SOURCE: Blackmore, Tim. “Blind Daring: Vision and Re-vision of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrranus in Frank Miller's Daredevil: Born Again.” Journal of Popular Culture 27, no. 3 (winter 1993): 135-62.

[In the following essay, Blackmore offers a comparative analysis between Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrranus and Frank Miller's Daredevil: Born Again, remarking that both works share the theme of the common man as hero in society.]

                              … why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?

John Milton, Samson Agonistes

                    Now I adore my life
With the Bird, the abiding Leaf,
With the Fish, the questing Snail
                    And the Eye altering all;

Theodore Roethke, “Once More, the Round”

Despite the enormous gap in time, form and method, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus (CA 430 B.C.) and Frank Miller's graphic novel Daredevil: Born Again (1989) are strikingly similar creations; each reexamines the idea of “common” man as hero in society. The comparison of these works begins with a discussion of the authors' worlds and the underlying structure of each piece. The paper continues with a consideration of Olympian power, the hero's struggles with, and subsequent “murder” by, such forces. With the character's rebirth the ideal hero is revealed as well as the power of human reason and the path that leads toward a “just” society.

ORIGINS

The Daredevil is a comic-book hero, created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in New York in 1964. Matt Murdock, son of an aging, failing, heavyweight boxer, Battling Murdock, is commanded by his father to succeed in some profession (other than boxing), which Matt does. His frustration with his bookish life leads him to begin a sort of Charles Atlas course of “self-improvement.” Ironically, the boy is rendered sightless by a radioactive substance when he saves a blind man from being hit by a truck.

The accident leaves him with super-powers: heightened senses. He can detect heartbeats by listening, “sees” using a sort of radar, reads by running his fingers over print and can remember tactile and olfactory “recordings” at will. The “devil” is created when Battling Murdock refuses to throw a fight and is killed. Young Matt (studying to become a defense lawyer) tracks down the killers and brings them to justice. Murdock becomes the best defense lawyer in New York while by night he prosecutes in the streets of his home—Hell's Kitchen. Only one other person aside from Ben Urich (a reporter) knows of Murdock's alter ego, and she is Karen Page, his lover. The Daredevil's nemesis, the Kingpin (a crime lord), dreams of, and finally succeeds in, discovering Murdock's secret identity.

Sophocles too, was working with a familiar property:

That Oedipus, king of Thebes, had unknowingly killed his father and married his mother was an ancient legend. But upon that rudimentary story Sophocles had the choice of imposing any pattern that he wished.

(O'Brien 7)

Similarly, the comic book writer brings his own specific interpretations to such well-known characters as Superman, Batman, or in this case, the Daredevil. Miller, in full command of the cultural form he's chosen, creates a death/rebirth theme which his Old Testament chapter (or issue) titles reveal: the hero is caught in the Apocalypse, forced through Purgatory to become a Pariah, until he is Born Again, Saved, and in fighting for God and Country faces Armageddon.¹

Richmond Lattimore notes the parallel structure of Oedipus and Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest, focusing on the fact that “The tragically fulfilled story mounted on so articulate a scheme for comedy, accounts for much of the essential nature of Oedipus” (O'Brien 42). The basic framework, as Lattimore sees it, provides a superb model for the structure of all drama—comic, tragic or heroic.

TWO WORLDS, ONE VOICE

Considering the historicity of each author makes the parallel between the two works clearer. Sophocles' priest complains “You see yourself how torn our city is, how she craves relief,” words that easily apply to the playwright's Athens (343). Oedipus, concerned about the health of his city, commands the people to follow his orders, since “It is for me, for God, and for this city that staggers toward ruin that you must fulfill [my] injunctions” (Sophocles 348). The city operates democratically in that Oedipus trusts his people, telling Creon “Say it before all of us. I sorrow more for them than for myself” (Sophocles 345). Such “art … clearly shows the influence of fifth century thought; the portrayal of Oedipus in particular reflects an awareness of the language and attitudes of the fifth century Enlightenment” (O'Brien 1).

Oedipus speaks for Protagorus when he notes “Then I came—ignorant Oedipus—I came and smothered [the sphinx], using only my wit” (350). Reliance on human reason was central to the theistic philosophy then destroying Olympian religion. Athens was a cradle for:

discoverers, scientists, and teachers of the whole Hellenistic world, [where] the new anthropological and anthropocentric attitude reached its highest point of confidence and assumed its most authoritative tone. [Here, man was] master of the universe, a self-taught and self-made ruler who has the capacity … “to conquer complete happiness and prosperity.”

