Spoilers Daredevil: Born Again (Spoilers)

[Clint_L]

Major nerd points for recognizing the difference between “mutant” and “mutate” in the Marvel mythos!

 

[James Gasik]

Major nerd points for recognizing the difference between “mutant” and “mutate” in the Marvel mythos!

Said difference is somewhat tenuous at times. You can, for example, be born with superpowers inherited from your parents, and not be considered a mutant. You can carry the mutant gene and be considered to be a normal human. You can acquire mutant-derived powers from experimentation or Mutant Growth Hormone.

As a long time (nerd!) comic book fan, I don't think any official explanation for all of this weirdness has ever been put forth, but I do have a headcanon that's backed up by official canon.

We know that some mutants (usually telepaths) have the ability to detect mutant minds. I recall this once being explained as mutant brains generate more electricity than regular humans (let's just not discuss the science of that, lol).

Somehow, many normal people (presumably not all) can feel that something is "off" about mutants, hence the reason they are targeted by seemingly irrational bigotry even when nothing is known about the mutant.

Ben Grimm is an orange rock-man, and he has been the target of discrimination and fear in the past, but generally, he's considered a celebrity in the Marvel Universe. Captain America is a super-soldier, but almost everyone respects him.

Of course, even this is inconsistent- Spider-Man is not a mutant, yet his reputation has been so poor at points that even the X-Men once believed he was a mutant!*

And despite being half-Mutant Atlantean** (and having threatened the surface world a few times back in the day), Namor the Sub-Mariner owns his own corporation (well, at least he did), and generally has a decent reputation, lol.

*Despite the fact that, if he was, Professor Xavier would have found him with Cerebro fairly quickly, lol.

**Homo Mermanus.

Basically, if there's some reason people might react to you badly in the Marvel Universe, if you're a mutant, it's that much worse for, um, reasons.

 

[Retros_x]

The context neither you nor I have here is knowing what information a sense of touch that sensitive gives you. We can guess... but we don't know

But we know how our senses work and that touch has nothing to do with light reception. Colors very much so. Yes I believe he can feel every single stroke - but that says nothing about the imagery of the painting. You can check it for yourself, go to a museum, go close to an oil painting - the strokes are often in completely different directions than the colors that form the shapes that you see as the imagery.

If his touch somehow can feel light and light reflections through superhuman touch, he might be able to "see" the painting. But he would also have a lot of physical trouble walking outside.

 

[briggart]

But we know how our senses work and that touch has nothing to do with light reception. Colors very much so. Yes I believe he can feel every single stroke - but that says nothing about the imagery of the painting. You can check it for yourself, go to a museum, go close to an oil painting - the strokes are often in completely different directions than the colors that form the shapes that you see as the imagery.

If his touch somehow can feel light and light reflections through superhuman touch, he might be able to "see" the painting. But he would also have a lot of physical trouble walking outside.

Don't different pigments have different physical composition, grain size, density, etc.? Maybe that's what he's picking up. He won't likely be able to sense that the "red" used in the painting is the same color as his costume, but he'll be able to reconstruct some color information on top of what he can get from the strokes. Similar to us seeing false color images.

 

[Retros_x]

Don't different pigments have different physical composition, grain size, density, etc.? Maybe that's what he's picking up. He won't likely be able to sense that the "red" used in the painting is the same color as his costume, but he'll be able to reconstruct some color information on top of what he can get from the strokes. Similar to us seeing false color images.

Hm, yeah, this could be an apporach, but they are all dissolved in oil or acryl, I don't know how much of the pigments are even touchable from the outside or if they all are visible through a layer of oil he can't reach through. But even if, I just can't imagine someone appreciating a painting while feeling small excerpts (he can't touch the whole painting at once like we can see it at once) of slightly different textures of smaller than sand particles. Over and all too many hoops to be plausible even with superhuman sense of touch.

Of course its not that relevant, but I agree its comic silly and confirms my belief that these "serious interpretations" of comics are super off. Best superhero adaptions are IMO the ones who embrace the sillyness. These are adults who run over rooftops in spandexes or dressed up as animals, I can't take them seriously anyway.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, I understand what you're saying about the texture of the painting and how unlikely it seems that would convey the level of information that Daredevil received from running his fingers across the painting. To us, that info would be meaningless, especially with the roadblocks you mentioned. To him... who knows.

