Marvel Comics have an incredible wealth of characters and intellectual properties at their disposal, which comes as no surprise to fighting game fans who have enjoyed a vast breadth of Marvel Comics characters throughout the years thanks to the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise and its predecessor X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes and more.
From Avengers characters like Captain America, Iron Man and The Hulk to iconic X-Men members like Cyclops, Storm and Wolverine all the way to more solo-oriented characters like Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and Deadpool, there’s been an immense amount of Marvel characters playable throughout the years. But one of Marvel’s longest-running solo characters still remains uninvited to the party. Let’s talk about why and what the future might hold for him.
Anyone who is at all familiar with Marvel characters should already be well aware from the banner that the character I’m talking about is the defender of Hell’s Kitchen — Daredevil, also known by his real name Matt Murdock.
One of Marvel Comics’ darker characters in a lot of his appearances, Daredevil while still a bona fide superhero often deals with societal issues, drug problems and street-level problems, rarely rising to the level of cosmic threats or world-ending horrors like you might see from Marvel’s other famous characters.
Daredevil also often finds himself confined to a fairly small space, a few blocks of New York City called Hell’s Kitchen (which is a place that does exist in real life, but is nowhere near as seedy as it tends to be depicted in the Marvel Comics universe).
Often finding himself at odds with villains like the Kingpin and Bullseye, Daredevil tends to reflect a gritty and more rarely explored corner of the Marvel universe and is likely why he has amassed such a fan base throughout the years (which includes yours truly — he’s my #2 favorite Marvel character after Thor).
With a run lasting since 1964 and amassing over 660 issues as of writing, he actually eclipses the vast majority of Marvel characters’ solo outings if we’re looking purely at number of issues. The only series who seem to surpass him are The Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America and Thor, meaning that Daredevil actually surpasses even characters like Iron Man when it comes to having a long-running series.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean that Daredevil necessarily appears more than some characters — due to the wealth of team-based books like The Avengers, Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four, you can bet that characters like for example the aforementioned Iron Man, but also ones like Wolverine and the Fantastic Four members most likely eclipse Daredevil in overall comic book appearances.
That said, it’s hardly a small feat to have such a long-running series that’s largely focused on Daredevil himself — the fact that the Daredevil comic book is in Marvel’s top 10 for is a massive accomplishment on its own.
But even with all this prestige… It seems to have meant absolutely nothing for his inclusion in the Marvel vs. Capcom games.
Daredevil hasn’t been absent from Marvel games in general. Although he’s nowhere to be seen in the newly released Marvel Rivals, he actually did appear in the somewhat questionable 2005 fighting game Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (which even had a cancelled sequel in the works) and he also appeared in each of the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games for various platforms.
So what’s the deal with him always sitting out one of the most popular fighting game franchises of all time? Well, there are a few reasons we could look at to try and answer that question.
The first problem one might face when designing Daredevil for a fighting game is that his abilities are actually quite difficult to showcase efficiently. Daredevil’s main power is that, while he is blind, his other senses are extraordinarily enhanced.
They are so enhanced, in fact, that he has a sort of radar sense that allows him to use echolocation similar to how a bat analyzes its surroundings. Obviously, this is something that’s quite difficult to show in a game that doesn’t put you in first-person control of Daredevil.
It’s no insurmountable obstacle of course, after all, the other games in which Daredevil appeared weren’t first-person games either, but it does make him a less enticing option when deciding on a roster over someone where you can clearly show their amazing abilities while fighting.
In close relation to that, making a moveset that looks exciting might also be a bit of a challenge. Daredevil mostly fights with hand-to-hand techniques complimented by his billy club weapon along with many various acrobatic skills.
From a gameplay perspective, this honestly just makes him sound like a less exciting Spider-Man. You could definitely sidestep such issues, many character who may look boring at first glance have ended up way more interesting than their first impression might suggest. Marvel vs. Capcom 2’s Jill Valentine comes to mind for me personally, where she initially seems like she’d be bland but ends up having one of the most creative movesets in the whole game.
It’s definitely doable to inject creativity in a character whose general movements might seem bland… But it’s likely another factor that makes him less appealing to game designers.
Finally, probably the biggest reason Daredevil hasn’t gotten to enjoy his time in the spotlight from Capcom is just straight up unfortunate timing.
Arguably, Daredevil’s biggest heyday in the comics was during the 1980s when Frank Miller had his long run on the comics which sort of revamped Daredevil to the more dark and gritty character he’s known as today.
By the time that Capcom started working with Marvel on games in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this run had long been over and while Daredevil’s comics at the time certainly weren’t bad, he wasn’t exactly shining with marketability at the time either compared to characters like X-Men and Spider-Man who had ongoing animated shows and successful movie franchises (Daredevil did get a movie in 2003, but it never manifested as a franchise and was probably too late to have any influence on Capcom’s Marvel-themed game).
As for the more recent games, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out four years before Daredevil got a big surge of popularity when the Netflix show Daredevil launched in 2015. Again, simply poor timing for sorry ol’ hornhead.
It’s entirely possible that Daredevil was planned to be an addition at some point for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, but while it’s never been directly confirmed by the developers, the general view based on the uneven roster and generally subpar commercial performance of the title is that the game’s post-launch support was likely cut short, possibly leaving several unrealized fighters on the development room floor.
Looking back at both official and unofficial polls, Daredevil has shown decent popularity albeit not exactly leading the pack. There was a Capcom-Unity poll back in 2011 where Daredevil ended up in 13th place for Marvel characters.
In said poll, three characters who placed above him ended up being added to the game’s Ultimate version, Ghost Rider placed 4th, the 8th placer Dr. Strange as well as Iron Fist who landed in 11th.
After Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, there was also an unofficial poll on GameFAQs which received a lot of votes where Daredevil again placed specifically in 13th.
Daredevil is one of Marvel’s most beloved characters, but he’s not really considered an A-lister in the way that iconic characters like the core Avengers, Wolverine or Spider-Man are. And if you’re down on the B-List, there’s a really big load of competition to fight against.
While developers have given comments on lots of different characters, there’s actually never really been any word for Daredevil. It’s possible he’s never been in consideration at all.
If we’re going to see a new Marvel vs. Capcom game in the future, or even an entirely different Marvel fighting game, then hopefully Daredevil won’t get overlooked again.
Since we’re looking at a March premiere date for Daredevil: Born Again, the revival of the acclaimed Daredevil show which ran from 2015 to 2018, the timing is definitely solid if we’re to see a new project within the next few years. But if we don’t… there’s always a good risk Daredevil will fall through the cracks again. And that would be a real shame.
Source: Event Hubs