(Knox, Oedipus 107)

Hippocrates, with his diagnosis (the new discovery of the distinction between different diseases), and the increasing reliance on observation and physics, naturally lead man to wonder “unless the oracles are shown to tell the truth” then “Could God be dead?” (Sophocles 360). Protagorus notes laconically “‘As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist’” (Knox, Oedipus 110). The death of God fired up the Atomists, who, as Jocasta explains, feel that “mortals have no need to fear when chance reigns supreme … It is better to live as you will, live as you can” than in terror of divine meddling (Sophocles 361). Oedipus declares himself free, a “child of Fortune—beneficent Fortune” (363).

Sophocles' world is in upheaval, the city torn by debate about the validity of excessive inquiry into man's power, measure, and reason. It is a world in which the gods may have died, a world where many are left wondering whether there is any order in a universe without fate and divine design. Miller's world is also in crisis. Concerned about the erosion of society glaringly obvious in New York (1985), Miller, relying on thinkers like Christopher Lasch and Scott Peck, examines the decay of the American Dream (Schuster 44). New York is a jungle, worse than Belfast where homes are routinely invaded and destroyed (Miller and Mazzucchelli 13). The people exhibit a fortress mentality, too desensitized to be worried about a mugging which they see occur in front of them, too jaded to be concerned about human life (a fellow New Yorker sees a battered Murdock and orders “Just keep driving, man—who needs the grief—” [Miller and Mazzucchelli 64]). This backdrop of darkness and despair looms over a few islands of kinship. Thinking over his nine years residence in New York, Miller notes angrily

crime is so much taken for granted that people live in fortresses and walk around looking and acting like victims, carrying money to bribe muggers, acting as if it's all a numbers game, all up to chance … giving total power over their lives to anyone who's savage enough to take it.

(Thompson 60)

In Miller's view, those who are passive will be brutalized by life. His convictions about arbitrary brutality were confirmed by the December 1984 Bernard Goetz New York subway incident. As an artist and writer, Miller has demonstrated restraint and subtlety before, but the tyranny of violence has angered him, enough that he sympathizes with “films like Deathwish and real life examples like Bernard Goetz … [as a] response to something … a response to the way that society is deteriorating” (Schuster 44). Hair-trigger violence stems from

a desire right now that the intelligentsia aren't aware of and can't relate to—the desire to take back the power that we've given away as human beings, to say no to criminals and to the less overt evils we're surrounded by.

(Borax 41)

Miller's expressed frustration helps to explain the broad, righteous nature of his work.

While Miller represents America as being clean of hypocrisy and stain, a God-fearing, simple, quiet man's world, this view of a ‘simple’ America is not naive. Miller, suspicious of politics, has made sure that “strong political themes have run throughout [his] recent comics work, to an extent that has not been seen in mainstream comic books since the early 1970's” (Sanderson “Elektra” 38). Topping these political concerns is America's involvement with Nicaragua (38). For a man who believes that America's foreign policy should obey the Monroe Doctrine, farragoes such as Vietnam, Angola, Salvador and Nicaragua are insanity. Rather than act for “just” causes,

American officials blundered into the war [unable to] distinguish the country's military and strategic interests from ‘our reputation as a guarantor’. … More concerned with the trappings than the reality of power. …

(Lasch 118)

Gone is the “self-made man, archetypical embodiment of the American dream … [with] habits of industry, sobriety, moderation, self-discipline, and avoidance of debt” (Lasch 106). The sickness of the decade is an all-consuming self-interest in which loyalty is no longer important: “That's no way to think. Grow up. It's the 'eighties. You do what you have to do. And you have to do it” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 5).

Each author is societal critic and philosopher. It is agreed that Sophocles is “a teacher. … The Sophist Protagoras … counted Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, Orpheus and Musaeus among the professional educators” (O'Brien 4-5). Webster explains that

we know from the Frogs of Aristophanes that in the fifth century the poet was regarded as a teacher, and Sophocles himself said that he represented men as they ought to be presented.

(Webster 18)

Miller feels his job is “one of criticizing, but not necessarily offering solutions. ‘A cartoonist is in many ways a critic … There are two dangers to this: to become a cynic or to become an ideologue’” (Sanderson “Elektra” 39). This negative view of the artist is later ameliorated by Miller's comment that “just as the artist can learn from his audience, the audience can learn from the artist” and that while he's “been hired to do morality plays … they don't have to be shallow” (Schuster 23, 27). Sophocles, too, engages in a morality play: it is useful to make some crude comparisons before making fine ones.

