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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 26, 2022 18:49:11 GMT -5
I might be reading too much into things, but I've long wondered at the coincidence of Matt Murdock saving a blind man only to inherit his blindness as a result. Now, obviously, Lee had to give the old man some reason to be in danger and blindness would do it, but at the same time "Hey! My brakes aren't working!" (which is part of it), "Hey! That man's falling and I can't stop in time!" "Hey! Look out for that man! He's so old!" are options too.
Don't know how this was supposed to be worked into the plot - blindness isn't exactly contagious and I don't see room for a "For saving me, I bequeth unto you the marvelous power of sightlessness!" moment - but "I saved a blind man; now I'm blind" does fall into that "I let a burglar go in a moment of moral weakness; then he killed my Uncle"/"I was an arrogant, uncaring doctor; then something horrible happened to me" kind of twist that these origins often employed.
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Post by badwolf on Feb 26, 2022 19:00:10 GMT -5
Suggesting that the guy riding shotgun is Asian because he's squinting is a little.......ehhh.
I actually misremembered this scene for years, because it's the depiction from What If...? #28 that ingrained itself in my memory, and there you do see two men ejecting the materials because they feel it would be too dangerous to have it aboard in a crash.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 26, 2022 19:04:46 GMT -5
Not buying the Asian theory, at all. First, the driver has typical caucasian features. Are you sure? Exaggerated ears and jaw is what I'm seeing, giving him an almost monkey-like look. Of course, to your later point that this image is blown up, I doubt much thought/energy was given to facial features. Not sure whether or not you intended this, but putting the word evidence in quotation marks implies a snarky dismissal of the work I put into my OP. Vibrant debate is always welcome, but please try not to belittle someone for taking a leap and attempting to further the community's discussion and enjoyment. I'm working from a masterworks edition, as I definitely don't own an original, which means some degree of clean-up/restoration has certainly occurred, but wouldn't it have been easier to just draw some random numbers? Those slant characters do not imply numbers and most certainly would look like Asian characters to someone who doesn't know any better. [/quote] No snark intended; just trying to convey the idea that the vague imagery is leading the mind to its own interpretation, rather than a clear-cut case, especially since there is the suggestion of a racial element to the panel. I dashed off my post before heading off to work; so, I didn't get a chance to edit. My apologies if I raised any hackles. I don't think there was ever a racial motive in the panel, just a generic driver and co-worker. The driver has Little Orphan Annie dots for eyes, while to companion has a squint. Basic cartooning shorthand for this generation of artists. Everett was prone to stylization, here and there, including slightly odd ears and such, at certain angles. He was also a functioning alcoholic, which became more of an issue as we progress into the 70s. There could be an impairment angle to the exaggerated features, as well, but only Everett would know for sure. This page, from the beginning, demonstrates that Everett sometimes exaggerated features...  Note the elongated ears on the balding hood. The hood in the fedora has similar shading under the brim and appears to squint, much like the driver's co-worker, which suggests that some of the slant effect was shading under the cap brim, done in a quick fashion. This page shows similar shading and exaggerated squinting and expressions, from the Fixer and his hoods...  It was fairly common at Marvel to use a yellow or orange coloring for Asians, which might have been altered in a reprint (and I only had this story in Son of Origins); but, I don't think so, based on what we see. When stereotyped drawings were done, they tended to stereotype the clothing, too. These guys are dressed as ordinary laborers, which again convinces me that stereotype wasn't the intent. The driver is definitely caucasian, to my eyes and if Everett intended them to be Chinese laundry workers, it would seem unlikely that both wouldn't have very Asian features (or the cartoon shorthand version). The lettering on some of it looks like it was a paste-up, which, I think, gives more credence to the idea that the atomic labs bit was an afterthought, with the rescuing of the blind man, while, ironically, being blinded the main thrust of the scene. If you look at the panels where he uses his "powers," they are all stilted to the idea of enhanced sense. Even the one panel with the "radar sense" doesn't really convey any special new