Summary
Daredevil: Born Againis finally hitting Disney+, and while fans are excited to see the show take on the legacy of the previous Netflix show, there’s one long-standing plot tradition that won’t be making the jump over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fans have been eager to seeDaredevil: Born Againpremiere on Disney+, none more so than fans of leading man Charlie Cox’s first run as the titular character on the Netflix era showDaredevil.The show was canned along with the rest of Netflix’s Marvel slate of shows in light of Disney’s impending reacquisition of the rights to the characters, and fans had a tense wait between that cancellation and the revival being cleared for development at Marvel Studios. While there’s beena considerable time gap betweenDaredevilandBorn Again,the new show is bringing the best characters from the Netflix era into the MCU, with even more from the extended universe that birthedThe Defendersrumored to be coming soon.
WhileDaredevil: Born Againalso took inspiration from the Netflix show’s best scenes, there was one facet of the older series thatBorn Againshowrunner Dario Scardapane absolutely didn’t want the Disney+ revival to inherit from its predecessor. As reported byPopverse, Scardapane recently revealed thatDaredevil: Born Againwouldn’t keep the dynamic between the Man Without Fear and the Kingpin the same as it had been in the previous installment for one major reason. “The battle of Kingpin and Daredevil had become static,” Scardapane explained. “If you look at how it ends almost every season [of the Netflix series], they punch the shit out of each other, Kingpin goes to jail, we know he’s gonna come back. I didn’t want to do that…The dynamic is way more tense [on the new show]. There’s one scene between them in the first episode that lays it all out. Then we spend the next eight episodes throwing rocks at it.”
The Kingpin is easily the best street-level Marvel villain that’s ever been adapted for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is the political influence he’ll be leveraging to severe effect inBorn Again.As such,, there’s a lot of truth to the idea that how the show manages his rivalry with Daredevil will make or break it in the long-run. The Netflix era show did a great job of building up and utilizing D’Onofriom, who himself put in an irreplaceable performance. Unfortunately, as a multi-season network show with limited access to Marvel characters and no theatrical entries, the Netflix show has to end seasons in fittingly conclusive ways, but couldn’t afford to let D’Onofrio’s character go to waste just to justify the endings. With more confidence and far more resources in terms of IP and existing stories, the MCU can avoid these issues and have far more tension. Fans should also be prepared for the fact that part ofthis tense dynamic will come from keeping the two apart, according to Cox himself. This makes perfect sense for tensions that will need to simmer over more than one season.
The showrunners recently confirmed an earlier statement from star Vincent D’Onofrio thatDaredevil: Born Again’sfirst two seasons are two parts of a whole, so fans will have to wait for the second season to see the entire thing played out and paid off. However, as D’Onofrio assured fans when teasing the same connectivity between the seasons, the first set of episodes will have more than enough action and excitement for fans to stand on its own merits, both within and outside of the single overarching plot that both seasons share. With the first two episodes already premiering on Disney+, fans can finally dive in and see what Cox’s Daredevil looks like now that he’s beenBorn Again.