THE FRAMEWORK

Each work has the same basic structure: there's an agonizing build to a known conclusion. Oedipus has killed his father, sired children by Jocasta, and will blind himself. Murdock will be beaten by the forces opposing him, refuse to yield, return and end injustice. Each story has a late pivotal point: Oedipus thinks himself free after Polybus' death, only to sustain the shock of the truth. Similarly, it is not until the Daredevil has been purged of his selfishness that he can justify putting the costume back on.

Oedipus and Murdock both share physical and psychological blindness, as well as paranoia. Both are aliens (Oedipus to the city, Murdock because of his abilities) who rely on their own powers and swift actions to solve problems. Murdock begins as a lawyer, while Oedipus lards his speech with terms of Attic law familiar to educated Athenians, as he pursues the “criminal” (Knox, Oedipus 79-82).

Olympus and its voice (Teiresias) are represented by the Kingpin and his minions. The ideal of Thebes has its parallel in Captain America and the Avengers. Jocasta and her inadvertent betrayal of the truth to Oedipus is mirrored by Karen Page, who helplessly surrenders up Murdock to the Kingpin. Creon and Ben Urich, the reporter, make a pair, although Urich eventually surpasses Creon's failings. The Chorus is played by Foggy, Matt's law partner, and Glorianna O'Breen, Matt's ex-girlfriend.

It's easy to substitute Murdock for Oedipus, New York for Athens in the following character description, for both contain

A constant will to action, grounded in experience, inspired by courage, expressing itself in speed and impatience but informed by intelligent reflection, endowed with the self-confidence, optimism, versatility of the brilliant amateur, and marred by oversuspicion and occasional outbursts of demonic anger—this is the character of Oedipus (Murdock) and Thebes (New York) alike. Both the virtues and the faults of Oedipus (Murdock) are those of Athenian (American) democracy. Oedipus (Murdock), a … mythical hero, has been transformed into [a] contemporary figure.

(Knox Oedipus 77) (Author's emendations.)

It is fitting that enroute to considering these “contemporary figure[s]” the discussion moves to examine the forces of Olympus.

GODS AND HEROES

While Zeus rules Olympus, Apollo is Oedipus' chief opponent and the blind, all-seeing prophet is Apollo's enforcer. Oedipus is cautious around Teiresias, welcoming him in politic style: “Teiresias, all things are known to you—the secrets of heaven and earth, the sacred and profane. Though you are blind surely you see. …” (Sophocles 349). Teiresias is a human wiretap, connected both to the affairs of gods and humans.

Wesley is the Kingpin's Teiresias, a man who calmly stands by awaiting the command to issue “the kill order” for those out of favor with Olympus. Wesley is only one of the quiet, sinister, bagmen that surround the Kingpin, a message from Miller that society can no longer distinguish between criminals and corporate men. The Thebans abase themselves before Apollo, begging “Come, Apollo, come yourself, who sent these oracles! / Come as our savior! Come! Deliver us from this plague!” (Sophocles 346). This entreaty ill-befits Protagorus' self-reliant man. Further, the Thebans are blind to the fact that if Apollo can save, then he can surely torture man.

Like Apollo, the Kingpin is no weakling, and “From Parnassus he orders the hunt” (Sophocles 352). He is not so much a man as an indestructible force. Like a malicious god he muses happily that Murdock

faces poverty and public shame. He will be hounded by doctored tax files, deprived of his very home. Survival will become his only concern. Perhaps I will hire … what is left of him … after he has learned how powerless he is.

(Miller and Mazzucchelli 24)

The omniscience of Olympus is duplicated by the electronic nerve-centre in the Kingpin's aerie. From such a vantage point this force plots Murdock's fate. These ubiquitous powers extend to the lowest workers in the free press, so that a “janitor” can ensure a terrified Ben Urich will halt his inquiry into the actions of the god. Miller's warning to society about corruption mocks the most conservative, “legitimate” monied factions that he believes are destroying the common person's society (Miller and Mazzucchelli 166). Such destruction has a focus, and both Oedipus and Murdock have an extensive, unpleasant fate prepared for them: this must be since they are heroes.

