Matt Murdock

"We don't live in a world that's fair. We live in this one."

- Matt Murdock

Matthew Micheal Murdock appears in CAHniverse! and is played by Rick. He currently lives in one of the ground floor rooms of the Jebri House and helps around the house sometimes when he's not busy with a case (or vigilantism).

Personality
Matt is a very complicated man, having dealt with immense guilt and loss in the past; losing his father, his eyesight, and being abandoned by a subsequent father figure which led him with difficulty forging real emotional connections. Apparent Daddy issues, considering loss of his father and Stick ditching him when Matt began expressing filial affection. Murdock does have n incredible sense of justice and wanting to do the right thing. The reason he became a lawyer to begin with and settled to becoming the Daredevil when the justice system failed to do what it was built to. His strong desire for honor and righteousness was what made him convince Foggy to start their own firm that focused on helping innocent people. Though, despite this, he is firmly against killing others; even to the point on issuing a “no-kill” rule on Sticks when they briefly worked together for whatever his old mentor was after. Matt can otherwise be very brutal and ruthless, mostly as a vigilante.

As a vigilante and attorney, he does have moments where he questions is own morality; like whether not not that what he does is good enough to keep the people he put away from ever doing it again. If his visits to the Church and Father Lantom would say anything about how he questions himself. He does end up springing back and making the final decision on what he needs to do, eventually. This also reveals that he's Catholic, or of that religious belief; yet he is otherwise very accepting of a lot of things. Otherwise, he is a very excellent and convincing attorney. Murdock, under all that ruthlessness and firm justice, is really a nice man. A gigantic dork if he lets himself loose around others. Very caring, does have fun and can be witty or sarcastic. Shooting some snark or jokes on occasion. Even he has his own flaws, own grudges and habits much like anyone else.

Abilities
Murdock is a professional lawyer, highly persuasive and trained. He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University, and has some impressive ability to use many legal loopholes and footnotes without risking any law breaking. It was also during college that he picked up a few languages that he's now fluent in: Spanish and Russian, aside from English being his first tongue. Among his Attorney career, he also has a skill as a detective; able to figure out complex problems and having his hyper-senses assist to finding clues and evidence to crime scenes. This all also connects a keen skill of interrogation, able to use many different methods to extract information and his knowledge of criminology, profiling, and torture is often overwhelming. His gifted intellect can say a lot about his skills as an impelling investigator with multiple languages, as his intelligence and brain functions have been apparent even before he was affected by the radioactive isotope; his high grades, late night training, and little need of sleep is an example of that.

During his training under Stick's care, he has become an incredibly skilled fighter. Ninja training had paid off as it tied to his hyper-sense. Master martial artist who's technique harmonically combines boxing, ninjutsu, jujutsu, aiki-jujutsu, Savate, Krav Maga, Capoeira, Eskrima, Aikido, and various styles of Karate and Kung Fu together in varying degrees. His skills as a martial artist likely ranks to at least 10th degree black belt in Ninjutsu, considering that Ninjutsu was the art style that Stick has almost exclusively trained him in. Matt nearly matches his old master, even with being able to control his powers. Stealth, acrobatics, and use of weapons is a no brainer in his training with Stick in his youth; though he prefers staff weapons or batons. Matt might have some little experience in Life-energy control, as in chi-blocking, to the point where he could disable his opponent with his extensive knowledge of pressure points. His ability to disable others in this way is however limited, as it only lasts for several long minutes or a few hours.

His powers, however, are another matter. Since he was permanently blinded from the chemical isotope, it also granted him superhuman abilities. Incredible reflexes and balance—and more specifically, his other working senses; Superhuman touch, taste, smell, and hearing. They can be particularly sensitive; enough to be able to detect ink on a paper, feel temperature and pressure changes, feel presences within five feet, manipulate his own body functions, distinguish between identical twins or clones, detect odors if an atmospheric concentration of thirty parts per million, able to identify individuals by smell and hearing alone despite how well they camouflage, resistance to illusions and mind control, blind fight, detect an acoustic pressure change of one decibel at a pressure level of seven decibles, which allows him to hear heartbeats and voice tones, detect lies, use some form of echolocation or sonar/radar sense even through walls or obstructions, determine every ingredient within a food or drink so long as there are at least twenty milligrams of it present. He is able to control these abilities to the extent of normal human levels without it being a large distraction to himself. There is also no question of how skilled of a tracker he is with these powers. However, they are particularly sensitive and can be used against him. Some issues that give him trouble are laminated paper when attempting to read, certain smell tampering gases, certain flash-bangs that disable hearing, very fowl tastes, pacemakers, calm liars, the fact that his powers don't really give him any physical superhuman conditioning as he suffers injuries like any other human, immobilization, great pain, or otherwise things that can disrupt his acute senses and radar sense.

