Daredevil is finally making his way to the MCU in Daredevil: Born Again, but Marvel should take one of Netflix's most brutal tricks to make the show as powerful as possible. Netflix's Daredevil debuted in 2015, running for three seasons and becoming one of the most popular shows on the streaming service before being canceled along with the other shows in the Defenders Saga in 2018. Now, with the reveal of Daredevil: Born Again's release in 2024, Marvel can learn some tricks from the Devil of Hell's Kitchen's popular past series.
Introduced in Marvel Comics in 1964's Daredevil #1, attorney Matt Murdock takes on the vigilante persona of Daredevil to fight street-level crime in his home of Hell's Kitchen. A tragic childhood accident caused Murdock to go blind and heightened his other senses to superhuman levels. Daredevil has been a long-standing hero in the comics, and has made appearances in live action and animation several times, but perhaps his most popular stint on TV came with Netflix's Daredevil that ran from 2015 to 2018. The now-defunct Marvel Television and Netflix brought Daredevil's brutality to the screen in their TV-MA adaptation with Charlie Cox in the titular role, who made his first appearance in the MCU proper as Peter Parker's lawyer in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Netflix's Daredevil gifted viewers some incredibly violent action scenes, perhaps the best of which took the form of one-shot fight scenes in contained spaces including a hallway in season 1, episode 2, "Cut Man," a stairwell in season 2, episode 3, "New York's Finest," and an entire prison in season 3, episode 4, "Blindsided," a scene which lasted almost 12 minutes with no cuts. These moments not only showed the true brutality of the character, but also brought some shockingly realistic fights to the screen while demonstrating amazing moments of cinematic television. Marvel should definitely steal these tricks for the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again series.
Daredevil: Born Again Can Learn A Trick Or Two From Netflix
Daredevil: Born Again has now been given a 2024 release date with an 18-episode run (the longest of any Marvel Disney+ series so far), and with appearances for Daredevil confirmed in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Echo, and Spider-Man: Freshman Year, it seems Marvel are throwing everything they've got at the character. In order for Marvel to bring the strongest version of Daredevil to the MCU in Born Again, some techniques from the Netflix series', including the infamous one-shot fight scenes, should be carried across. Perhaps Marvel can even up the ante and film one entire episode of Daredevil: Born Again as a one-shot, akin to 1917.
If Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+ doesn't have a TV-MA rating, these moments will be difficult to pull off effectively as they're designed to show the violence of the character. However, since Marvel's upcoming animated project, Marvel Zombies, has a TV-MA rating, there's hope that some projects in the MCU's future might not shy away from showing the darker side to superheroes. Many are excited to finally see Matt Murdock in the MCU since the Defenders Saga hasn't yet been confirmed as MCU-canon, even though characters such as Daredevil, Kingpin, and potentially even Jessica Jones are set to become staples of the franchise. One thing is for sure: Daredevil: Born Again will be a powerful MCU introduction for Charlie Cox's Man Without Fear.