‘Daredevil’ Is Born Again—and Perhaps Our Faith in Marvel Is Too

In the streaming era, the best kind of novel show is an ancient show—preferably one a lot of people watched back in the day. A decade ago, Marvel had one of those on Netflix: 2015’s Daredevil, a gritty, violent series about blind lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), who fought crime as a masked vigilante. While a bit shaggy, like most Netflix shows at the time, Daredevil earned a mighty following that responded to Cox’s very human portrayal of a superhero who felt every punch he both took and threw, and Vincent D’Onofrio‘s magnetic performance as his nemesis, the crime lord Wilson Fisk.

As the streaming wars heated up, however, Netflix’s role in Marvel’s schemes had to shrink. Daredevil was canceled after three seasons, perhaps the most fondly remembered of a quintet of adult-oriented Marvel shows about similar street-level heroes.

The novel Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again is riding on that affection, more than any wider Marvel connection. It’s effectively a direct continuation of the original Daredevil (which has migrated to Disney’s platform as well), but more newcomer-friendly than an outright season 4 would be. After a premiere that serves as a very violent reunion for the Daredevil cast, Born Again rearranges itself considerably, and following along won’t be arduous if you haven’t seen Daredevil since its final season premiered in 2018—or at all.

In this novel status quo, Matt Murdock has quit being Daredevil and now works as a lawyer full time. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk has laundered his image to become mayor of New York City. Born Again‘s nine-episode first season is very cleanly about Murdock and Fisk’s parallel charades, each pretending to leave their violent alter ego behind as they each invariably tempt the other to fall off the wagon.

With Murdock and Fisk established as twin poles a la McCauley and Hanna in Heat — characters who rarely intersect, save for dramatic moments in diners — Born Again largely becomes an episodic affair. Throughout the season, Murdock has to navigate a number of cases that push his buttons and make him reconsider wearing his horned suit, all while nursing a suspicion that Fisk may not be as reformed as he appears to be.