Daredevil

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

**Radioactive Enhanced Physiology:** Murdock was originally enhanced by the radioactive isotope which later blinded him. As a result, he possesses superhuman senses, agility, reflexes, balance, and etc. Murdock's nervous system has also increase some of his abilities at peak human level.[133] Nick Fury's intel classified him as power level 7.[3]

**Superhuman Sensory System:** At his early age, Murdock did not know how to handle his powers until he met Stick, who became Matt's mentor and taught him to control and enhance them.[25] A testament to the level of skill it requires Matt to even function would be seen when he fought Psylocke during the war between the Avengers and the X-Men, as she was overwhelmed when she tried to read his mind and found herself experiencing all the information he received through his superhuman senses, demonstrating the scale of psychological training required for Murdock to operate on a normal human level.[134]

* **Superhuman Touch:** Murdock's sense of touch is so acute that his finger can feel the faint impressions of ink on a printed page, allowing him to read by touch,[135] though laminated pages prevent him from touching and thus reading the ink impressions at a much faster pace than a normal person would be able to read.[136][53][133] The rest of his skin is equally sensitive, enabling him by concentration to feel minute temperature and pressure changes in the atmosphere around him.[133] Even with his senses of smell and hearing blocked, he can feel the presence of a person standing five feet away from him simply by his or her body heat and disturbance of air.[133] A side effect of his sense of touch is Murdock's ability to manipulate his muscles and internal organs. The sense of touch is not just external, but internal too (central nervous system), thereby giving him the ability to have total body control, increasing his strength and speed to peak human levels, his agility and reflexes to superhuman levels, and also giving him the ability to numb himself to pain.[8]
* **Peak Human Strength:** Thanks to his control over his central nervous system due to his many years of martial arts training, Matt can increase his strength to peak human level. He is strong enough to tip over a limo without straining,[*citation needed*] causally pick a man up and throw him,[*citation needed*] easily break a man's leg and rupture skin with a single kick,[*citation needed*] and lift Foggy's weights up easily with one hand.[*citation needed*]He has also shown the strength to use a mailbox as a weapon,[*citation needed*] was able to hurt Hyde,[83] and throw his baton with enough force to break concrete.[98] Daredevil has demonstrated that he is capable of easily curling and utilizing a four-hundred pound barbell as a staff weapon, wielding it quickly and easily enough to strike two heavily mesomorphic opponents hard enough to render them unconscious, and fast enough to prevent them from being able to defend themselves.[137]
* **Peak Human Speed:** Similar to his strength, Matt can increase his speed to peak human level. He is capable of sprinting two city blocks in seconds, disappearing, hitting a sniper with his billy club, and crosses a large distance while getting into costume in seconds. Matt's running speed is also above an Olympic-level athlete's speed, such as a track and field sprinter/decathlete.[138][133]
* **Superhuman Reflexes:** Possibly due to his exposure to the radioactive waste that caused his blindness, Matt's reflexes borderline superhuman.[133] He was able to catch a sai thrown by Bullseye,[139] and can easily dodge gunfires from multiple gunmen at point blank range.[140]
* **Superhuman Agility:** Matt's agility is similarly enhanced.[141] Even while injured, he could still deflect sniper bullets.[142][97]