But the mantle of hero causes both men anguish. Ignorant of his true birthright, Oedipus believes himself an alien to Thebes. The Chorus echoes Oedipus' own concerns about identity, asking “Who is he? Who is the man? / Who is the man whom the voice of the Delphian shrine / denounced[?]” (Sophocles 352). Anxious to be accepted, Oedipus (vanity prodding him on) rapidly accedes to the people's appeals: “Let no one say you raised us up to let us fall” (344). Despite his anxiety, Oedipus' reactions are sincere and protective: “I'll help you all I can. I would be cruel did I not greet you with compassion,” appointing himself guardian of the city and assuming their burden of suffering (343, 344).

Miller's novel, like Sophocles' play,

belongs to the general story pattern of the lost one found. The lost one may be … any close philos, thought dead far away but discovered to be present, unknown.

(O'Brien 44)

Murdock believes his mother died in childbirth: later he will discover the secret of his mother's identity. Until this discovery is made, Murdock takes upon himself role of guardian, connecting with the city through a loving, supernatural power. Oedipus has learned to move swiftly in the face of disaster, snapping “This is a plot conceived in rashness. It must be met with a quick response. I cannot sit and wait until the plot succeeds” (Sophocles 354). This passage has been variously translated, and while Watling gives the idea (42), it is Fagles' version which transmits the dramatic flair, speed and pragmatism of the man speaking:

When my enemy moves against me quickly,
plots in secret, I move quickly too, I must,
I plot and pay him back. Relax my guard a moment,
waiting his next move—he wins his objective,
I lose mine.

(194)

Here is a Tyrannus at work—no stranger to conspiracy, sped and revenge. The pragmatism comes through in the “game” vocabulary (“next move,” “wins his objective”). He's uncannily ahead of the rest: twice he has beaten his advisors to the punch, once with Creon at Delphi and once in calling for Teiresias (Sophocles 344, 348). Oedipus takes full command, proclaiming “Then I—I shall begin again. I shall not cease until I bring the truth to light” (345). For Knox, “The characteristic Oedipean action is the fait accompli. … ‘Swift,’ tachys, is his word” (Oedipus 15). The Daredevil is a man who also lives by speed of his wits, in court and on the rooftops. He hears and suffers through every disaster in Hell's Kitchen, no matter how far away it is. As “A lung collapses” or “A wino cries to God” the Daredevil knows it all (Miller and Mazzucchelli 141).

It is the ignorance of, and painful search for, identity, a name, a link with the human race, that causes each character agony. Discovery of the identity will transform the hero. Begged by Jocasta to stop “For your own good,” Oedipus recognizes grimly that “My own good has brought me pain too long” (Sophocles 363). It becomes crucial, not only for Thebes, but for Oedipus as a human, to “untangle the line of mystery surrounding [his] birth” (363). Against promised horrors he rails “Let [them] explode! I will still want to uncover the secret of my birth—no matter how horrible” (363). Without name or origin, Oedipus will remain an alien, a Tyrannus.

Jocasta reaches the truth intuitively, leading Oedipus there, just as Karen Page, in the throes of heroin withdrawal is forced to sell the key to Murdock's secret identity. Robbed of everything, especially his status as lawyer, only the Daredevil is left. Matt Murdock has been taken to pieces: “Every other part of him is so far away. …” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 9). In an haze of rage, Murdock's alter ego lays waste to the slums demanding information about his tormentor, and more importantly, Murdock himself.

HERO: TYRANNUS

This anguished hero must be cleansed if he is to be transformed into a Human. Tellingly, after ten verses calling on the gods, Oedipus answers the Chorus “I have heard your prayers and answer with relief and help” (Sophocles 347). Similarly, his curse is worthy of any angry god. Knox points out that “‘I’ (ego) is a word that is often on his lips … [it] is not mere vanity [but] is justified by his whole experience … an unbroken record of success due entirely to himself” (Knox Oedipus 29). Oedipus' punning cracks at Teiresias' expense are more the signs of over-confidence mixed with anger rather than vanity.

Such a mixture creates the “Tyrannus.” Creon argues that Oedipus is “wrong to judge the guilty innocent, the innocent guilty—without proof” (Sophocles 354). Oedipus is “hard when [he] should yield, cruel when [he] should pity” (355). While he willingly takes judgement of others on himself, he does so without understanding the pain he may cause others. “The sense of the word tyrannos is exactly appropriate for Oedipus … he is an intruder, one whose warrant for power is individual achievement, not birth” (Knox, Oedipus 54). Sophocles does not choose the benevolent Greek word for king, but rather shows Creon raging “Behold my judge and jury—Oedipus Tyrannus!” (Sophocles 356).

