To be upfront, I love Daredevil. I love comic books and I believe that Daredevil is the best character in all of Marvel Comics. Ever since Frank Miller’s seminal comic book run in the 1980s, the character has had a succession of fantastic writers at the helm, from Brian Michael Bendis to Mark Waid to Chip Zdarsky. Netflix’s “Daredevil,” airing 2015 to 2018, is one of my favorite shows. The third season of that series might just be my favorite season of television ever produced.
Suffice to say, the Marvel Studios revival “Daredevil: Born Again” had big shoes to fill, especially for a superfan like me. For the most part, it succeeded.
Daredevil occupies a precarious position in comic book editorial. He was never as popular as characters like Spider-Man or The Avengers, but was respected enough to attract some of the comic industry’s top talent. He’s a rare character in the comic book landscape whose status quo is allowed to change and genuinely evolve; he’s not stuck in a limbo where nothing is ever allowed to change. Batman and Spider-Man (at least their comic book counterparts) will always be pretty much the same character, grappling with the same villains and personal struggles that they have for decades. On the other hand, Daredevil has cycled through dozens of supporting casts, been publicly ousted, put in prison, possessed by supernatural demons, become the Mayor of New York, turned to priesthood and so much more across his Marvel Comics tenure. He’s the rare superhero who grows and evolves.
To my surprise, much of that is felt in “Daredevil: Born Again.” I feared this would be a reboot, taking the character and cast and throwing away the development in the Netflix series to start fresh. Luckily, this is a full revival, building on the established tone, characters and narrative of the original while telling a fresh new story.
Do you need to watch the Netflix series to enjoy this one? Many might disagree, but I would argue no. I certainly recommend it, since you’ll get a full understanding of the show’s cast of characters and their relationships with one another — and not to mention it’s phenomenal television in its own right. But there’s enough context given in the first episodes of “Born Again” to catch you up on who Matt Murdock is and what’s happening in his life. There may be moments that won’t immediately make sense without the context of what came before, but the show quickly moves past them and gets right back to the action.
“Daredevil: Born Again” follows attorney at law Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) who lost his sight in a chemical spill as a child. While he went blind, his other senses became heightened to the point of superpower, and he protects Hell’s Kitchen as the brutal crime-fighting vigilante Daredevil. But now, he’s put the mask down and abandoned his violent tendencies. All the while, the former crime lord Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) known by the moniker Kingpin, past rival of both Murdock and Daredevil, has supposedly turned over a new leaf and announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York City. The two’s paths collide once again, and Murdock must contend with fighting for justice in an increasingly corrupt city.
There’s a maturity at the heart of “Born Again” that I wasn’t expecting. The Netflix series tackled plenty of mature ideas and themes, from brutal cycles of violence to Murdock’s tenuous faith in Catholicism to the never-ending struggle between good and evil. On Disney+, I didn’t fully expect to see anything like that tackled, and certainly not in such an overtly political way. This is a series where a convicted felon becomes a villainous corrupt mayor, a premise that’s somehow less comic book-y and unfathomable than what’s happening in the White House. There’s a prominent subplot about police officers co-opting the Punisher’s skull insignia, a real life phenomenon associated with police brutality and vigilantism. “Born Again” acknowledges and explores these ideas in relation to our own real world, which gives the show a refreshingly grounded scale that feels more relevant than anything else in Marvel’s repertoire.
If Marvel Studios learns anything from the success of this show, it should be to make sure that the Marvel Universe really does feel like the world outside your window. Their comics used to advertise themselves as such, and seeing Daredevil go up against a very real, tangible political corruption is a much-welcomed return to form. Not every Marvel property needs to be as dark as this one — this show features some grisly bloody violence that I wouldn’t want to see in a show like “Ms. Marvel” — but it would be nice to see more grounded stakes and characters than the all-too-commonplace multiversal cosmic threat to humanity.
Of course, “Born Again” is not perfect. The pacing of this season is all over the place, with plot threads left dangling to be resolved and then cast to the wayside or only briefly addressed later. One subplot involving a graffiti artist serial killer called Muse (Hunter Doohan) is built up for several episodes, but then resolved all too quickly. The season as a whole consists of a few multi-episode arcs, and those are certainly engaging, but they feel somewhat disconnected from the direction the show takes in its final two episodes. Those dips in quality are to be expected, however. “Daredevil: Born Again” was initially announced as an 18-episode season, but was cut down to nine and given a creative overhaul replete with reshoots and rewrites. The result at times feels like television salvaged from two different versions of the same show. Despite this, it miraculously largely works.
A lot of that success hinges on some downright brilliant performances. Cox and D’Onofrio are at top form here, taking center stage with gravitas. D’Onofrio’s screen presence, especially, is absolutely commanding, oozing with villainous charm while Cox plays into the moral dilemma of a superheroic lawyer with ease. It helps that they’re bolstered by some other top tier performances, from Jon Bernthal’s menacing Punisher, Margarita Levieva’s grounding psychologist Heather Glenn, Ayelet Zurer’s calculating villainess Vanessa Fisk and Wilson Bethel’s psychopathically terrifying assassin Bullseye. Each character bounces off one another so naturally that it rarely feels like a superhero show at all. These are expert dramaturgs, and it’s a joy to watch them work.
The first season goes out with a bang, and sets the stage for a second season to take things up a notch. I was engaged enough to watch each episode as it aired, but the final two had me sitting on the edge of my seat, eager for more. When season two drops, I’ll be there the moment it does.
I can easily recommend “Daredevil: Born Again” to anyone seeking a more mature, grounded superhero drama, or anyone looking for something new and fresh in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whether you’re a lifelong fan of the character like me or looking for a jumping on point, you really can’t go wrong with this exhilarating revival.
Literally born again from the ashes of the beloved Netflix series, the new Disney+ revival brings familiar faces and a mature new direction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Read More