DAREDEVIL DOESN'T GO HOLLYWOOD ON US (Or Does He?)
Now that Marvel's Daredevil has begun streaming through Netflix wearing a black costume, I cringed to think that us funnybook fans would soon see his apparel in print modified to conform to the TV duds. That’s the way these things play out. As soon as Captain America showed up on the Big Screen in something suitable for the hero in a movie — something different than star-spangled tights — we saw the comic book Cap wearing something akin to the uniform worn by the motion picture incarnation. Hence, for Daredevil in the comic books, red is surely destined to give way to black.
How we’ll be able to see DD, who usually works at night, is another problem, seems to me. It’s hard enough to see him on Netflix but his being in motion helps: we see movement and discern that it is he. But in the static imagery of comics? In black, he’ll be lost.
The so-called thinking governing the TV costume is probably that red is too visible for a crime-fighter who fights at night to wear: like a crimson flag, a red costume draws attention to its wearer. Or so it would seem. But red is not especially visible at night: as the color of a costume, it isn’t like a neon sign.
Unexpectedly, then, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, who control DD’s fate in the funnybooks, have so far declined to adhere to this new pattern. Daredevil, now working in San Francisco, is known to be Matt Murdock: he gave up the secret of his civilian identity. And he is now, as a result, a highly public figure. And in No.14 of the title, Murdock shows up in court in a new suit that flaunts his alternate identity as Daredevil.
Wonderful. Waid and Samnee have, so far, resisted the temptation to conform to newly emerged custom. No motion picture garb for them.