You know those numbers you can call to have someone read your fortune or give you advice on a pressing matter? I’m not going to get into a discussion on whether psychic abilities are real, but I will take a look at how, in the Marvel Universe, you can call a trusted superhero colleague for guidance. At least if you happen to be friends with Matt Murdock, owner of the sharpest ears in town. Too bad this particular scenario, from Daredevil #38 (volume 2), by Brian Michael Bendis and Manuel Gutierrez, doesn’t actually work. Read the below scene carefully (click the images to enlarge), and we’ll get to all the ways it doesn’t make sense…
Matt hears heatbeats by phone, panel 1
Actual nonsense under the cut –>
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Brian Michael Bendis,
Daredevil science,
Daredevil vol 2 #1- 100,
Manuel Gutierrez,
Wacky powers
I love it when you guys comment on my posts. Having people engage with the content I put out on this blog is rewarding in and of itself, but it’s even more fun when the comments turn into a conversation or, as is the case here, spawn entire new posts.
So, this entry is sort of a continuation of the conversation between Aaron and myself in the comment section of A history of the radar sense #6. Before getting to that, I thought I’d also reply to a related comment of Aaron’s (go Aaron!), coming out of an exchange in the comment section of “Because I can’t just kill him” – part 7. We got to talking about comic book science, and I remarked that I thought Daredevil was the most realistic superhero. Aaron was immediately, and appropriately, on my case:
@Christine: The “most believable superhero”? Let’s not get carried away. 
I think someone like the Punisher is a little more believable: he’s a guy with lots of guns who keeps himself in peak physical condition and has trained extensively in martial arts and weaponry. Really, any of the depowered heroes fall into this camp, e.g., Hawkeye or Black Widow (unless you think whatever age-defying serum she took is a super-power).
My response under the cut –>
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Commentary,
Daredevil science,
Meandering musings
Yes, it’s time for one of those radar posts again, and we will finally be moving into post-Miller territory, and covering the Daredevil of Denny O’Neil. As we’ll see, there are a couple of noteworthy things about O’Neil’s interpretation of the radar, so let’s get on with the show and tell…
Radar image, from Daredevil #195, by Denny O'Neil and Klaus Janson
(Much) more radar goodnes under the cut –>
Tagged as:
A history of the radar sense,
Danny Bulanadi,
Daredevil science,
Daredevil vol 1 #151-200,
Daredevil vol 1 #201-250,
David Mazzucchelli,
Denny O'Neil,
Klaus Janson,
Luke McDonnel,
William Johnson
In his most recent review of Daredevil #106, Robert of the Matt Murdock Chronicles discussed an instance of Matt talking about his color sensing ability, and a dialogue on the topic ensued in the comments. Well, in all honesty, it was mostly me giving a very (confusing) lecture. So, I thought I’d try a more pedagogical approach here. First let’s look at some instances that showcase “color sensing.”
Daredevil’s ability to determine color is one of those tricks that has gone away almost completely over time, despite being prominently featured even in the very first issue, as seen below. “I can even blend colors, for each colored fabric has a different feel to me!” You sure about that, Matt? That first costume of yours, while iconic, hardly features an impressive blend of colors…
Read more under the cut –>
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Bill Everett,
D. G. Chichester,
Daredevil science,
Gene Colan,
Roy Thomas,
Stan Lee,
Steve Gerber,
Wacky powers
While I always tend to write about things I want to write about on this blog (with the odd exception of some mandatory news reporting), this series of posts – more so than others perhaps – is one I’m putting together knowing that many of you might find it a bit anal. Not all of you – judging by the decent number of people who land on this blog after searching for “Daredevil radar sense” on Google – but probably a majority. And yet, I keep at it. Call it self-indulgence or the simple curiosity to try to understand how writers and artists imagine Daredevil’s most exotic trait, his unique window on the world.
In the last post of this series, I quoted an excerpt from an old Miller interview where he was able to talk about his take on the radar sense, putting words to the ambiguity I know many fans, and presumably a fair share of writers, feel about the radar. I’ve seen some people refer to it as a cop-out, and I’ve seen others who have wanted to see it removed altogether and replaced with something more subtle. What I think Miller was striving for with his talk of a “proximity sense” was to portray the radar sense as something that performs some of the functions of vision, while also being something quite different. He also added his own take on the origin of the sense, seeing it as an innate ability that could be unleashed, or possibly enhanced, but a far cry from Stan Lee’s all-purpose radio-transmitter and antenna set-up. An ability brought out by radioactivity and mysticism while also being rooted in human biology.
