#Adventures in Continuity

[daresplaining]

Hi! Had a kinda weird question, but is it ever mentioned how Matt paid for his education or any student loans?

Hi! This has been touched on a few times, yes. One good source of information is Daredevil volume 3 #12, in which Matt tells a story from his early days rooming with Foggy at Columbia.

Matt: "[Being the teacher's pet] wasn't enough to float me out of a hell of student-grant bureaucracy. Unlike Foggy, I was eternally one step ahead of the bursar's office." Daredevil vol. 3 #12 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Javier Rodriguez, and Joe Caramagna

This story takes place in law school and doesn't mention Matt's undergrad experience, but we learn that he was receiving financial aid (which seems believable for a high-achieving disabled student from a single-parent, low-income household; the Battlin' Jack Murdock mini-series also mentions that Matt was on a scholarship, implied to be tied to his disabled status), but was still struggling to pay (also unsurprising; Jack was still alive at this point, but it's hard to say how much money he was making). By the end of the story, Matt reveals that Foggy's well-to-do family stepped in at a certain point and helped keep him afloat until graduation (also unsurprising; Foggy's parents also financed the first Nelson & Murdock office).

Another thing to keep in mind about Matt's college experience is that the continuity changed in the early 80s. He wasn't always a Columbia grad; originally, he and Foggy attended the vaguely-named State College in upstate New York, and one of the reasons Matt picked that school was because it was affordable.

Daredevil vol. 1 #-1 by Joe Kelly, Gene Colan, Christie Scheele, Matt Ryan, and Richard Starkings

At this point, the only concrete thing we know about Matt's financial situation is that the money was coming from his father. The main reason Jack kept boxing past his prime, and the main reason he settled for signing on with the corrupt manager who eventually murdered him, was to afford Matt's college education.

Daredevil vol. 1 #1 by Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Sam Rosen

With the shift to a much more prestigious and expensive alma mater, with the cost of college having skyrocketed since 1964, and with the sliding timescale to take into account, it has definitely become harder to believe that Jack's boxing earnings would have been enough to pay for more than a semester-or-two. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some future retelling of Matt's origin at least put him in a work study program of some kind to make some extra cash.

As far as loans are concerned, I think a lot of people tend to forget that Nelson & Murdock were/are a very well-known and successful law firm. They've had their low points, sure, but there are plenty of key periods in their careers when they were making a ton of money. The Bendis/Maleev run (in which Matt is a high-profile public figure and goes to court wearing $2,000 suits) is an easy example, but we can look much earlier than that too. Matt is referred to as "one of the finest trial lawyers in the nation" as early as Daredevil volume 1 #20, and check out his swanky, tricked-out Sutton Place brownstone:

Daredevil vol. 1 #167 by David Michelinie, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and Joe Rosen

Given this, I tend to think that Matt hasn't had too much trouble paying off his loans.

Thanks for the great question!

[bookoftheironfist]

Danny: “How do you kick somebody’s head off in zero gravity conditions? Start with the weapon-- use the inertia to spin around and-- then shove off the wall and bring it to him-- Even shattered, the stub of the whip-sword still looks nasty-- then take it-- and him-- out. And then...Stellar Astro-Fist. Um...Kick of the Geosynchronous Thunderbird. Something. Doesn’t matter. I made it up. What’s got two thumbs and didn’t boot in front of millions of people while inventing zero-g kung fu?” Defenders (2011) #1 by Matt Fraction, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson, Sonia Oback, and Clayton Cowles

In which Danny fends off assassins in low orbit.

For the record, this is not actually his first time fighting while weightless. All the way back in Marvel Premiere #22, he and one of his early antagonists were thrust into an abstract pocket dimension created by Master Khan, which had the fun feature of no gravity.

"The odds here are against you. For you were never trained to use your kung fu skills...where gravity does not exist! You float helplessly as the razor-sharp shuriken shrieks past your head. Each movement sends you drifting even more helplessly. Each succeeding shuriken passes even more closely to your person." Marvel Premiere #22 by Tony Isabella, Arvell Jones, George Roussos, Aubrey Bradford, and Karen Mantlo

Fortunately, Danny was trained to adapt quickly to new environments, even very odd ones, and just as he does in the above scene from Defenders, he manages to find his space legs in time to fight back.

[mellosdrawings]

"He grumbles just as much too."

[an-established-butt-dent]

Dorian Pavus, present age

Over a period of 10 years I imagine Dorian to have collected quite the library.

[meandtheyeehaws]

they got the quievies after this

[jeonseoguu]

PILOT JOSEPH !!!!!! (he stole the plane)

the homing pigeon is there so that he can send for help when the inevitable crash happens

[theotherendcomics]

[chloesimaginationthings]

Do you see what Hayato doesn’t?..

[vivitalks]

i'm sure this post has been made before but the "the list of people i trust and things i believe is down to no one and nothing" to "i trust angus mcdonald entirely" journey that taako takes in the span of roughly one in-fiction hour during lunar interlude reunion tour is so important to me. adventuring partners and friends who have saved his bacon more times than he can count? nah fuck em. organization that has protected him and given him a purpose and fresh start? new stone of farspeech who dis. this nerdy ass boy detective? "angus i trust you implicitly and here's the 100% exact truth as we understand it"

[daresplaining]

Daredevil vol. 3 #1 by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, Joe Rivera, Javier Rodriguez, and Joe Caramagna

Daredevil vol. 3 #19 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Javier Rodriguez, and Joe Caramagna

I don't think I've ever noticed this callback (haha...sorry) before, and it's great. In the top panel, Matt is at the top of his game--cool, confident, in-control. In the bottom panel, nineteen issues later, his life is crumbling, he's having one of the worst fights with Foggy that they've ever been through, his grasp on reality is slipping (for supervillain reasons), and he's misplaced his grapple hook and is possibly seconds from death. "Call you back" in the first scene is just a casual "goodbye" for the moment; in the second, it's a bleak, masked way of saying "goodbye" possibly for good.

[bookoftheironfist]

Power Man and Iron Fist vol. 2 #1 by Fred Van Lente, Wellinton Alves, Bruno Hang, Nelson Pereira, and Joe Caramagna

What the sliding timescale will do to a person.

[soothedcerberus]

A shame we never got to see more of these two and their bratty-imp- sometimes-demonlord partner. 😞

[an-established-butt-dent]

What always intrigued me about the storyline with a romanced Solas is that Lavellan was so close to finding out the truth.

She must have had some suspicions before, but she never pushed him for the truth. She gave him time to open up on his own terms, to share when he was ready, which we know he almost did in Crestwood.

I wonder about the demons he fought in his head, the times duty came before love, while at the same time she made him question everything.

Such a tragic lovestory and no I’m still not over it it. :(

[nofacednerd]

so this was basically the end of tonight’s episode right

[balis77]

Honestly, the funniest thing DC could do right now is have a crossover episode between My Adventures With Superman and Batman: Caped Crusader with the explanation of "Oh, Caped Crusader isn't set in the 40s/50s or anything. Gotham is just Like That."

[ticklishcicada]

Zacks flashlight dies

Context is in my Zack Lives AU Tag