The first season of Daredevil: Born Again finished filming in April 2024. And yet the show’s storyline resonates with current events in the United States in 2025. This is entirely coincidental, as the show adapts several Marvel Comics stories from the past decade. However, this has still made the Marvel Studios production all the more timely.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 opens in the midst of a contentious election for the office of Mayor of New York City. Despite his criminal past, Wilson Fisk manages to secure the most votes. The Kingpin immediately sets about turning Manhattan into his personal kingdom, building a personal army out of police officers with a history of corruption.
(Image Source: Marvel Studios)
Coincidentally, the 2025 Mayoral race in the real New York City has become as contentious as the events of Daredevil: Born Again. Current Mayor Eric Adams became the city’s first mayor to be indicted on criminal charges of bribery in 2024. While the charges were dropped in April 2025, Adams is now running for reelection as an independent. His chief competitor, Andrew Cuomo, is a former governor who resigned in the wake of multiple sexual harassment charges.
(Image Source: Marvel Studios)
Fisk’s army evoked another real world scandal, with a gang within the NYPD adopting the symbol and violent tactics of The Punisher. This has been a problem for decades, with one rogue group of Milwaukee police in 2004 creating a Punishers group. Even before this, however, this point was addressed multiple times in the comics. Frank Castle routinely targeted corrupt cops as much as organized crime. To that end, the Daredevil: Born Again finale featured a scene in which the Punisher rejected the hero worship of Fisk’s followers, calling them “a bunch of clowns.”
(Image Source: Marvel Studios)
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 ended with The Punisher, The Swordsman and several of Fisk’s political enemies imprisoned without trial or charges. This pushed Matt Murdock to start building his own army of the oppressed. This unintentionally mirrors the battle between real estate magnate Donald Trump and the mounting protest of his policies as President. One of the key points of contention involves the wrongful incarceration of Abrego Garcia and Merwil Guttiérez among others.
Daredevil: Born Again was not born of these events. The show, much like the comics that inspired it, were generally aimed against corrupt authority figures. However, Matt Murdock’s closing monologue takes on a new resonance in light of these recent events.
“The system isn’t working. And it’s rotten. But this is our city. Not his. And we can take it back. Together. The weak. The strong. All of us. Resist. Rebel. Rebuild.”
(Image Source: Marvel Studios)
Some claim that comic books and the superhero media they inspire should remain apolitical. However, this ignores that the superhero genre is inherently political, as are comics as a medium. They are also uniquely American, with patriots ranging from Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Nast using simple comics to communicate complex messages.
This tradition was continued by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, whose early Superman comics pit the Man of Steel against corrupt bankers and landlords more than mad scientists and aliens. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby depicted Captain America punching Hitler before the United States got involved in World War II. Thus Daredevil: Born Again is continuing the American comics tradition of standing against oppression and corruption in all forms.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 is now available in its entirety on Disney+