Because of her appearance in Iron Fist Season 2 I’ve been checking out the original Nocenti Typhoid Mary stories.
I’d heard of the character and how Matt cheated on Karen with her which always seemed questionable to me.
Having read some of the stories and background info on her though some things served to muddy the waters and raise a potentially alternate interpretation I’d like to share.
Okay, so Typhoid Mary has Dissociative Identity Disorder (more commonly known as a split personality. In the context of what we’re discussing, these are the passive and nice Mary and the more criminal and violent Typhoid (Mary), the latter of whom has access to super powers like pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and telepathy including mental suggestions. She can for example make simple minded people or creatures fall asleep and her other powers even manifests itself by her commanding things to happen. E.g. she’ll mentally say ‘ignite’ to light a cigar from across the room. Her mental suggestions though seem to be applicable even on stronger willed people. In the latest Typhoid Fever: Spider-Man issue she exerts a powerful hold over Spider-Man, who is famously strong willed. She also has the ability to seduce men. Not in a ‘I’ve trained for this in the KGB’ kind of way, I mean it’s literally part of her powerset.
Now I got this info from Wikipedia and her Marvel.wiki page so if any of this is wrong please correct me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary_(comics)
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Walker_(Earth-616)
In addition, whilst most sources state that in her Mary persona she cannot use any of these powers, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe vol 3 #7 implies that Typhoid persona could at times control the actions of the Mary persona to some degree.
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This was in reference to Mary’s first meeting with Matt Murdock in Daredevil #254, Typhoid Mary’s first appearance. The Marvel.wiki also references that issue when stating:
This is important to bear in mind for my theory going forward.“Although Mary cannot access her powers, Typhoid has occasionally expressed their powers through Mary while Mary was in control, and without Mary realizing it.”
So in DD #254, Kingpin learns about Typhoid Mary’s past and her abilities and hatches a plan to use her to ruin Daredevil by breaking up him and Karen Page. Specifically this involves Mary seducing Matt.
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It’s kind of weird that Kingpin just PRESUMES Daredevil could be seduced by Mary in the first place, that he’d fall for her being loyal to Karen (whom he knows Matt loves a lot and whom he’s been through a lot of serious stuff with). What’s even more weird is the fact that he chooses Typhoid Mary for this task.
Couldn’t he have just hired ANY woman to get close to Matt and seduce him, especially someone more reliable than this murderous mental patient who’s been wrecking his territory?
He talks about wanting Typhoid to ‘conquer’ Daredevil whilst Mary seduces Matt Murdock, which I presume means he wants Typhoid to beat him up as opposed to anything romantic/sexual.
But again…he could hire anyone to do that. In fact he has the means to give people super powers, he did that with the Black Cat as part of a (successful) scheme to wreck her relationship with Spider-Man. Even if you ignore that with the Kingpin’s resources it is totally possible for him to just hire a super powered person or give powers to a woman and use them to attack Matt/DD in both identities.
DD #254 does explain however that Mary and Typhoid exhibit different physiological tendencies, like different heart rates and scents. So this makes her ideal to fool DD’s hypersenses, but again with his resources he could find a way to bypass those. A scented costume and an assassin who knows how to control her heart rate and stuff could probably fool him.
So why pin his hopes upon Typhoid Mary, whom he hasn’t even made this offer to yet? In fact Typhoid asks him why her as opposed to any assassin when he offers her a million dollars for the job.
Kingpin’s immediate response:
To this Typhoid laughs and says that’s ‘child’s play’.“Can you make any man fall in love with you?”
In the end of the issue Mary is at a hospital with Matt Murdock and mentally commands him to look over at her then sit next to him before she begins to immediately put the moves on him. You kind of need to see the pages for yourself because I can’t describe them adequately.
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Literally in the next issue (effectively their second interaction) Matt, in front of a blind child, whilst a phone message from Karen about how she loves and cares for him, is kissing Mary. Also in this scene Mary/Typhoid has a really evil facial expression at one point.
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Kingpin’s attitude, his plan, Mary’s ability to implant mental suggestions in Matt and his falling for her seriously quickly indicates (like her wiki articles states) that she not only has a literal power to seduce people via her telepathy but that she was using this to influence Matt.
Further evidence comes in DD #255. In Daredevil’s first battle with Typhoid she exhibits the ability to bamboozle his radar sense via her mental powers.
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During the battle Typhoid kisses Daredevil and his thought captions read:
He proceeds to kick her and then continues to think:“I’m hot feverish, she’s confusing me…fell like I’m burning…and I hate her!”
In DD #256 we get this scene between Matt and Mary when they’ve seemingly randomly met in the street.“So sick, so hot…she’s disgusting.”
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I’m not pulling these out of contest, it happens just like that and this is as far as we know only essentially the third time they’ve ever interacted. Notice how abrupt Matt switches between saying they shouldn’t be doing anything to passionately kissing her.