Thematically speaking, Netflix’s Daredevil didn’t break any new ground. Representing the Venn diagram overlap between Batman and Spider-Man, Matt Murdock embodies the oldest and most well-trod tropes of the superhero genre: A morally tormented man who struggles to balance his double life as a masked vigilante, fighting crime in a version of New York that feels more like 1970 than 2015. The show’s main claim to fame was its brutal action sequences, launching the MCU’s first foray into adult-rated media. But 10 years after Daredevil’s premiere, we can attribute its staying power to something less easy to quantify: Its deceptively sincere emotional storytelling.