Backstory
Matt Murdock was raised by a single father named Johnathan “Battling Jack” Murdock, claiming that his mother had died. Jack was a professional boxer who pushed for his son to study so he wouldn't become an “uneducated pug” like him. Matt spent nights stitching his father up each time he came home from a boxing match. One day, little Matt decided to go buy a pet as a present for him and his dad; buying four little turtles in a single large fish bowl that he carried home. Along the way, he saw a blind man crossing the street in danger of a speeding truck, to which he instantly dropped the bowl containing the turtles and lept to push the old blind man from harms way. It caused an accident where he truck nearly ran him over, but the vehicle itself ended up flipping over and releasing large containers containing a radioactive isotope. One got splashed on Matt's face and the chemicals were absorbed into his eyes as his father tried to clean his face when he arrived at the scene. The last thing Matt saw was his father trying to comfort him before he lost his vision, and he screamed as he realized he could never see again. The man he saved had told his father that he saved him. Matt lost his sight at the age of nine.

From that day, his life had changed. Jack put all his money from his matches he could to help his son adjust to his new life. Making sure Matt learned braille and how to use his other senses to navigate the world. For months, Matt learned to cope with his change; learning braille and controlling his heightened senses. His father continued to work as a boxer despite losing his fights and one day returned home with his face all busted up. Jack let Matt touch his face and made him promise not to be like him. Matt had overheard his father being offered money to lose his upcoming fight while reading in Fogwell's Gym. He listened to the fight on television on that night, cheering as his father won the match against Carl Creel. However, when Jack didn't arrive home as Matt waited, he ran to the Gym to look for him. He was stopped by a police officer, learning that something had happened and he immediately rushed to where his father laid on the ground in the alley. Jack was murdered by local mobsters, and Matt couldn't yet accept the death as he cried over his father's body.

Maggie Murdock who was actually alive and became a nun in Saint Agnes Orphanage, took Matt in in attempt to help. Without Matt's knowledge that she remained alive, of course. When it became clear that he was suffering with his enhanced senses, Maggie sought help from an old blind man named Stick to help Matt. Stick had reluctantly agreed and took him in, training him not only to control his enhanced senses, but to fight. A harsh training regime which turned Murdock into a powerful fighter with almost complete control of his blindness. Murdock gave Stick a bracelet he made when they first met and Stick crushed it, telling him he could no longer train him and vanished. The blind kid would not see him again for many years.

As he grew up, though under the Nun that took him in after Jack's death, he enrolled in Columbia University Law School during his early twenties to become a lawyer. It was when he met Foggy Nelson who was his roommate, and they became fast friends with big hopes and dreams. They planned to become a lawyer team after they graduated. However, after Murdock met a girl named Electra Natchios when he and Nelson decided a debutant's ball through the kitchen, which began the spiral that had dented his education. Murdock and Electra both did delinquent things together, stealing a car, breaking into Fogwell's Gym where they jokingly fought each other which started a sexual relationship, among many possibly minor illegal things. Unfortunately, their relationship came to an end when Electra set up to make Murdock confront Roscoe Sweeney, the man responsible for his father's death. Murdock beat up Sweeney, but refused to to kill the man and instead called the police. Electra vanished after expressing disappointment, never to be seen by Matt again.

Murdock cleaned himself up, he and Foggy swore to work together. He revealed that it didn't work out between him and Electra, and they went out for a beer run. After they graduated, they worked as interns to a large lawyer firm, Landman and Zack, before they became a part of Ace Attorney as very talented and effective Defense Attorneys in their own law firm: Nelson and Murdock.

As for Murdock's secret career of vigilantism, it started when he and Foggy quit Landman and Zack. He had trouble sleeping because he kept hearing a neighbor's daughter being abused by her father next door. Calling the police didn't work as the father fled the scene and the mother and daughter hiding the truth. This sparked Murdock to don a black eyeless mask and black clothes as he tracked down the father to the train yard where he worked and proceeded to severely beat him, threatening him that he will find and possibly kill him if he ever touched his own daughter again. Matt slept better ever sense, but became a vigilante at night on a regular basis on top of his Lawyer career with Nelson. He frequented church for moral support, and one day he went to confession to seek forgiveness for not what he done, but what he was going to do. The same night, he tracked down some gangsters led by Turk Barrett to stop a kidnapping and sex trafficking, attacking the men and freeing the captives. After that was when he and Foggy joined Ace Attorney.

Then The Black Mask soon became “The Devil of Hell's Kitchen” a couple years later with help from a very talented Tailor that once worked for a crime boss. His identity as Daredevil is still a secret to this day.

How he fits into Ace Attorney
He fits as a blind Defense lawyer with incredible superhuman senses that make up for his lack of sight. Matt's partner in court cases is Foggy Nelson, who has an equally keen observation and helps Matt when actual vision may be important for a case or when Matt overlooks something. They have started the Nelson and Murdock law firm together, of course, as Defense Attorneys for the AA.

CAHniverse!
Matt Murdock showed up at the Jebri House one day while bringing home groceries, having mistaken the house as where he lives. As it turned out, time and space had changed things to the point where Matt now just lives in the Jebri House on the ground floor. With some help, he was able to adjust to the new place and become a good help around the house. Sometimes attends to a few family (Sometimes not so family) games.