I have no idea why people have suddenly noticed this since it’s hardly a new phenomenon. All I can say is that it’s been talked about quite a bit on message boards and in the occasional blog post. Maybe it’s the new and returning readers that decided that Daredevil #111 was the perfect jumping on point who have raised a collective eyebrow. Below we’ll look back briefly at Matt’s relationship with the printed page.

However, let’s first examine the question of whether his picking up a regular newspaper on the steps in front of his house is necessarily that suspicious. Are there natural and valid explanations for why a blind person would read a regular newspaper? Yes, as a matter of fact, there are. What he does with that paper is really nobody else’s business, and shouldn’t lead neighbors to call in the Thunderbolts for an SHRA-related arrest. He could hypothetically have someone read it to him, or he could use any of the modern devices that blind people use to access print.

So, the secret identity is safe for now. As for the Daredevilesque ability to read print by touch, it’s definitely one of those “powers” that go back to the early days. It must have become apparent right from the start that having the hero be unable to read in a somewhat traditional fashion would simply be too inconvenient. Coupled with the stigma of Braille that sadly persists to this day, it’s easy to see why early writers decided to highlight Daredevil’s ability to plow through even large amounts of text at high speed. Regular readers of this blog might recall the Wacky powers installment from a while back in which I poked some gentle fun at Stan Lee having Matt read much faster than people who read by sight.

Early speed-reading instances aside, very little has been said about the extent of this ability or Matt’s preferred reading mode. Modern-day common sense would suggest a strong preference for Braille over print for the same reason the average person would prefer not to read faded 4 point type in dim lighting if given a choice, even though most of us certainly could if we had to. One of very few instances of print-reading being described as something of a chore is from the first issue of Frank Miller’s Born Again arc in which Matt goes through his mail, thinking to himself “The embossed [envelopes] are easy, going by the scant impressions of the ink on the others is a pain, this early in the day.”

While any references to reading Braille are still exceedingly rare, Matt’s print-reading ability seems to have been played down some during vol 2. He still does it, obviously, but not quite as often as in the past it seems (to me anyway). Of course, what he does between panels is up to each reader’s imagination, and I suspect that imagination ran wild for many when reading Daredevil #111, for reasons unrelated to Matt’s ability to read print. But that’s for a later post…

Below are some volume 2 examples of Matt Murdock’s multi-layered and complicated relationship with the news media. Now doesn’t this post prove that you can write a Daredevil blog entry around just about any theme? What will I think of next? Stick around and you might find out.