* **Enhanced Stamina:** Matt's stamina is similarly enhanced, since he was able to hold his breath underwater for longer periods of time.[133] At peak capacity, he can physically exert himself for several hours before showing any signs of fatigue.[39]
* **Enhanced Endurance:** Matt has an extremely high tolerance to pain.[133]He has survived being knocked around in a car by Nitro,[143] survived after slowing himself down during a multi-story fall and being hit by a car.[144] He kept fighting after being immolated by Typhoid Mary while the same attack severely hurt Jessica Jones, who has superhuman durability.[145] On one occasion, he was able to continue functioning for five days without any sleep,[146] and on another he continued to function despite having suffered a gunshot through both his hands that also grazed his head.[147] Daredevil has landed on the hood of a taxi uninjured following a controlled fall and was able to kick the windshield hard enough to penetrate it and strike the driver.[16] After laying outside with no medical assistance, Daredevil passed away only to utilize his chi to supercharge his bodily healing with the help of Stick, regulating his heart and respiration to revive himself, sealing cuts, setting the bone in his right leg and healing other unspecified bone injuries.[148] After being found and hospitalized, under demonic attack once more, he was strong enough to fend off the assault and actually run from his room to join the fight against demons invading New York City yet again. In this state, he was able to take on a demon that had formed from the structure of a subway train, walk against its blast of soul-attacking “hellfire,” then spear it with rebar, hurting and frightening the demon enough to force it to flee from him, before collapsing from exhaustion.[149]
* **Superhuman Smell:** Murdock's sense of smell is so acute that he can distinguish between identical twins at twenty feet by minute differences in smell. He can detect odors of an atmospheric concentration of thirty parts per million. Furthermore, his ability to remember smells enables him to identify any person he has spent at least five minutes with by smell alone, no matter how he or she might try to camouflage his or her natural body odor. His powers of concentration are such that he can focus upon a single person's smell and follow it through a crowd of people at a distance of fifty feet.[8][133]
* **Enhanced Tracking:** Matt can track others down easily via various means, ranging from scents to footprints. With enough experience, he can follow tracks that are days or even weeks old. He may hypothetically be able to reconstruct a prior event by sniffing around the area.[38]
* **Illusion Awareness:** Due to most illusions affecting mainly eyesight, other senses such as hearing and/or smell have a difficult time not succumbing to the illusion. It is also made worse by ignoring use of their other senses. Matt's superhuman senses enable him to remain aware at all times of the true reality around him, potentially seeing through any optical and/or mental illusions that others attempt to deceive him with.[150]
* **Blindsight:** This power allows Matt to act, fight, and navigate while blind, in darkness, or otherwise sightless.[32]
* **Superhuman Hearing:** Murdock's sense of hearing enables him to detect an acoustic pressure change of one decibel at a pressure level of seven decibels (whereas the lowest threshold for average human hearing is twenty decibels).[133] He can hear a person's heartbeat at a distance of over twenty feet, or people whispering on the other side of a standard soundproofed wall.[133] Through practice, Murdock is able to control his hearing acuity, mentally blocking out specific sounds like his own breathing and heartbeat, all ambient sounds to a normal human level of perception, or all sounds but a particular sound he is concentrating upon. Matt also utilizes his superhuman sense of hearing as an aid in processing, filtering, and interpreting the feedback of his radar/sonar sense to actually give him a three-dimensional picture of his surroundings. Additionally, Matt's combined use of his super hearing and radar sense can also give him tactical advantages, such as awareness of people hiding around the corners of rooms, walls, buildings, and furniture and makes it virtually impossible to literally blindside Matt.[38] [8]
* **Lie Detection:** By listening, feeling, and smelling, Murdock can tell whether a person is lying by sweat, changes in body temperature, and heartbeats (though he can be fooled by a pacemaker and those able to keep calm under pressure.)[151][133]
* **Sonar Sense:** Very much like his radar sense, Matt can emit sonar waves, that are actually "echoes" that bounce off objects in his surrounding environment, and listen to the echoes that return from various objects near him, and use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Alternately, he can use ambient sounds do the same. Since this ability isn't based on sight/light, invisibility is useless against him, as are most forms of camouflage.[32] [8]
* **Superhuman Taste:** Murdock's sense of taste enables him to detect the number of grains of salt on a pretzel. His ability to remember tastes enables him to determine every ingredient of a food or drink he tastes, as long as there are at least twenty milligrams of that substance present.[8][133]
* **Superhuman Balance:** It is a common misconception that balance isn't a sense, but Murdock's balance centers give him equilibrium nearly on par with Spider-Man's.[152]
* **Telepathy:** Due to Stick's training, Murdock has displayed minor telepathic abilities.[34]
* **Telepathic Immunity:** He is also skilled in being able to resist psychic intrusions to be able to prevent his mind from being read.[153]
* **Radar Sense:** A form of echolocation via low radio wave projection, according to one theory; an energy wave within certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The signal emanates radio waves from regions of his brain, after which it travels outward, bounces off objects around him, and returns to receiving regions of his brain. With this ability, Murdock can synthesize a very close analogue of three-dimensional three hundred and sixty degree human sight.[30]
* **Proximity Sense:** An offshoot to radar sense, this ability is the combination of all other senses (excluding radar sense) and can allow Matt to reconstruct his surroundings.[39][133]
* **Person Identification:** All of Murdock's senses help him identify people by the specific patterns of their heartbeat, smell, touch, sound, and even radar appearance, as it allows to "see" through objects, specifically clothes (though albeit obscure).[30]

