Daredevil (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

"We don't live in a world that's fair. We live in this one. And I'm doing everything I can to make it a better place."

- Matt Murdock Matthew "Matt" Murdock (also known by his alias Daredevil) is the titular protagonist of the 2015 superhero web television series Daredevil. He is a young man blinded as a boy but gifted with extraordinary senses, who dedicates his life to fight injustice in New York City as a lawyer by day, and by night as a vigilante.

He is portrayed by Charlie Cox.

Personality
"You've got the wrong guy. I don't kill people. Not even scumbags like you who deserve it."

- Matt after Vladimir Ranskahov accuses him of killing his brother

Matt Murdock, for lack of a better term, is complicated. As a child, he felt immense guilt and loss: blaming himself for the death of his father as well as feeling lost after losing his sight. He was both heroic and selfless even as a child, as was shown best when he saved an elderly man from being hit by a truck, at the cost of his own vision. Murdock has "daddy issues" with both his actual father Jack Murdock and his subsequent father figure Stick, having lost both either to death or from being abandoned. Stick tried to raise him to be coldblooded but suddenly abandoned him when Matt started expressing filial affection; this abandonment and rejection has left Murdock with difficulty forging real emotional connections, despite his determination to not let Stick define him.

Murdock has a high desire for justice and doing the right thing. He convinced his friend Foggy Nelson to quit their internship at Landman and Zack to start their own firm which would work for the common man. During the start of their firm, he aimed to help only innocent people. Unable to allow injustice, he got frustrated when the police or judicial system failed to help. He decided to work as a vigilante to save people and help where the justice system could not. During this, he demonstrated extreme selflessness as he kept risking his life for others, even after he barely made it out of dangerous situations and ended up badly wounded multiple times.

While fighting crime, he can be very brutal and heavily injures criminals in such manner as breaking their bones. He has hospitalized multiple criminals in this regard, with the first man he beat up having to eat through a straw for a month. However, he has avoided intentionally killing anyone so far and limits himself to hand to hand combat and sticks so as to not inflict lethal injuries, even if this results in himself getting injured during fights. When the Steel Serpent warehouse started burning, he used a gun to try and scare everyone into leaving and ordered a downed guard to evacuate them, showing great concern for even his enemies, as both the guards and the workers there had attacked him. He usually attempts to avoid killing people, and has yet to kill anyone so far, as he believes he's on thin ice as it is and that doing so will make him no better than the people he's fighting. His refusal to kill earns him heavy criticism from Frank Castle, who kills criminals without hesitation or remorse and considers Matt a coward who can't finish the job.

Despite his reluctance to kill, Matt has, on occasion, when sufficiently infuriated or when the situation is dire, thrown away his concern for the well-being of his opponents, such as when he used a kitchen knife when Semyon came for him, tortured him with it and even threw him off of a rooftop, though he knew he would live because of the dumpster positioned under where Semyon fell. The harming or killing of innocent people, such as Elena Cardenas, makes him even more willing to kill, as he told Elena's killer that he would not stop beating him if he did not go to the police.

Later on, his fight with Nobu Yoshioka resulted in the latter's accidental immolation and apparent death, though he was angry when he learned that Wilson Fisk actually wanted Nobu to die and did not lift a finger to save him when he had the chance. When the resurrected Yoshioka ended up killing Elektra, his resulting ferocity made him able to easily beat Yoshioka and knock him off a building with a wire from his Billy Club, seemingly not caring if Nobu came back to life or not. He has also threatened to kill Wilson Fisk, and has acknowledged that he meant it at the time, while he also did slash Fisk with one of Yoshioka's discarded blades, only to find that his suit was concealing body armor. So far he has been lucky that during these lapses in his sense of morality he has failed to follow through on his intent, however even his temporary willingness to kill still feeds his sense of guilt when he reflects on it.

His most complex relationship is arguably his one with Elektra. When Elektra first reentered his life, Matt was not best pleased to see her, as the two had parted on less than favourable terms. Before long, he began to consider her a nuisance, due to her constantly involving him in her battles with the Hand, when he already had his hands full dealing with the Frank Castle case. At one point, he had to tell her that his life didn't stop every time she called him. Overtime, however, he got more and more involved in her struggle, and his relationships with Karen and Foggy became more distant as a result. Eventually, he came to realise that he actually loves Elektra and that she makes him more alive than anything else.

As a Catholic, Murdock experiences a lot of guilt and soul-searching over his actions when he allows his anger and contempt for violent criminals to cause him to enjoy beating them bloody, and he frequently wonders whether he is doing the right thing in the eyes of God or whether he is allowing evil into his heart. When he feels this way, he approaches his local priest, Father Lantom, for spiritual guidance and advice, however, he asks his questions in a roundabout way to conceal his identity as Daredevil, though Lantom has managed to figure out the truth. Either way, Lantom is bound by the seal of confession not to divulge what they discuss. After Murdock met his mentor Stick again, he started to doubt his ways and even considered killing Wilson Fisk as he doubted he could stop him any other way. This created an internal struggle as his best friend and others did not want him to act as a vigilante. In the final confrontation against Fisk, he kept true to his vow and ultimately did not kill Fisk.

Powers & Abilities
"Okay, that right there? That's what I'm talking about. Okay, I find a guy in a dumpster who turns out to be some kind of blind vigilante who can do all this really weird sh*t like smell cologne through walls and sense whether someone's unconscious or faking it. Slap on top of that, he can take an unbelievable amount of punishment without one damn complaint."