It's literally not possible with thick oil paints like that. You can't obtain information that doesn't exist. That's the problem here. It's not that information is "hard to discover", it's that via that vector of investigation (touching but not disrupting/damaging), that information simply doesn't exist.

And further, the show points out how impossible it is, ironically, by having Matt need someone else to read printed documents for him! Which, with most (not all, admittedly, but the ones used for normal printing in a law firm) printing methods, even monochrome laser, will have the tiniest, tiniest raised-ness to it, in the shape of the letters. That should be much, much easier. So we have inconsistency. That information does at least exist, it's just implausibly small.

I suspect this is down to old showrunner/new showrunner, as Karen even being in the show is down to new showrunner, who I think has a more grounded and thought-through ideas on DD's powers.

And this is a bridge too far?

Yes. The other examples are actual physically possible within the logic of the show. This isn't. You don't seem to be understanding what I'm saying about paint (but I'm not sure). Literally everyone else seems to, so I'm not going to argue it further, but this isn't like disabling or killing someone by chucking a tooth into their eye when you have special throwing and precision powers, it's like doing that but with a tiny amount of candy floss or shooting them ultra-precisely with a normal (not supersoaker etc.) old-fashion squirtgun loaded with water and them instantly and messily dying or something. It's too stupid by the show's own logic. I get that it's repeating something from the comics, but as I said, that needs to be used with care.

I just chalk it up to Matt's training with Stick.

I just chalk this one up to bad writing, almost certainly from the fired showrunner.

Watched the rest of the last episode - it's ok, but it doesn't seem like a particularly exciting cliffhanger. Maybe that's intentional. Also I'm not sure what that cop expected to happen lol. Did you not see what he did to your buddies? But I get it, the point is they idolize Frank to the point of being absolute idiots, and I totally believe that. Also nice to see Frank can actually socially manipulate someone if he puts his mind to it!

(Also minor amusement re: the show when the cops come to idiotically attempt to capture Punisher, and he kills pretty much all of them who get close enough except the one female cop who he just KOs, which like, felt weirdly sexist/retro on behalf of the show. Like, "We can show cops being slaughtered, or civilians, but we can't show a hero kill a female cop, even though she's a violent criminal gang member and his whole entire deal is killing violent criminal gang members!". Not a big deal but I thought it was weird in such a bloody/gory scene. Like why even include a female bad cop in the scene in that case?)

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

But we know how our senses work and that touch has nothing to do with light reception. Colors very much so. Yes I believe he can feel every single stroke - but that says nothing about the imagery of the painting. You can check it for yourself, go to a museum, go close to an oil painting - the strokes are often in completely different directions than the colors that form the shapes that you see as the imagery.

Excuse my bluntness, but that makes zero sense. There's no such as a single brushstroke that will simultaneously paint say, part of a rose and also the vase behind it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Excuse my bluntness, but that makes zero sense. There's no such as a single brushstroke that will simultaneously paint say, part of a rose and also the vase behind it.

That's not what he's saying, and he's correct in what he's saying. I suggest re-reading what he actually typed.

 

[Voadam]

And this is a bridge too far?

It is something that instantly jarred me out of the story to go "what?" when it happened whereas focusing in on specific distant sounds and not being devastated by loud gunshots near his super hearing did not. Thus my bringing it up.

 

[chuckdee]

It is something that instantly jarred me out of the story to go "what?" when it happened whereas focusing in on specific distant sounds and not being devastated by loud gunshots near his super hearing did not. Thus my bringing it up.

That's going to vary by user, and our need to adjust our suspenders is going to differ per consumer. For example, anything computer related I have to adjust my suspenders very tightly because all of it is just... wrong. And there wouldn't need to be many changes to make it better. But I get why they wouldn't do it for the %age of people that will take umbrage. And in relation to all the other fantastical things going on... I get it. I think this is the same, especially as we're dealing with superhuman sense that (a) don't exist and (b) we have no way to model.