### Abilities

**The Man Without Fear:** It is untrue that Matt has never been afraid but through the years of training and experience, Daredevil currently shows a detached ability to fear and emotions bordering on sociopathic. This ability extends to immunity from "fear toxins" and spells, as Daredevil seems to simply be "The Man Without Fear."[155]

**Master Attorney:** Murdock is a highly skilled and accomplished lawyer, specializing in criminal justice. His legal practice is considered the single greatest source of strength of both emotional stability and his successful war on crime. Murdock's law firm also does a lot of pro bono work as well as the full range of social justice issues such as rape cases, hate crimes, police brutality, wrongful death suits, medical malpractice, whistle blower/witness protection cases, workplace violence, corporate business fraud, LGBT harassment/workplace inequality, child/sexual abuse cases, victims of war crimes/terrorism, food/consumer safety cases, automotive recalls, anti-GMO food lobbying, and even environmental issues. In law school, Murdock also had a very particular focus in U.S. Constitutional Law.[31]

**Devout Catholic:** As a devout Roman Catholic, Murdock has the mixed benefits and access to certain resources and contacts/allies through the Catholic parishes of Hell's Kitchen (modern day Clinton). As a lawyer, Murdock can also access additional assets in the form of safe-houses and sanctuary of the Church for his clients should local law enforcement resources become either compromised and or cannot be relied upon in witness protection cases. Murdock can also make use of contacts in the form of the Catholic clergy giving him vital information regarding the movements of street gangs, the various mafia of the NYC area, pimps, and other elements of the criminal underworld in order to allow Matt to be more successful in battling the criminals of Hell's Kitchen.[156]

**Peak Physical Conditioning:** Through many years of intensive training in multiple physical and mental disciplines, Matt's body and mind is at the peak of a man of his age, height, and weight.[8]

**Master Interrogator:** Murdock uses many different interrogation methods to extract information from criminals. His knowledge of criminology and torture is unerring and often overwhelming.[16]

**Gifted Intellect:** Murdock's intelligence and brain functions have always been apparent; long before he was affected by radiation, his longterm midnight training, A+ morning schooling and little need of sleep is a testament to that.[8]

**Indomitable Will:** Daredevil never gives up, he has strong will power, powerful spirit, unstoppable determination, he will not kill or give up, no matter what and he is fearless.[157][158]

**Master Detective:** He has shown to be an expert self-taught detective, using his intellect to figure out complex problems and hyper-senses to find clues and evidence to crime scenes.[141]

**Master Tracker:** With the aid of his hyper-senses, Murdock is able to track objects and people from miles away with ease.[159]

**Master Acrobat:** He is a superb athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist and almost without peer due to the many years of constant training and exercise, first on his own and later exclusively under the tutelage of Stick. Only a very small handful of other fellow superhero martial artists within the Marvel Universe, such as Elektra, Psylocke, Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Fist, Spider-Man and Shang-Chi, can possibly match him in acrobatics.[98][160]

**Weapons Proficiency:** Murdock is highly proficient in wielding various martial art weapons through his ninjutsu training, such as swords (katana), chain weapons, stick and staff weapons, combat knives of all types, both ancient and modern military style, and projectiles such as shurikens, throwing knives, bows, and even firearms.[151]

