Why Keeping Netflix’s Daredevil Canon Would Be A Mistake For The MCU

With the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel finally brought Charlie Cox back to reprise his role as Matt Murdock, the day-by-day persona behind Daredevil. However, maintaining the narrative from Netflix’s Daredevil would be a mistake. With three whole seasons gracing the small screen on Netflix, Daredevil is one of the most fleshed-out Marvel characters in live-action to date and is beloved by many viewers. While it’s easy to think that keeping what's been seen so far as canon is the best option, it might actually be better for both parties to start on a fresh page.

The last time that audiences saw Daredevil, he’d come out on top in a three-way fight between himself, Wilson Fisk, a.k.a Kingpin, and Benjamin Poindexter, otherwise known as Bullseye. It was a brilliant culmination of all that preceded it, and was arguably the best of all three seasons, leaving viewers yearning for more. With Daredevil and Kingpin's return in the MCU in No Way Home and Hawkeye respectively, now is the perfect opportunity to heal everyone’s Netflix-cancellation wounds. With that being said, Kingpin’s seemingly maintained power and Matt Murdock's appearance as Matt rather than his crime-fighting alter-ego hints that perhaps the MCU has backtracked a few steps made by the original show.

The most obvious reason for Marvel to withhold from using the original show’s plotline as canon is because of audience division. Daredevil is a newly introduced character to the MCU, and while it still has a large following, there are swathes of viewers who don’t have Netflix, or haven’t watched all three seasons of the show. With Marvel’s new business model taking place on Disney+ alongside cinematic releases, expecting fans to watch three seasons of a show, on a platform that's not connected to their other shows just to understand a new character would be impractical. Even still, Daredevil has some big unanswered questions, many of which concern a slew of characters that are also currently unconfirmed to be returning, and are questions that could only be practically answered with a Daredevil season 4, as opposed to a simple MCU revival. Having to juggle the tasks of introducing the character to new viewers while simultaneously tying neat knots on the end of numerous story arcs is simply impractical.

It’s also worth mentioning the less than positive reception of The Hand plotline, and how this might be a driving factor in Marvel reimagining Daredevil’s plot. Season 2 of Daredevil highlighted that one of its major strengths was its villains and that having a shadowy organization, which is thus far not mentioned outside of Marvel’s Netflix-verse, wasn't as appealing to the audience. It also raises several questions, such as why audiences haven't heard of the organization outside of the Netflix shows, what happened to Elektra after The Defenders, or where are the other members of the Defenders might be. Unfortunately for any hopes of the Netflix-verse being made canon, this action has thus far taken place in a void entirely separate from the main MCU, and as a result is a logistical nightmare to integrate and explain away.

The previous three seasons of Daredevil prove that the character has multiple engaging storylines to draw upon. Merging these with the MCU would be messy, leave many viewers unsatisfied, and alienate others. Instead, it’s an opportunity to have great fresh content from characters that have proven themselves time and again, with narratives that not only follow similar story-beats to what has been seen previously but simultaneously interact with the rest of the MCU and seamlessly fit into place. There are plenty of exciting new opportunities, and with Daredevil and Spider-Man’s comic book history, Kingpin as Spider-Man 4’s main villain would be a fun and interesting start.

While it’s a heartbreaking concept for many, keeping Netflix’s Daredevil canon would simply be a mistake for the MCU. It’s a plan that threatens to be clunky, divisive, and miss new creative opportunities. Instead, viewers should stand by and wait to see what Marvel has in store for the newly restored characters and see where their new story arcs take them.

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