- Claire Temple expressing shock at Daredevil's abilities


 * Enhanced Senses: Murdock possesses four senses (besides sight) on a superhumanly enhanced level. He claims to constantly feel numerous things, including balance, direction, minuscule changes in air density, vibrations, and blankets of temperature variations. That, combined with his acute hearing and olfactory senses, allows Murdock to see what he describes as an "Impressionistic painting" of the world around him, which, according to him, looks like "the world on fire."
 * Enhanced Hearing: Murdock's hearing is so acute, that he can clearly hear people converse at great distances away, hear people's heartbeats, and hear Claire's bones shifting as she breathed. Murdock can focus on what he hears; in a crowded courtroom with the judge speaking, Murdock heard a juror's heartbeat accelerate when James Wesley entered the room. Hearing the changes in people's heartbeats allows Murdock to predict how they feel and what actions they'll take, such as attack or run. He was also able to memorize the pattern of Wesley's watch so he could follow the latter.
 * Lie Detection: Murdock's hearing is so acute, that he can tell whether people are lying or not, based on the rate of their heartbeats.
 * Enhanced Smell: His olfactory senses are so good, that he can smell a man's scent of stale cigarettes and cheap cologne three floors above him and through several walls. When he was a boy, his sense was already so acute, that he could smell that an old man sitting at a bench across from him had cancer. By smelling an old cigarette, Murdock could tell that whoever smoked it previously had rotten teeth. He was even able to smell that Foggy Nelson had onions in his lunch, at the time, two days ago.
 * Enhanced Taste: Murdock was able to tell that Claire Temple had ripped open some of the stitches on her back, due to tasting copper in the air from the blood of her open wound. Stick taught him how to train this sense, allowing him to pick out every individual ingredient of the ice cream he was eating, including that the milk used came from three different dairy farms, and that the man who served him used a certain type of soil in his garden.
 * Enhanced Touch: Murdock can feel the presence of those around him through vibrations, air currents and body temperatures. He can dodge attacks and even bullets by feeling them cut through the air, creating ripples of currents only detectable by him. He locates enemies through walls and from different floors by feeling the vibrations they make from moving, such as their footsteps. Murdock could even feel the heat generated from the blood spilling from the gunshot wound on Vladimir Ranskahov; to one-half of a degree, he was able to distinguish the difference in temperature.
 * Enhanced Balance: Murdock's sense of balance is enhanced, giving him perfect equilibrium, greatly increasing his agility and refining his movements.

Abilities

 * Master Martial Artist: Despite being blind, Murdock was trained in martial arts by Stick at a young age, and excelled in it. He continued training himself, despite Stick giving up on him, and Murdock eventually used his skills to fight crime as the vigilante Daredevil. By the time he meet Stick again, Murdock already rivaled his former mentor in skill, managing to keep up with him in an intense one-on-one duel, and ultimately overpowering him in the end, earning Stick's praise. Even Nobu acknowledged Daredevil as a worthy opponent, and was only able to gain the upper hand against the latter by repeatedly cutting him with his shoge hook. Though with some difficulty, Murdock was ultimately able to also overpower Wilson Fisk, a man of immense brute strength.
 * Master Acrobat: Murdock incorporates gymnastics and acrobatics into his fighting style as he battles opponents, and could already do several agile flips as a child. He is able to quickly move over rooftops and climb buildings, managing to keep up with a car this way.
 * Expert Stickfighter: Taught by Stick, Murdock is highly skilled in using both a pair of eskrima sticks, or a single staff in combat.
 * Expert Marksman: Because of his enhanced senses, Murdock has an increased awareness of where objects are, allowing him impressive marksmanship with both firearms and throwing weapons.


 * Multilingualism: Murdock speaks fluent Spanish, having studied the language at college. However, he cannot speak or understand Russian.
 * Master Lawyer: Murdock is a persuasive and trained lawyer, having graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University.
 * Meditation: Murdock uses meditating to improve his abilities and increase his healing, greatly impressing Claire Temple with the immense amount of punishment that he could take.

Equipment

 * Vigilante Suit: Matt bought the suit online and he uses it every time he goes to stop the crime. The color of the suit is black with red stitching. Matt also uses a black Mask, which is tied over his head to cover his face so that the criminals and his friends would not recognize him. Only his mouth is uncovered. He also has padding which he wears underneath the suit, so that the beatings would not hurt as much.
 * Wooden Sticks: At a young age, Matt was trained by Stick how to use and fight with pair of sicks until he became an expert Stickfighter. But over the years, Matt did not need the sticks during his struggle against crime to which he and Stick reunited again against a new threat. Stick convinced Matt to use sticks and since he fights with them against his enemies.


 * Armored Suit: When Murdock fought against Wilson Fisk, he noticed that he wore an impermeable Armored Suit. Knew that he has to compare the forces against Fisk, Murdock was able to locate the person who created Fisk's suit, Melvin Potter, and he asked him to make him an armored suit too. Melvin made the suit with the colors of red and black and helmet he created to looks like a devil's head. Murdock used the suit to stop Fisk for good and started using it from then on.
 * Billy Club: When Murdock asked Melvin Potter to create for him an armored suit, Potter also created for him his new personal weapon. Daredevil's Billy Club can be used as a short staff and be split into two short sticks. Murdock used his Billy Club to stop Fisk for good.