Blindspot, a genius with an invisibility suit and a soft spot for hardworking immigrants like himself, takes up training with New York City’s Man Without Fear to learn how to be a vigilante.
From Illegal Immigrant to Hero
Born and raised by his mother Lu Wei, Samuel “Sam” Chung grows up in a rural farming village in China. As soon as his mother could, she moves them to a city and leaves everything behind. Lu enrolls Sam in a school that trains kids to become acrobats for the Peking Opera, but eventually secures passage to the United States with a people-smuggler and they travel in a packed shipping container across the ocean. A few years pass and Sam’s two-person family unit grows when his sister Hannah is born—automatically a citizen since she was born in the states—though her father is unknown, just like his.
He grows up to work at Columbia University as a janitor. He lives in Chinatown with Hannah, who often encourages him to become a legal citizen through marriage, and go to Columbia instead of cleaning up after the rich kids that go there. But Sam doesn’t have time to meet anyone because he works 14 hours a day to pay their rent. Secretly though, he takes the gig at Columbia so he can audit classes and steal lab time in the middle of the night.
With access to a lab and his genius intellect, he designs an invisibility suit. Despite working on it since he was 12 and intending to file a patent for it, he realizes his status as an illegal immigrant could negatively impact his invention. As such, he decides to become a vigilante and calls himself Blindspot, in honor of all the people like him—the invisible ones smack in the middle of society's blind spot. Seeking out other heroes to learn from, he checks different neighborhoods every night. One night, he tries Hell’s Kitchen and finds Daredevil on a rooftop having defeated a group of criminals. Shocked to have finally found a hero, he falls off the roof but Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, catches him with his Billy club. Sam begins training with him, and the pair patrols Manhattan together.
Genius Designer
Sam is brilliant—he designs a suit that makes himself invisible. The suit runs on batteries, which cost Sam a fortune, but his dedication to using it and becoming a vigilante knows no bounds. Thanks to acrobatic training he receives as a child, he picks up fighting skills quickly under the tutelage of his mentor Daredevil. He becomes an expert at hand-to-hand combat, able to take on and defeat several foes at once. Occasionally, Sam wields a pole arm while fighting to extend his reach and striking power.
After becoming a disciple of the Hand and losing his eyes during a battle with Muse, Sam receives new eyes, thanks to his mother who sacrifices her soul to a vile creature known as the Beast. As such, his new eyes glow blue and everything looks dark to him. He also learns fighting techniques from the Beast.
Connections and Combatants
Sam seeks out other heroes to teach him how to be a vigilante and he comes upon Daredevil who takes him under his wing. While they work closely, Sam remains unaware of his civilian identity, Matt Murdock, even he works with him after injuring his arm in a fight with a brainwashed Elektra Natchios, AKA Elektra.
With Daredevil, they patrol the streets, and save Sam’s mother from the gangster known as Tenfingers thanks in part to Sam joining the Church of the Sheltering Hands, an organization affiliated with the Hand. Blindspot also makes an enemy when he tracks a murderous mural artist known as Muse and ends up losing his eyes to the villain. His mother trades her soul to the Beast, a demonic entity tied to the ninja clan known as the Hand. In doing so, Sam’s eyes are returned but changed.
Later, Sam makes a deal with the Beast to use his power to defeat Muse. After sparing Muse, the Beast and the Hand attack New York and Blindspot joins with Daredevil, other vigilantes, and the Ordo Draconum to defeat the assailants. They successfully take them down together.
Blindspot’s Biography
When Sam’s mother Lu Wei secured him an invitation into the Church of the Sheltering Hands, Sam joined to secretly investigate their activities and take them down with Daredevil’s help. He discovered that the church was affiliated with Tenfingers and the ninja cult, the Hand. Sam confronted his mother, now a lieutenant and a warrior for Tenfingers possessing eight fingers on each hand, and tried to convince her to leave him and the Church. Not getting through to her, he revealed his identity as Blindspot by becoming invisible and told her he didn’t want to see her anymore. Though he reappeared and didn’t give up on her, telling her there was another way. Just then the undead warrior of the Hand known as the Fist attacked the church’s temple. Tenfingers ordered Lu to kill all the witnesses. Lu disobeyed and killed her fellow lieutenants, while Sam helped the witnesses escape. Lu departed Sam but before she did, she left him with a warning to never save her again.
When a confrontation with Elektra went poorly, and left Sam with a broken arm, he started working with Daredevil’s civilian identity, Matt Murdock, though he remained unaware of that fact. When his arm healed, he hopped back into action as Blindspot and found a mural made from blood, left there by the murderous installation artist Muse. When Muse kidnapped a judge, police officers, and a councilwoman, Blindspot tracked him down and after he liberated the hostages, Muse captured him. When Daredevil finally found Sam, Muse attacked Sam, gouging his eyes out. Muse was eventually captured shortly afterward.
After losing his eyes, they were returned to him when his mother Lu gave her soul to the grotesque creature known as the Beast. Determined to save his mother, he offered a different soul in exchange, that of Daredevil’s. Daredevil traveled to China at Sam’s request, but soon after, Sam betrayed him and nearly beat him half to death. In holding him captive, Sam learned his mentor’s secret identity, that of lawyer Matt Murdock who he had been working for. Eventually he realized that Matt, too, was his family, and ultimately saved him from the Beast. But his mother knew they wouldn’t escape without her help so she fought the Beast then sacrificed herself, and the Beast teleported himself and the temple away, leaving Sam and Matt behind. Sam then admitted to Matt why he became Blindspot. It wasn’t to help people, it was to become valuable—afraid his invisibility suit would get stolen from him because he wasn’t a legal citizen, he sought out heroes to train him, to become indispensable. Matt encouraged him to return to the states, pulling some strings in Washington, and filed an asylum claim for Sam with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which he could prove since Sam had an evil ninja clan after him.
After Muse escaped custody, he killed six police officers and Blindspot went after him alone. He lured him out by destroying one of his murals, but was overpowered once he faced him again. The Beast returned to offer Sam assistance which Sam agreed to and was able to defeat Muse, but decided to spare him. The Beast saw this act as a betrayal and attacked Manhattan out of spite, while Muse committed suicide. The attack was carried out by the Hand, and Sam worked with Matt, who had temporarily become Mayor of New York City, to fight them off.
When the Beast offered a deal, Sam in exchange for the city, Sam was about to accept the trade, but Nlini Karnik, the police commissioner stepped in to stop him. Daredevil alongside other vigilantes and the Ordo Draconum defeated the Hand. Afterward, the Ordo Draconum considered Blindspot as a member of their order.