The Daredevil, a fighting machine, is extremely dangerous when the violent undercurrent in his nature overcomes him. Eaten out from inside, the “devil” visits his wrath on those unable to either defend themselves or answer him. Like a wounded animal, he claws ferociously at the trap that holds him. When that energy is spent he slides into the revenge dreams of a child in which he “punche[s] the Kingpin out and he begs for mercy and gives me back my life and surrenders to the police and everybody knows it is me who beat him and there's a parade” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 36).

The line between the Tyrannus and the paranoid is very thin. Oedipus pursues his irrational fears logically, attacking Teiresias, demanding to know “Who taught you this? It did not come from prophecy!” (Sophocles 350). Jumping ahead he quickly sizes up Creon's role, his own alien status and demands of Teiresias “Was this your trick—or Creon's?” (350). Creon sees the paranoia in the king and confronts him “I see that you are mad,” provoking an exchange Lewis Carroll might have written:

OEDIPUS:
In my own eyes, I am sane.
CREON:
You should be sane in mine as well.
OEDIPUS:
No. You are a traitor!
CREON:
And what if you are wrong?
OEDIPUS:
Still—I will rule.

(Sophocles 354-55)

Sanity is subjective, dependent on the viewer. Oedipus is right: he rules in his mind. His confidence becomes rashness when he snaps that he “will rule” no matter what. Even he admits that his mind is “blurred by fear and terror” (Sophocles 360, 361). But the “Blind suspicion [which] consume[s] the king” is too much even for the Hero and he falls into the abyss of madness (356).

Murdock reacts the same way when his physical and psychological defenses are stripped from him. Suspicion boils over into paranoia when Murdock's confidence in himself and his world is eroded. His insistence that only he can be right drives off any allies or friends he can trust. Miller pictures the madness of self-pity as the hero complains “Show me one single person who hasn't betrayed me. …” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 32). This pernicious fever goads him to frighten his best friend Foggy Nelson, just as Oedipus alienates Creon, potentially his strongest ally (Sophocles 354). The most terrifying depiction of Murdock's instability is his heartfelt confession to the time signal, the picture of a man who, at all costs, struggles to maintain appearances of sanity.

Finally Miller brings Murdock to the scene of Goetz' madness. The Daredevil, a good samaritan, would never sit still during a robbery. But this man is no longer the Daredevil, nor Matt Murdock. He is just an enraged victim, tortured beyond endurance. Miller cannily restages the Goetz incident so that while the viewers are uncomfortable with the beatings, they are also allowed limited catharsis, release from Murdock's passivity. Miller confronts the reader with the subway incident: the humane intellect dictates that the reader should castigate the vigilante but the visceral feeling is something else again.

Oedipus cry “O Fate! What have you done to me?” underscores his innocence: he has been framed by Fate (Sophocles 368). Since “the future has already been determined” and Oedipus is “cursed and cannot see it” (Sophocles 349, 357), then the audience can neither blame him for, nor judge him by, his actions. Viewers can only judge the manner in which he accepts his fate, and consider the picture of Olympus this innocent man's suffering reveals. It is Murdock's fate to become the Daredevil and for that alone he will be destroyed by corporate forces: because Matt Murdock “is also Daredevil … That's why his life is about to fall apart” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 8). Despite his own knowledge that he is innocent, the rest of the world knows he is guilty and the Olympian network moves swiftly to cut off his lifelines. The frame-up is complete and Murdock's life is ruined.

The destruction of the hero brings damning glimpses of Olympus. Oedipus, powerless before the gods, since “no mortal can compel a god to speak” (Sophocles 348), is robbed of pride in his achievements (the Chorus explains: “God aided you” implying Oedipus has done nothing [344]). Oedipus' birthright can only have been dreamed up by some sadistic, bored god. In the same way Murdock becomes the Kingpin's plaything. Surveying the city he will own (the reader sees him from above) the Kingpin seems a distant figure. Once the Kingpin has thrashed Murdock, Miller is careful to reverse the positions so the reader, now below the Kingpin, is a victim to be subdued and ruled over. For sport, the corporate gods stage a private war in Hell's Kitchen. The “murder” of the hero brings a rebirth—and with that, unexpected new powers.

FROM HERO TO HUMAN

Teiresias' warning “You are destroying yourself!” (Sophocles 350) is followed by Oedipus' recognition of the truth “O God! O no! I see it now! All clear!” which plunges him into an abyss of darkness (“O Light! I will never look on you again!” [366]). What Teiresias cannot see is that the “death” of one self is necessary for the rebirth of another. Oedipus is shamed before his people, like Milton's blind Samson, who mourns “I dark in light expos'd / To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong” (lines 75-76). Milton's clever wordplay where both the ego and eye are exposed applies to Oedipus' mad self-blinding as well as his shame “Could these eyes look upon the people? Never!” (Sophocles 369). Oedipus has touched bottom and is on the way back up.

