Content Warning: Spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home and Marvel's Hawkeye series are discussed in this article.
Netflix's incarnation of Daredevil was praised for how it adapted the character from the source material. That's why the past week has been a big one for Daredevil fans. Charlie Cox's return as Matt Murdock in a Spider-Man: No Way Home cameo and Kingpin's proper return in the latest episode of Hawkeye signaled the start of a revival in the MCU.
The Netflix series gave an iteration of the Man Without Fear that's a love letter to the comics, namely from Frank Miller's work onward. But since comic book/superhero adaptations are almost always "loose," there are certainly some notable differences from the page to the screen.
Daredevil Starts With The Yellow Suit After The "Makeshift" One
Comic books have been using the multiverse as a plot device for decades already, making the concept of "canon" more fluid. But even the more conventional timelines generally acknowledged that Daredevil's early days saw him in the yellow and red suit. Once Matt transitions out of his makeshift black suit, he dons this admittedly bizarre one as an homage to his murdered father.
Meanwhile, the Netflix series had him evolve more naturally into the iconic red. But given Matt's re-introduction in Spider-Man, Daredevil has several places he can appear in now. The rumor mill has been claiming he'll suit up next in yellow for Disney+'s She-Hulk series.
Father Lantom Isn't Associated With Daredevil
In terms of smaller supporting roles, Father Lantom was arguably one of Daredevil's best characters. The superhero has inherently heavy Catholic themes that make him as complex as he is, so having a priest be his moral, psychological, and spiritual anchor was a seamless fit.
But despite the compelling dynamic between Matt Murdock and Father Lantom in the show, the priest is associated with Marvel's Runaways in the comics rather than Daredevil. While Lantom isn't there with Matt in the comics, the latter does have fascinating interactions with other trusted priests he's known since childhood.
Bullseye Is Elektra's Initial Killer
Season two of Daredevil introduced Matt's most complicated love interest, Elektra Natchios. The mysterious Greek assassin gets killed by Nobu and the Hand at the end of the season, before getting resurrected as a weapon for them in The Defenders.
She was created by Frank Miller in the comics, and at the end of her brief story arc in Daredevil, she gets killed in a brutal fight with Bullseye. While the circumstances of her death differed, her resurrection was similar. Later in the comic book series, the Hand finds and resurrects her for nefarious purposes.
Bullseye Kills Karen Page In A Church
Among the many awful things that have happened to Daredevil and company in the comics, Karen Page's murder is one of the events that had the most profound emotional effects on Matt. Karen understandably escapes this fate in the show, as her death in the comics was controversial as is.
Having Bullseye kill her in the show would have come across as needlessly bleak, but it does use this as an easter egg of sorts. Father Lantom essentially took her place in the comics, though, the scene expertly tensed fans up into thinking they would see a straight adaptation of the scene from Guardian Devil.
Claire Temple Was Different In The Comics & Didn't Associate With Daredevil
Rosario Dawson put on a great performance as Claire Temple in Daredevil's first two seasons. After her complicated relationship with Matt, she became a supporting character elsewhere in Netflix's corner of the Marvel universe. Despite Claire's intimate connection to Matt in the show, though, she was a completely different person in the comics and was mainly associated with Luke Cage.
Also, this universe's Claire Temple is a clever amalgamation of the comics' Clair and another character called the Night Nurse. The latter was a nurse that worked off the record to treat superheroes who needed to protect their identities.
Leland Owlsley Is A Recurring Supervillain
The Netflix adaptation opted for a take on Owlsley that was a minor, weak antagonist as opposed to a supervillain. In the comics, though, Owlsley is a recurring supervillain and a major member of Daredevil's rogues' gallery. He's another one of the big heads of organized crime in New York (below Wilson Fisk/Kingpin) but is suitably intimidating in his own right.
Owlsley is far more physically imposing and is characterized by his brash, violent, and erratic behavior. Reports and rumors that circulated after Daredevil's cancelation suggested that Owlsley's son -- mentioned in the first season -- would have returned to Hell's Kitchen and become the proper "Owl."
Ben Urich Is Like Batman's Commissioner Gordon
Vondie Curtis-Hall's portrayal of Ben Urich was exceptionally done and reminiscent of what the comics' version would be like when first meeting Daredevil. It's a compelling dynamic on its own merits and also looks partially influenced by Batman and Commissioner Gordon's relationship, especially in the beginning.
But the show focused on him more so in tandem with Karen, and while season one was masterfully done overall, Ben Urich's death felt premature. It was an incredibly tense and terrifying scene, but the comics have used Daredevil and Urich's partnership and friendship to be more recurring and developed.
Melvin Potter Was The Supervillain "Gladiator"
Netflix's version of Melvin Potter is certainly suggested/shown to be psychologically vulnerable and dangerously unstable. Potter is depicted as someone who's normally a gentle person, but under the right amount of pressure, can be manipulated into a legitimate physical threat. In the two fights he and Daredevil found themselves in, Potter showed little restraint in trying to viciously kill the superhero.
In the comics, Potter is a costume designer with delusions of grandeur that he was superior to heroes, leading to him becoming the Gladiator. While fans never see Netflix's Melvin Potter take on the supervillain persona, their take was a smart combination of the comics version's most defining traits.
How Kingpin Discovered Daredevil's Identity
If Daredevil season one was a brilliant homage to Miller's The Man Without Fear, then season three did the same for the writer's Born Again arc with both often cited as some of Daredevil's best comics, The latter two stories put Matt into one of the most grueling points in his life, with the show taking some inspiration for how the Devil of Hell's Kitchen fell so far from his graces. Kingpin was the dark architect of Matt's shambolic life in both, but Karen Page was the catalyst for this in Born Again.
Struggling with addiction, she sold Daredevil's identity to mobsters out of desperation. Eventually, it got sold upward to Wilson Fisk himself. In the MCU, Fisk was suggested to have discovered his identity in Daredevil season two when Murdock threatened Fisk in prison that he'd legally go after Vanessa. After their tense altercation, he asked his henchman to find every possible file on Matthew Murdock.
Bullseye's Origins
Season three also tastefully incorporated Bullseye in this remixed version of Born Again and Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev's Daredevil run. Bullseye is introduced as Benjamin Poindexter: a psychopathic FBI agent whose early childhood was troubled by the deaths of his parents.
He's psychologically incapable of empathy, and his dark youth manifests those symptoms into a serial-killer mindset. His origins in the comics are different, however. Bullseye originally lived with his brother and their abusive father. He does eventually go on to play Minor League Baseball given his skills, which were seamlessly refashioned into Poindexter's childhood in the show.