**Master Marksman:** He is very skilled marksman, which makes him capable of throwing his billy clubs with great accuracy. Murdock is also skilled with most projectile-like weaponry such as throwing knives, shurikens, and darts, as well as archery, and has been shown utilizing military-grade weaponry such as sniper rifles in extreme situations.[151]

**Master Stick Fighter:** He is a masterful expert in wielding all types of stick weapons which include staffs, batons, nunchaku, and paired short sticks.[9]

**Master Martial Artist:** Murdock is a highly skilled, self-taught boxer both due to watching his father compete and helping him train and prepare for his fights.[8] He has also been very heavily and extensively trained in the ninja arts by Stick, a senior grandmaster and leader of the secret order of the Chaste.[25] Nick Fury, former director of S.H.I.E.L.D, commented that there are only a handful of individuals that know what Matt Murdock knows, referring to the Chaste. Stick taught and trained Matt both control of his powers and valuable fighting techniques with stealth, vanishing, to even life-energy(chi/ki)control.[25] Murdock is well-educated in the functioning of the human body as well as martial arts techniques that target pressure points, enabling him to paralyze limbs or an individual's entire body altogether. He has disabled eyesight and speech, induced pain, and could possibly know a pressure point for inducing death. Murdock's fighting style is a very balanced and harmonious fusion of Boxing with Ninjutsu, Jui-jitsu, Aiki-Jujutsu, Savate, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Judo, Krav Maga, Silat, Karate, Capoeira, Eskrima, Aikido, and Greco-Roman Wrestling.[133] His skills have proven so exceptional that he has been able to easily defeat or stalemate some of the greatest fighters on Earth. Matt is easily one of the greatest martial artists in the Marvel Universe. Matt's martial skills are at a point where he was ranked by Stick as at least tenth degree black belt in ninjutsu, seeing as that was the art that Matt seems to have been trained in almost exclusively by Stick. He has fought opponents who are master martial artists such as Black Panther,[161] Taskmaster,[162] Iron Fist,[163] Karnak,[164]Captain America,[150] Sabretooth,[165] Winter Soldier,[166][167] Deadpool,[168] and Wolverine to standstills,[169] even impaling Wolverine with a sword while the mutant was in a feral state due to brainwashing by Hydra.[60]

### Strength level

Matt has extraordinary physical strength for a "normal" human. Daredevil is classified as an Olympic weightlifter who does his exercise intensively and regularly.[133] As a weightlifter, he is able to lift (press) approximately 450 pounds.[170] Nevertheless, since Daredevil is able to control his nerve system, he can amplify his strength to peak human levels. Ever since his teenage years, he has shown his remarkable strength. His amazing strength feats was so strong that he was able to break a wrestler's leg when he was a pre-teenager,[26] damage a solid brick wall with a single punch,[171] overturn a limo full of people,[172] break a shotgun over his knee,[173] lift a 400 lb. barbell as though it were fifty pounds,[137] and break a metal door with a single kick.[174]

### Weaknesses

**Blindness:** Daredevil is blind. While his superhuman senses help him overcome this, it becomes a problem for him to navigate and fight when his heightened senses are overwhelmed, scrambled, or otherwise cannot detect anything.[175]

* + **Sense Precision:** Daredevil's extent to discern pictures or video images are limited, and he can only guess at colors based on the amount of heat they are absorbing or reflecting. If nothing is being emitted (by a person or thing) that would trigger his heightened senses, Daredevil would not be able to detect it, such as when a sniper bullet fired outside the range of his sense of hearing was able to badly injure him.[176][133]
	+ **Superhuman Sense Disruption:** Daredevil's superhuman senses render him extraordinarily vulnerable to odors and/or excessive noise, which can temporarily weaken his radar sense. Under extreme circumstances he can be easily immobilized, suffer great pain, and/or be left disorientated. Once the disruptive effects wear off, Daredevil's radar sense is able to return to its normal calibration.[177][133]

**Radar Sense Disruption:** Though uncommon, in unique situations where multiple objects, sounds, temperatures, and smells are in close proximity, Daredevil's radar has been known to fail, leaving him to rely on his other senses.[30]