Murdock's fate is equally unpleasant. Curled in a fetal position, returned to the womb of Hell's Kitchen, he remembers in his shame that he “attacked [the Kingpin] … and he killed me” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 58). The psychological murder is followed by a physical one (which fails), and instead of struggling in death throes, the blind man opens his eyes and “sees,” as if the water of his death has brought him fully awake.

Teiresias' pun “Know yourself, Oedipus” (Sophocles 349) is followed by a riddle game in which Teiresias asks “Are you not the best man when it comes to riddles?” (351). Despite this gallows humor, Oedipus “will never deny [his] birth—and [he] will learn its secret” (363, italics added). In a very human panic, Oedipus attempts to shift (“Apollo! It was Apollo!”), then evade the blame (he charges “the man who set me free” [369]). But Oedipus has remained courageous where other men would quail (Shepherd: Ah master, do I have to speak? Oedipus: You have to. And I have to hear [Sophocles 365]). When he accepts his lot Creon comments “Surely, you are ready to put your trust in god—now” (370). Oedipus has learned to trust that the gods will be sadistic. He never suggests, though Creon assumes it, that the gods are just. Oedipus, prepared for any fate, is virtually indestructible. Too late the Kingpin realizes the same thing about Murdock: the fire sent to burn him to ashes tempered him instead and it is the Kingpin who has “shown him that a man without hope … is a man without fear” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 74). Oedipus and Murdock have survived the worst Fate has for them causing the discovery that

the Oedipus is not at all … the tragedy of human fate. … Better to call it … the tragedy of appearance in human life, in which the correlative of appearance is being, as in Parmenides Aletheia [truth] is of Doxa [opinion].

(O'Brien 50)

Like Oedipus, Murdock sheds the hero's appearance and is reborn a human hero in the waters of the East River. The Kingpin is a smaller figure, unable to destroy the human spirit that lives beneath the calm lawyer or the devil in the red suit. At this crucial point Matt is discovered by “Maggie,” the nun who has presided over his original “birth” as the Daredevil. Mazzucchelli's strong graphic evocations of the most powerful religious images (Michelangelo's Pieta, the three Marys at the crucifixion and the Trinity, symbolized by the triangle over Matt) erase any doubts about “Maggie's” true nature. Miracle and faith cause the hero's rebirth and entrance into a world of New Testament Christian mercy.²

This rebirth allows Murdock to make peace with his fate as the Daredevil: like Christ, he must act as guardian, without thanks, without pity, without fear. The costume, a symbol of his alter-ego, is defiled when it is worn by a psychopath the Kingpin uses in a further, unsuccessful frame bid. Knowing he has nothing to fear, Murdock advises an old enemy, now a friend, to make the false costume: he does not fear it or resent it anymore. Confronted by the false costume, he beats its wearer soundly. The full irony of his religious rebirth comes when Murdock finally suits up: a devil who has been through Hell and escaped to correct the wrongs he saw there.

FIGHTING OLYMPUS

The harsher the fate the Olympians have planned for the heroes, the more they gain our sympathy. The audience is sympathetic to, and afraid for, Oedipus. There is nothing special about him: what has happened to him could happen to the viewer, he has done nothing to deserve his fate. Hoping to elude the draconian measures of the gods, Oedipus is stunned by the apparent error in the prophecy and wonders “Why? Why should we even look to oracles, the prophetic words delivered at their shrines or the birds that scream above us?” (Sophocles 361). For Oedipus, a bird's cry holds as much wisdom as the oracle. Oedipus' hopes make his fate appear all the more monstrous.

Miller attacks Olympus when he introduces Nuke. This genetically engineered super-soldier, living on amphetamines the colors of the American flag, is a one-man slaughterhouse. Miller's disgust with America's involvement in Nicaragua is shown in broad strokes with the picture of this barely-controlled psychopath whose love, Betsy, is a “smart” gun that records the number of kills, not the ammunition used. About Nuke, David Mazzucchelli, the artist and Miller's collaborator, has said:

MAZZUCCHELLI:
I think Frank [Miller] is always interested in the question of what a hero is and what his role is today. It was very clear who Nuke was when Frank realized he was the super-soldier of the Eighties.
AMAZING Heroes:
In other words, what the ideal embodied by Captain America has deteriorated into.
MAZZUCCHELLI:
Exactly.

