As promised (though delayed), here are some of my own thoughts on the casual survey I conducted aimed at people who are not Daredevil readers. All the basics on the experimental set-up, as well as the result of the survey are in my first post on the topic HERE.

I should admit that one of the reasons I wanted to test the waters on this topic, was to try to understand why Daredevil isn’t selling better. While the sales statistics that are published every month are probably less than reliable and don’t reflect the total circulation (international sales are not included for instance, and neither are subscriptions), I still don’t understand why they aren’t just a little higher. They were dropping slightly even before the Without Fear arc which I suspect turned off a lot of readers. I loved Without Fear, despite the repetitive element of having Matt’s personal life totalled and Brubaker leaving Milla in a refrigerator-like state, but I understand why some people saw it differently. Even so, the question remains if maybe there are readers out there who might enjoy Daredevil, but have been getting the wrong idea about the character. Perhaps there are even minor changes that could be made to the overall tone or direction of the book that would serve to bring in new readers while still satisfying the long-time reader as well, and not violating what most people generally feel this book should be.

Before going on, I should add that I don’t think it’s ever a good idea for any writer to write the stories he feels the fans want. All stories have to grow organically out of the writer’s vision for the character, and I for one am relieved that the fans aren’t writing this book. Well, at least the portion that posts on message boards. I am also a die-hard fan of Brubaker’s work so far. But what is worth considering is whether there are ways of better communicating what the character is about. There are also some Daredevil truisms that I personally would like to see challenged, one of them being the notion that the character is at his best when he’s down on his luck and half out of his mind. I did see some fan reactions after #105 that said “Wow, I can’t wait to see how much worse his life can get!” Most fans, however, would probably not agree with this sentiment. And, a full one quarter of the people who responded to my question cited some version of the character always being down on his luck as one of the reasons they don’t read Daredevil. There were also those who found the book to be too dark and depressing, speaking more of the general tone of the book than the personal life of the title character. I believe fans of the book would be less likely to agree with this point as Daredevil’s roots in street-level crime are well established.

Another group of responses that I’m going to look at as one here is that which pertains to Daredevil’s power set, by itself and constrasted with his blindness. Most people who responded actually liked Daredevil’s powers and very few felt that he needed to be more high-powered. Those that did said that they felt that way because they were fans of more spectacular stories. In general, it would seem as if most people like Daredevil’s basic premise, but there are quite a few people who admit to just not “getting it.” People’s main complaints in this category were that Daredevil’s powers are either only compensatory in nature, meaning that they have a hard time buying that they do much of anything except for compensating for his blindness, or that they go too far in simply eliminating Daredevil’s blindness as a factor and thus defeating what appears to be the basic premise of the character. Not surprisingly, I disagree with both of these notions. But I understand if the dichotomy here is lost on lots of people (I’d say it’s lost on some fans and even some writers). Daredevil’s powers do give him specific superhuman abilities which aid him as a superhero and make him believable as such. On the flip side, they don’t restore normal vision either. But I can see how these non-readers might have a point. Daredevil’s senses are not all that well-defined, even though they could be. This is one of those areas where I think Brubaker is doing a fantastic job of writing a character who is believable as a blind superhero, and I wish Marvel could put together some guidelines on what exactly the character can and can’t do. All characters benefit from that kind of stability, and this is especially true of a character whose powers may be difficult for some to make sense of.

People also mentioned some other things that turned them off, such as Matt Murdock being generally unlikeable and unsympathetic. This reminded me of a discussion we had on the MWOF message board regarding whether or not Matt would even be considered a particularly nice person. It got pretty heated, which goes to show that even many fans don’t find Matt to be particularly sympathetic, though all felt that he was fundamentally good and decent. I’ll admit to finding that discussion somewhat surprising since I’ve only found Matt to be unlikeable under a couple of writers, and in each case I felt he was written out of character. What he is, is arrogant and unusually human for a superhero. There are few lofty ideals on his part except for a basic need to see justice served, whatever his brand of justice happens to mean at any given moment, and you really get the feeling that this is a guy who is not always in a great mood and won’t generally win any awards for his charm. Matt being a conflicted person with the same flaws as anyone else may not be such a bad thing, but rather another sign of his humanity and yet another source of complexity. The kind of complexity which has always been a major strength of this character.

In closing, none of the issues that were raised surprised me very much. If someone had asked me what I thought some of the reasons people might be less than willing to pick up Daredevil were, I would probably have listed almost all of the reasons that people gave. Some of them I agree with, even as a fan, and some can be seen as natural responses by people who prefer another type of hero. But I do feel there is room for more readers here, and one way of making that happen might be to explore more sides of the character, and to let the fans know about it. Because that’s another thing. Marvel needs to market this book more and show this hero the love he deserves.