ability. It would be later stories that added the wave effect. Everett mostly sticks to DD's sense of smell, acute hearing, and a sense of the closeness of objects. The rest comes from the dialogue and narration. I can buy that Stan decided to add those elements to make things more spectacular or more credible, in terms of sensing objects or people nearby. The Atomic Labs signage on the vehicle and the ping sound effects when Matt walks down a corridor could have easily been added in the lettering stage, if not the inking. I'm with MDG in thinking that Stan wanted to boost DD's abilities, after the story was drawn and did so in the writing and through the letterer, Sam Rosen. I have always thought they swiped the Charles Biro Daredevil, exchanging boomerang for billy club, and Dr Mid-Nite's compensating for blindness. Perhaps Stan decided they needed to go a bit further to avoid legal problems. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Feb 26, 2022 19:24:36 GMT -5
I might be reading too much into things, but I've long wondered at the coincidence of Matt Murdock saving a blind man only to inherit his blindness as a result. Now, obviously, Lee had to give the old man some reason to be in danger and blindness would do it, but at the same time "Hey! My brakes aren't working!" (which is part of it), "Hey! That man's falling and I can't stop in time!" "Hey! Look out for that man! He's so old!" are options too. Don't know how this was supposed to be worked into the plot - blindness isn't exactly contagious and I don't see room for a "For saving me, I bequeth unto you the marvelous power of sightlessness!" moment - but "I saved a blind man; now I'm blind" does fall into that "I let a burglar go in a moment of moral weakness; then he killed my Uncle"/"I was an arrogant, uncaring doctor; then something horrible happened to me" kind of twist that these origins often employed. The irony was never lost on me either. I read it as more of a cosmic justice sort of thing: Matt looked after the blind, so the blindness he receives will be laced with a gift. Of course I am in total agreement with most of you here that, Chinese laundry truck or not, there were no radioactive cylinders in Everett's original story, so the "gift" might also be of Matt's own doing. He saved the blind man, and now his heroic resolve is going to aid a second blind man. |
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Post by badwolf on Feb 26, 2022 20:15:28 GMT -5
It was fairly common at Marvel to use a yellow or orange coloring for Asians, which might have been altered in a reprint (and I only had this story in Son of Origins); but, I don't think so, based on what we see. And since the Vietnamese in the Iron Man story from that book are still yellow, I think it's safe to assume that these guys aren't recolored either. |
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 26, 2022 22:27:23 GMT -5
Maybe not what Everrett intended. But then Stan wrote a better hero making him blinded by radiation and having the radar sight.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 26, 2022 23:16:44 GMT -5
Maybe not what Everrett intended. But then Stan wrote a better hero making him blinded by radiation and having the radar sight. Absolutely. During the Silver Age, Stan Lee was one of the few knew how to construct a memorable "tragic hero" and build on it, and Daredevil is a prime example of that. |
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Post by commond on Feb 26, 2022 23:50:21 GMT -5
He's not really portrayed as a tragic hero in the first issue, though. In fact, he's pretty upbeat about the whole thing. There's even a panel where his father says the doctor's report says that an operation may restore his sight after the tissues has healed. The moment of tragedy is meant to be his father's murder, but it doesn't carry the same gravitas as Uncle Ben's murder.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 27, 2022 8:43:36 GMT -5
He's not really portrayed as a tragic hero in the first issue, though. In fact, he's pretty upbeat about the whole thing. There's even a panel where his father says the doctor's report says that an operation may restore his sight after the tissues has healed. The moment of tragedy is meant to be his father's murder, but it doesn't carry the same gravitas as Uncle Ben's murder. But the reader knew that such a major loss of a sense such as sight was tragic, and soon after the debut issue, it would be used to shape Murdock as someone having to overcome (as much as possible) his terrible disability, while second guessing how others dealt with him. |
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Post by MDG on Feb 27, 2022 11:13:56 GMT -5
Remember also that there was a trope in old movies of people losing their sight due to an accident, often layered with the "operation that will restore his/her sight, but we can't afford it." Everett was just drawing that movie.