(Sanderson Interview 27)

The forces of Olympus are too strong for the Daredevil, even after he's made peace with his fate. Miller understands this, and brings in the Avengers (Captain America, Thor and Iron Man) to handle Nuke, Olympus' monster (Miller and Mazzucchelli 154). Miller lashes out at the Defense establishment, comparing the “Soldier with a voice that could command a God—and does” (154), with the pitiful drug-ridden mutant who shames the ideal of Captain America. Only the Captain has the will and the power to stop the madness Nuke represents. The war between what America was and should be, and what America is and will be, smashes through the heart of the eagle, the symbol of American freedom and strength.

These reborn heroes champion human, rather than divine, justice. If justice is left to the gods, there will be precious little of it, given Oedipus as an example. The Chorus is too timid, croaking weakly “The seer and I, / we are mortal and blind. / Who is right? Who can judge?” (Sophocles 352). Such abdication is irresponsible, as Oedipus' constant action and inquiry demonstrates. Sophocles describes justice in Teiresias' lament “O God! How horrible wisdom is! How horrible when it does not help the wise!” (349). Implicit in this is a curse against gods who would hold back wisdom from humans, making them blind when they should see. A new standard of Human justice can be set only when humans begin struggling with the idea of what is right and wrong. No longer can people take the easy route and leave it to the gods.

Miller, unhappy for a long time that Murdock defends by day those the Daredevil fights at night, took the opportunity in this cycle to have Murdock debarred, closed out from Olympian law. Murdock's status as a lawyer is perceived by Miller as a major design flaw (Schuster 42-43). Miller's suspicion of government extends through law and out to any form of censorship, which he views as abdication of responsibility:

If somebody falls down, a movie gets a rating for violence, and the lazy parents of America need look no further. It's all there, and little Billy can be kept safe from thinking that there's any evil in the world, or, incidentally, any good.

(Thompson 66)

Mazzucchelli depicts the quality of Olympian “justice.” The Kingpin watches Armageddon strike Hell's Kitchen, satisfied that he can keep any unhappy citizens in the bag. Miller is angry at the “rich man's law,” where the poor gain no redress for the most catastrophic wrongs, nor for all the talk about democracy, is there a venue for the poor to make use of Olympian law.

Part of being a hero involves the ability to see the truth and survive. Oedipus urges his daughters/sisters “Come—come, touch my hands, the hands of your father, the hands of your brother, the hands that blinded these eyes … which neither saw nor knew what he had done” (Sophocles 371). Oedipus sets himself as an example to the next generation, he has taken the worst Olympus can do, and emerges a greater man, a lesser “king.” It is Jocasta who cannot face the conclusion she knows is coming and blesses Oedipus in her agony: “God help you! This is all that I can say to you—now or ever” (Sophocles 363), her last word tipping him off about her imminent suicide. Jocasta's fate is worse in some ways than Oedipus' since her

love and anxiety are always at his side. It is her tragedy that she actively leads Oedipus towards their common disaster, and that she realizes the truth gradually, though always in advance of him.

(O'Brien 78) (Italics added.)

Oedipus, not Jocasta, is the life-force, with the courage to continue in the face of sadism from on high.

Like Jocasta, Karen Page cannot face the agony that she has brought on Murdock and he is barely able to prevent her suicide, so intent is she on death. Evoking John Wayne's The Quiet Man, Miller demonstrates the credo he believes America must re-learn, no matter the cost, no matter the pain. Man must never stop fighting, he must rely on his own, not others', power. The memory in a dying mind of Olympian injustice that will go unpunished, unchecked, brings both Murdock and the Daredevil back to life as he remembers “I had an awful dream … The Kingpin … Not a dream” (Miller and Mazzucchelli 76).

Yet this hero should, in no way, have to explain himself: he is to be felt, understood, at a visceral level. He waits for the moment and strikes, and when society turns to award medals, the true hero is gone. Miller, angry about the state of the hero, feels that the erosion of American ideals—individualism, self-reliance, strength, mercy, liberty and responsibility—has attacked the very nature of the hero, the personification of all these things. Heroes who explain their inner turmoil are betrayed by narcissistic writing which has

infect[ed] every kind of entertainment, especially television. It demands nothing from the reader, or the viewer except a kind of unquestioning acceptance that everybody will tell you how they feel, rather than challenging you, by their behavior, to understand them.

