the framing so cleverly reflects Murdock’s reduced vision and heightened senses.

Most of these fights happen in the dark, whether in nighttime alleyways or dimly lit apartment buildings, but Daredevil’s set designers don’t just turn the lights down and force us to squint. Rather, scenes are framed so that we clearly see the impressive martial-arts maneuvers—but are still forced to hunt and wonder where the next big punch might come from. Case in point: the second episode’s closing battle, in which a badly bruised Murdock singlehandedly disposes of nearly a dozen men guarding a kidnapping victim.

This long-shot scene may not be a single-shot like True Detective‘s epic first-season scene, but it sure feels like it, with the camera staying relatively fixed in the back end of a hallway while Murdock walks down the hall and disposes of men in rooms to the left and the right. The camera moves just enough so that we can see through door frames for a few flashes of violence. Mostly, the action spills into the hallway, but its balance of the seen and the unseen—and its focus on brutal, semi-realistic fisticuffs, as opposed to the “every bad guy only takes one punch” fluff of Chuck Norris—is the cinematic combat stuff that comic book geeks will be talking about for years.

If Daredevil‘s sound design team isn’t nominated for an Emmy, there is no justice in the world. The series telegraphs its hardest-to-see fights with crisp, ringing sound effects for every peril that Murdock is about to face, and since the writers have wisely chosen not to pepper fights with cheeseball quips and sound bites, such brutal sound effects deserve the extra attention. Don’t plan on marathoning Daredevil if you’re anywhere near squeamish, however; between cracks of bone, smacks of fists, and squishes of knife wounds, the series doesn’t shy away from showing viewers just how violent these fights can get.

The “daddy issues superhero” pantheon

Our biggest complaint, really, is that the series doesn’t come with a “I’m squeamish” violence-toggle option, as some of its most brutal moments could be edited out without dulling the incredible cinematic power of the fights. Behind the gruesome stuff hides a fantastically written and acted crime-and-law series, anchored largely by lead actor Charlie Cox (Boardwalk Empire).

Cox’s portrayal of Murdock comes in two flavors: the daytime, lawyer version, who carries likeable preoccupation and slight smoulder a la the best of Edward Norton, and the nighttime, face-punching version, who shouts and grunts beneath an eye-covering mask to recall the better parts of Michael Keaton’s Batman. (We insist, Keaton’s acting with the mask on was actually pretty solid!) The man holds his own in rapid-fire conversation and passes off his years of rage and depression without ever coming off as either pouty or dramatic—that’s crucial stuff in the “daddy issues superhero” pantheon.