It’s been ten years since Netflix showed viewers the potential of the superhero genre on the television set, putting one toe in the pond as it tried out several action dramas with B-level characters from the pages of Marvel Comics. Those characters wouldn’t have made much difference had the series failed, because the real Marvel moneymakers were finding their own potential on the big screen and at the box office (Spider-Man, Wolverine, The X-Men, Captain America, etc.). Marvel’s Daredevil was an odd show that somehow made it to three seasons. Spectacularly thin in storytelling and plot, its best bits could be found in the humor from banter between Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock and Eldon Henson as partner Foggy Nelson (two of the most unrealistic lawyers ever portrayed on the screen). Yet the series introduced some more promising features, like Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, who would star in Netflix’s The Punisher, and Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, who would co-star in Netflix’s Luke Cage–the two best and most memorable series from the Netflix Marvel years. It also set up Vincent D’Onofrio as Spideyverse villain Wilson Fisk. Although D’Onofrio is a ringer for DC Comics’ Lex Luthor, especially in the 1980s incarnation, his Fisk has been winding his way up the bad guy ladder in the Disney era via Marvel’s Hawkeye and Echo series. And Charlie Cox took his Daredevil up a notch with a more human character as boyfriend to Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters in She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law.
Disney has yet to make a Marvel series as riveting as Luke Cage and The Punisher, but with a new crew behind the scenes and new writers, maybe all those Netflix players have a chance at a return. It all begins with Daredevil: Born Again. Here is the first trailer for the series, including the return of Jon Bernthal as The Punisher:
Mobster plots in New York City have clogged TV, mind-numbing 1980s throwbacks over the past few years. You’d hope someone could come up with some other setting for comic book action, because this looks like more of the same. The same brooding, the same shadowy diner, the same conversations we’ve heard from these characters before. All the fighting in the shadows usually reflects hiding the actors with stuntperformers. It looks like television, as opposed to more cinematic fare we’ve seen from Disney, especially in its Star Wars series. Daredevil: Born Again faces off against last year’s similarly dark story The Penguin, a DC Comics Gotham City tale which, despite quality performances, lacked the fun of superhero stories from the comics in any era. Maybe it’s a testament to the artistry of Bill Sienkiewicz’ and others’ comics renderings that the character can’t be matched in live action?
Daredevil: Born Again begins streaming March 4, 2025, at 7 p.m. Central, not on Netflix, but Marvel’s new home on Disney+, which also means the entire series won’t arrive at once, but with new episodes weekly.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
