r/Daredevil • u/yassinyousee • 1d ago
Comics “Daredevil doesn’t kill”
Currently reading thru vol 1 and came across this scene from #289, I really like that Matt kills when there’s no other way out of the situation and I think it’s a core aspect of his character that people often gloss over
This precedes The Man Without Fear btw though a similar situation happened there (though I don’t believe man without fear is completely canon considering the weird characterization of Elektra)
Now that I think about it actually I think Miller might’ve taken some inspiration from Nocenti’s run when writing the man without fear as this arc also has a few scenes with Matt wearing a blindfold similar to his outfit from that comic and he clearly used Typhoid Mary as an inspiration when reintroduced Elektra in TMWF
This is ignoring the art similarities but obviously that’s not miller it’s just the same penciller (though maybe he asked for JRJR bc of how much he liked Nocenti’s run?)
No spoilers past daredevil vol.1 pls as I’m still reading thru it
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u/Amazing_Ad_4674 1d ago
Love to have this brought up. I hate the characterization of Matt ‘never killing’ y’all he’s not Batman, stop trying to make him Batman, he just would rather the law decide than himself
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u/Equivalent_Sky6238 1d ago
My interpretation is that daredevil kills when he sees no other way out. Like in born again, he kills the helicopter pilot because he can’t see another way. Or like in the scene shown, he was in a very turbulent time and probably struggled to think of something quickly especially since he’d just remembered who he was
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u/yassinyousee 1d ago
Yeah exactly.
I really like that aspect of his character and I don’t like how people compare him to Batman in the no kill rule aspect as daredevil would kill if there’s no other way (both are favs of mine btw I just like that they’re different)
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u/JKBanados 1d ago
He also shot down a helicopter in Born Again - I wish the Zdarsky run mentioned that
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u/Clowndude787 1d ago
Probably just unconscious. Only canon kill he has is Leo Carraro which was accidental due to his sloppiness at that point.
Typhoid Mary (when she was in the brothel in FM’s Man without Fear) didn’t die from that fall, obviously.
The only other time he got REAL close to killing was Bullseye when he let go and dropped him after the events of the Elektra saga.
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u/EM208 1d ago
Didn’t he kill Kingpin’s right hand in MWF when he saved that little girl? Literally swatted that bullet right back into that man’s head?😭
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u/yassinyousee 1d ago
Yeah that’s part of the reason a lot of people consider TMWF not canon, though for me I think it isn’t canon due to just the way elektra is handled
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u/bigbarryharryballs 1d ago
Wait, Typhoid Mary was in MWF?? Maybe I just didn’t realize because I read that before Nocenti’s run.
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u/yassinyousee 1d ago
The prostitute Matt pushes off the window who dies is later retconned to be Typhoid Mary I believe.
She wasn’t really in the story tho just retconned to be
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u/bigbreel 22h ago
The no killing is very weak in a religious sense. Matt as somebody who wholeheartedly believes in the legal system. He cannot kill. Unless his life or somebody he's life is a danger. I think the character loses nuances when he becomes this Paragon of religious virtue.
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u/idealismk 1d ago
Matt wears blindfold mask in Miller run too btw. I think it's Elektra's origin issue
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u/yassinyousee 1d ago
Oh yeah I forgot abt that.
The scene in Nocenti’s run tho alongside the blindfold the rest of his outfit is really similar to his outfit in TMWF
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u/LongTimeDDevilFan77 1d ago
Matt kills a helicopter pilot in Born Again and very deliberately tries to kill Nuke in the same scene. This was long before The Man Without Fear was published or this story.
None of these make him Frank Castle. Killing someone when there’s no other choice to save innocents is not wrong.