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Post by Marv-El on Feb 27, 2022 13:45:00 GMT -5
A few issues into the run, Lee introduced the possibility of Matt having surgery to repair his vision, leaving Matt to question if doing so would cause him to lose his extra-sensory abilities so it wasn't as if Matt's blindness wasn't possibly reversible at least in the very beginning.
Plus, I think it was by Nocenti, there was a sub-plot at one time where Matt was trying to help a young boy who was blinded (but not in the same manner as Matt). He was trying to help the boy somehow develop the same extra-sensory abilities that he had, the implication being that such abilities are gained more so from the condition of blindness rather than any radioactive source. I can't recall on hand how that sub-plot turned out and it may have been Nocenti's own view on Matt's origin.
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 27, 2022 22:18:18 GMT -5
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 28, 2022 6:57:04 GMT -5
A few issues into the run, Lee introduced the possibility of Matt having surgery to repair his vision, leaving Matt to question if doing so would cause him to lose his extra-sensory abilities so it wasn't as if Matt's blindness wasn't possibly reversible at least in the very beginning. Plus, I think it was by Nocenti, there was a sub-plot at one time where Matt was trying to help a young boy who was blinded (but not in the same manner as Matt). He was trying to help the boy somehow develop the same extra-sensory abilities that he had, the implication being that such abilities are gained more so from the condition of blindness rather than any radioactive source. I can't recall on hand how that sub-plot turned out and it may have been Nocenti's own view on Matt's origin. In DD #188, Stick agrees with you: it wasn't the radioactivity that gave Matt his abilities. Matt: "Stick, I told you. It's the radiation It's made every sound so loud-- every smell so--" Stick: "Nah. That radiation's wore off by now. Just like it did before." Matt: "You're out of your mind, Stick! The radiation that gave me my powers never wore off. That's why I still have my hyper-senses". Stick: "You don't know from nothin', punk". Matt: "Wh...what do you mean?" Stick: "All that happened to you back then was that you got opened up to senses that everybody's got, but don't use. It ain't the radiation. Never was". It was quite a retcon back then, but I liked it! |
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Post by commond on Feb 28, 2022 7:17:20 GMT -5
One thing that bugs me about the origin is that presumably Matt suffered from chemical burns but he has no scarring on his face. Are we meant to believe that radiation blinded him? How is that supposed to work? How did he not suffer radiation poisoning? Shouldn't he be at risk of long term effects such as cancer? How much are we prepared to accept happened off panel in terms of the spill? Was there a better way for him to be blinded? Should he have been blind all along and developed super powers somehow?
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Post by foxley on Feb 28, 2022 7:30:52 GMT -5
One thing that bugs me about the origin is that presumably Matt suffered from chemical burns but he has no scarring on his face. Are we meant to believe that radiation blinded him? How is that supposed to work? How did he not suffer radiation poisoning? Shouldn't he be at risk of long term effects such as cancer? How much are we prepared to accept happened off panel in terms of the spill? Was there a better way for him to be blinded? Should he have been blind all along and developed super powers somehow? Theoretically the radiation could have blinded him without causing skin burns, but it should not have been instantaneous. Exposed to radiation, the human body produces free radicals which begin to damage cells. In this case, the cells are damaged and die or their DNR – the genetic material of a cell – is affected. At high levels of radiation, the body can’t generate cells any longer. Numerous epidemiological studies of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, children who are grown in the danger zones of Chernobyl, pilots, astronauts, and radiologists have confirmed the link between radiation and cataract development.
But I don't think Matt Murdock's blindness has ever been shown to be the result of cataracts, has it?
But in the Marvel Universe, gamma radiation can make you green and super strong, so who knows what alpha, beta, proton or neutron radiation might do.
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