Below, I’ll just post some panels that highlight Miller’s take on the radar sense, offering some brief comments when necessary. Feel fee to provide your own comments on how you view Miller’s work in this regard, and how you’d like to see Daredevil’s radar sense portrayed. All panels below are written and penciled by Frank Miller, except Daredevil #185 (penciled by Klaus Jansen) and Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1 (penciled by John Romita Jr).
Read more under the cut –>
Tagged as:
A history of the radar sense,
Daredevil science,
Frank Miller,
John Romita Jr,
Klaus Janson
Well, there’s been a lot of things going on lately. Andy Diggle was announced as the next Daredevil writer, and I gave the site a big make-over. While the former is undeniably much more newsworthy, I must say I’m feeling good about the new look, which took a few hours to put together. The new background, as you may have noticed, is taken from Djurdjevic’s Daredevil #500 cover.
Alas, I thought we’d take a trip back in time again and continue our little exploration of Daredevil’s “uncanny” radar sense. We’ve now reached Frank Miller’s work on the title which means that there will be plenty to talk about. That’s why I’ve decided to divide this post into two parts. We won’t be looking at any panels this time, instead I will post what Frank Miller had to say about Daredevil’s radar and senses generally in an interview by Dwight Decker for issue #70 of The Comics Journal (January 1982). In my next radar post, we’ll look at how Franks intentions played out on the page.
Below is a small excerpt from a much longer interview, but if the copyright holder (hi there!) feels this goes beyond fair use, let me know and I’ll take it down.
TCJ:I’d like to discuss the extent of Daredevil’s powers. In one of the issues scripted by Roger McKenzie, Matt Murdock was shown hearing the Hulk’s heartbeat from four blocks away.
MILLER: That’s pretty extreme. When I started writing the book, I sat down and defined for myself exactly the parameters of his powers. I think he has the potential of being very believable. The way to make him credible is to have his powers be extraordinary enough to be exciting, but not on par with Superman. One of the things I’ve done recently is revamp that radar sense of his to make the images he receives less distinct. I want it to resemble the “proximity” sense that some martial artists claim to have, where they can detect movement, form and location, but they don’t get pictures. I’m not fond of the radar sense in the first place. I haven’t given myself the opportunity to explore it very much.
TCJ: Something that has bothered me in rereading back issues is how Daredevil explains to himself how he senses things – for the readers benefit, naturally, since he shouldn’t have to do that any more than you or I explain to ourselves how we see. Some of the explanations make him sound almost horrifyingly limited in his senses. In one issue, the Unholy Three are carrying him over a rope stretched between buildings, and Daredevil thinks to himself, “I smell hemp – we must be on a rope!” He should know where he is almost instinctively, but this sort of explanation makes him sound … well, blind.
MILLER: Except that the appeal of the character in his earliest version was that we saw what was happening with our eyes, and he added dimension and depth to the panel by describing the sounds and smells. Also, because he’s blind, he’s just barely getting by. I find Superman to be a very boring character because I never believe he’s really in danger. Bullets bounce off of him. But somebody who could actually have trouble getting through rush-hour traffic interests me a great deal.
TCJ: Yes, but for him to be a superhero?
MILLER: Yeah! That makes him all the more heroic. Of course, the job is to make that believable.
TCJ: He can read because his fingers are super-sensitive and he can feel the ink impressions on a page – although I could never understand how he could do that through his glove.
MILLER: He doesn’t do it through his glove. Not when I do it. He takes his glove off now.
TCJ: He has a sense of space, of course. You spoke of a proximity sense; he would be able to sense objects around him.
MILLER: The way I see it, he’s aware of the general shape of things around him and how far away he is from other things. Particularly with people, he’s got a million ways of telling where they are: His hearing alone tells him not only where someone is, but how fast their heart is beating, how fast they’re breathing – which is a good indication of their emotional state.
Source: Page 19 of The Comics Journal Library, Volume 2: Frank Miller
Tagged as:
A history of the radar sense,
Frank Miller
Here’s another hand on screen moment. These are rare (probably because they should be impossible), but we saw a couple of instances of reading computer screens by touch back in Chichester’s run. The scene featured here is much more recent, I’m sad to say, and comes from the Parts of a Hole arc by David Mack and Joe Quesada. Matt is hanging out with Natasha and it’s just been reported on TV that a large fire has been set. Matt quickly deduces that this is Echo (Maya Lopez) trying to lure him out. But how does he figure this out? It could just be that he’s putting two and two together by what Natasha is trying to tell him rather than the palm on screen thing, but why would he be touching it at all? Because watching TV with your hands… just doesn’t work. Sorry, pal.
