# Talk:Daredevil (Marvel Comics character)

I think this article is looking pretty good now, and comparable to other superhero GA such as Iron Man and Captain America. I think it could soon be renominated for official Good Article status. Is there anything that needs to be fixed? Wrangler1981 (talk) 17:23, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I've been looking over Wikipedia guidelines, and our biggest problem with the article as it is right now is that it relies too much on primary sources. The content is pretty good; just need better sources. We have some good secondary sources already. The main concern is good secondary sources for the post-Frank Miller period; particularly the Bendis/Maleev arc. I am willing to cut some material if we can't get good substantiation from secondary sources, in order to eventually get this to GA status. Wrangler1981 (talk) 01:11, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
The articles posted above from Google scholar, about Catholicism, will really help. I think these could be used to back up almost everything in this article presently sourced to primary sources. Wrangler1981 (talk) 02:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I have resolved all of the issues in the previous GA discussion, and renominated the article as I believe it is now compliant with these standards. Wrangler1981 (talk) 15:26, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

There is a longstanding Wikipedia article about the Daredevil series, in contrast to the character (the topic of this article). Much of the material is replicated. I believe the "Publication History" section of this article is probably too long. Now that it is replicated on this other page, I believe it would make sense to delete some of it to keep the length of the article under control and to improve the organization and flow of the article. Wrangler1981 (talk) 00:05, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I realize that I am going to need to edit out much of the detail of the section on Daredevil's "Powers and abilities." See the GA discussion in this talk page. The info comes mainly from Christine Hanefalk's book and to some extent from Lindsay's The Devil Is in the Details. Wikipedia editorial review considers both of these to be "fan publications" rather than true reliable sources. For posterity, I'm going to include the original version of this section here, because there is not another more appropriate place for it on Wikipedia. Perhaps in the future this info can be substantiated with RS.


### Powers and abilities
Although the character is blind, his remaining four senses function with superhuman accuracy and sensitivity, giving him abilities far beyond the limits of a sighted person. Few characters know that the hero cannot see. Generally speaking, the stories operate with the premise that Daredevil compensates for his missing sight with his other heightened senses (in particular, olfactory, auditory, and somatosensory perception). Earlier stories are more likely to explicitly account for how he does this, while later stories often presume Daredevil's apprehension of his environment.
Daredevil can identify people by their distinct heartbeats. He also uses his superhuman hearing as a polygraph to determine dishonesty by listening for changes in a person's heartbeat. His heightened hearing can in some circumstances cause problems for him as he runs the risk of becoming overstimulated; this was particularly an issue in adolescence, before he learned to control his powers. Beginning in the period of Frank Miller's authorship, Daredevil is also shown to have the ability to scan a wide spectrum of sounds throughout his broad environment, and to focus on a particular sound source, filtering out the others. Daredevil is also able to use his hearing to perceive spatial entities and relations, by echolocation. This is an exaggerated depiction of a real ability that some blind people, such as Ben Underwood, have cultivated.
Daredevil can use his sense of smell to immediately identify any particular individual. He can also deduce and perceive information about his environment. However, in the early stories Daredevil relies on his sense of smell much less often than his hearing. The stories of the 1970s and 1980s refer to his sense of smell as orienting Daredevil's perceptions to a greater degree.
Daredevil can read by passing his fingers over the letters on a page, though laminated pages prevent him from reading the ink. Most photographs, televisions, and computer screens are blank to him. In early stories, he can distinguish colors by touch, but this is generally phased out as implausible after the 1960s. He is sometimes able to detect objects and information by sensing heat sources and temperature changes.
Daredevil's radioactive accident also led him to develop a "radar-sense", mentioned along with his first appearance. In the initial description, it seems to be synonymous with echolocation, but in later stories it takes on other qualities; essentially it substitutes for vision. At times the radar sense is identified with hearing, but at other times it is described as an entirely distinct sense. The radar is also sometimes explained as a cumulative ensemble of all of Murdock's heightened senses. Some narratives suggest that the radar sense is an imaginative activity that fills in the blanks among all the sense data he can gather. In some stories, Daredevil himself actually emanates waves of some sort to detect his surroundings, possibly analogous to radio waves. The radar sense has shown on numerous occasions the ability to "see" through walls and fabrics, like an X-ray. The radar sense also grants him an omnidirectional field of vision. These two latter abilities are the most notable advantages the radar has over normal vision. At times, the radar-sense appears to be a form of magic. However, Frank Miller's interpretation of the character makes his abilities somewhat more toned down and realistic; for example, his radar sense is less like clear vision and more like a "proximity" sense Miller derived from the comments of some martial artists. Across the history of the characters, writers are inconsistent with regard to whether the radar sense is more or less reliable than eyesight. The radar sense is mentioned much less frequently in comics of the 21st century; Hanefalk speculates that this is because the concept seems excessively supernatural.

Hanefalk, Christine (2022). Being Matt Murdock: One Fan's Journey Into the Science of Daredevil. Tomp Press. ISBN 978-91-987965-0-6.
Lindsay, Ryan K., ed. (2013). The Devil is in the Details: Examining Matt Murdock and Daredevil. Sequart Organization. ISBN 978-0-5780-7373-6.
Guéret, Stéphane, Marie-Laure Saulnier, Manuella Hyvard, and Nicolas Labarre. "Science Fact!" In Lindsay (2013), pp. 58-70.
Wrangler1981 (talk) 18:07, 14 August 2025 (UTC)