(Thompson 69)

New models of heroism have been presented. Few could have had a harder time of it than Oedipus, none “struck by a harder blow / stung by a fate more perverse” (Sophocles 366). Of those who could survive such distress, even fewer could retain the capacity to command men, especially after they've lost the official trappings of power. Yet Oedipus continues to command Creon, who reveals the extent of his blindness when he lectures “Do not presume … Your power has not survived with you” (372). Blinkered Creon is still waiting on the “justice” of the gods (370). In facing Olympus

man's heroic action [brings him] to a fall which is both defeat and victory at once; the suffering and the glory are fused in an indissoluble unity. Sophocles pits against the limitations on human stature great individuals who refuse to accept those limitations, and in their failure achieve a strange success.

(Knox, Temper 6)

In six of the seven extant Sophoclean tragedies the heroes follow Miller's dictum: “Never give up” (Knox, Temper 8). Oedipus is very much an Everyman: like many humans, a victim of malignant forces that appear unbeatable.

The tall-walking, quiet-talking, laconic hero is championed by Miller, who reduces the Daredevil from his Yuppie lawyer life (Miller's own description), to the noble ordinary Joe who slings hash for a living. While Glorianna and Foggy engage in “meaningful dialogue,” Murdock and Karen Page exchange only a few “heroic” words. Murdock's abrupt “I'm in trouble Karen. I have to go” are the only words he uses to signal his intention to embark on a mission which could cripple or kill him. A devout fan of Dirty Harry and Clint Eastwood in general, Miller feels that the actor “is much more in touch with what we should do with super-heroes than virtually anybody in comics” (Thompson 62). Miller ends with a call to the people, nothing that while

presenting a vigilante as such a powerful, positive force is bound to draw some flak, [yet] it's the force I'm concerned with, more as a symbol of the reaction that I hope is waiting in us, the will to overcome our moral impotence and fight, if only in our own emotions, the deterioration of society.

(Thompson 62)

Unlike Sophocles who champions human reason and inquiry, Miller's message is broader, vaguer and harder to execute. Just how the audience will fight deterioration without using Olympian law against Olympus is unclear. Miller leaves it up to his public, as Murdock notes

I was blinded by radiation. My remaining senses function with superhuman sharpness.

I live in Hell's Kitchen and do my best to keep it clean.

That's all you need to know.

CONCLUSION

Sophocles has championed man, rather than the gods, and Oedipus becomes an

authentic civilizing hero, the bearer of the tragic meaning of civilization for men. Prometheus, the archetypal culture hero, gave men ‘blind hopes’ along with the arts of civilization so that they could not foresee their death. Oedipus tears away the veil and by his self-chosen blindness gives men sight.

(Segal 247)

Miller also champions humans, pitting them against corporate power. Both authors desire some sort of humane justice, instead of the “justice” of the gods (inaccessible to all). Each hero is redefined: transformed into powerful human beings, they no longer fear Olympus.

While the critics agree that Oedipus replays the answer to the Sphinx's riddle (pinned feet, two feet and a blind man with a cane making three feet [O'Brien 47, Segal 245, Cameron 45]), so do all men, and it's more important that they understand that

Oedipus' … learning is a kind of victory—a Pyrrhic one, of course, in which the victor suffers the most. But in the moral sphere, a Pyrrhic victory is surely the greatest.

(Whitman 142)

Miller, too, hopes to teach this generation a lesson: that the American Dream has been twisted out of shape by those who make no distinction between the end and the means. He pillories the pragmatic, heartless, narcissicism of the eighties, explaining that America must be loyal to nothing except the ideal, the individual's vision of God and Country.

Each artist, formed by his time, has created a death/rebirth saga that both criticizes and teaches the audience what to think and do. In each world there are forces too large for one human to grapple with: such an attempt results in the destruction of the appearance of the hero. What is left behind is, through knowledge and acceptance of truth, made stronger. The model of the true hero leads to the model of a just society in which inquiry and human reason have the potential to topple the greatest powers.

Notes

1. It is impossible to over-emphasize artist David Mazzucchelli's contribution to this work. Mazzucchelli has done both rough and finished art for this seven-issue series, a feat stunning in itself. His powerful graphics make Miller's job that much easier. This graphic novel is the creation of both men: a discussion of Mazzucchelli's art would make a paper of its own.

2. The irony of the “devil's” rebirth is heightened at the end of the text when Mazzucchelli shows a bloodied Nuke, laid out on a press room desk, the negative space delineating an inverted cross (Miller and Mazzucchelli 173).

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