From Daredevil #14 (vol 2):
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Daredevil science,
Daredevil vol 2 #1- 100,
David Mack,
Joe Quesada,
Wacky powers
People who know me from my posts on the ManWithoutFear.com message board are probably well aware of my interest in superhero science (now why does that sound like an oxymoron?). As are, I suspect, most people who follow this blog regularly. At the very least you would get that idea from reading my posts on “wacky powers.” So, from reading the title of this post, one or two of you might even wonder why I’m not slapping the wacky label on this one too. Well, the truth is that this might be one of Daredevil’s least wacky powers. And if you’ll indulge me for a few minutes, I’ll tell you why…
In general, humans hear quite well. We have this idea that other animals, such as cats and dogs, hear much better than we do, and that’s essentially true, but that also depends on what we mean by “hearing well.” The sounds we hear have two basic properties, amplitude and pitch (i.e. frequency). The amplitude of a sound tells us how loud it is, and is commonly measured in decibels (dB). The pitch tells us wether the sound is the high shrill of a prepubescent boys’ choir or the low rumble of an old refrigerator, and is measured in hertz (Hz).
When we say that dogs and cats hear better than we do, we mean that they can pick up on a larger range of sounds than we can. They can hear high-pitched sounds that we can’t perceive. When it comes to amplitude, however, humans hear about as well as most other animals in the frequency range that we are the most sensitive to. Very few animals can hear below the human hearing threshold of 0 dB at any frequency.
Of course, neither humans nor animals hear equally well over all frequencies. The 0 dB hearing threshold is only valid for humans in a very narrow frequency range. That means that our sense of hearing doesn’t necessarily reflect physical reality. Sounds of very low or high frequencies must be very loud – in the pure physical sense – for us to hear them. If you imagine that superhearing means being equally sensitive to a very large range of frequencies, without this human limitation, hearing heartbeats would actually be a piece of cake. Because, heartbeats – and most other body sounds – are actually about as loud as the average conversation. We just don’t register this because they are the loudest around 50 Hz, a frequency the human ear can hear but is not very sensitive to. Our perception of loud doesn’t necessarily correspond to physical reality.
So, to make a long story short: In order to hear heartbeats, all you need is a flat hearing curve. There are, of course, many reasons why you wouldn’t want to hear as well at 50 Hz as you do at around 2,000 Hz. Because you wouldn’t only hear heartbeats. You’d also hear people’s bowels moving constantly, not to mention that most of the rumble of big cities would appear to be many times louder than what you’re used to. Low frequency sounds also easily pass through walls which would make the noise very hard to block out (one reason for why it actually makes more sense for Matt to be able to hear a heartbeat through a thick wall than to be able to make out a conversation). For me personally, super-hearing is not something that sounds all that appealing. Even if it would make you kick ass at hide and seek, and makes Daredevil nearly impossible to hide from.
The only thing I consider to be wacky about Daredevil’s ability to hear heartbeats is perhaps the heavy reliance on this as a means of identifying people. I don’t doubt that this is possible, but it makes about ten times more sense to use a heightened sense of smell for that.
Tagged as:
Daredevil science,
Random information,
The life of a superhero
News flash everyone, I’m not the only geek with an unhealthy interest in making comic book science make sense. I just came across this blog called the
Comic Book Guide to Science. They just posted a theory for how Matt’s taste buds may have become hypersensitive. Take a look at it right
here!
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Daredevil science,
Links
Christine is a thirty something Daredevil fan from Sweden who spends way too much of her free time writing posts for this blog. Check the 
On comic book realism and Daredevil’s senses
by Christine on December 10, 2009 in Daredevil Science
I love it when you guys comment on my posts. Having people engage with the content I put out on this blog is rewarding in and of itself, but it’s even more fun when the comments turn into a conversation or, as is the case here, spawn entire new posts.
So, this entry is sort of a continuation of the conversation between Aaron and myself in the comment section of A history of the radar sense #6. Before getting to that, I thought I’d also reply to a related comment of Aaron’s (go Aaron!), coming out of an exchange in the comment section of “Because I can’t just kill him” – part 7. We got to talking about comic book science, and I remarked that I thought Daredevil was the most realistic superhero. Aaron was immediately, and appropriately, on my case:
My response under the cut –>
Tagged as: Commentary, Daredevil science, Meandering musings
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