Charlie Cox’s Daredevil has gone through a long, strange trip in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and I’m not simply referring to the hero’s hardcore in-canon struggles with crime lords, ninjas, serial killers, and much more. Through three seasons of his own solo show and an underwhelming crossover event in the form of The Defenders, the character was viewed as the greatest success of the early MCU-on-Netflix experiment… and then for a period, it looked as though he had basically been erased from the canon.
He made an awesome return with his surprise cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, followed by quick but killer appearances in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and Echo, and then finally, the Man Without Fear’s comeback was fully cemented with the premiere of Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 in early 2025.
When you add it all together, Marvel fans have spent more time with Daredevil than we have with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk in all of their movies combined – and having recently made the choice to rewatch his entire MCU journey, I can reaffirm that his full adventure to date has been one of the most compelling in the canon.
His battle with his inner-demons is ever fascinating, not to mention his stunning clashes with Vincent D’Onfrio’s scary powerful Kingpin and Wilson Bethel’s psychotic Bullseye. After my marathon, I’m feeling more amped than ever for DD’s return in the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again Season 2… but I do have a couple of notes about things I need to see.
Why Do We See So Little Of How Daredevil Views The World? Bring On The World On Fire!
One doesn’t need to be a comic book expert to understand that one of the coolest aspects of Daredevil as a character is the special way he experiences the world. Blinded in an accident as a child but gifted extraordinary other senses in exchange, his immaculate understanding of his surroundings comes from hearing so powerful he can tell from your heartbeat if you’re lying, smell so strong he knows what you ate for dinner the previous night, and touch so sensitive that he can perceive changes in air density.
Seeing all that he does with that sensory input is phenomenal… but I also can’t help but feel mostly underwhelmed by how it’s been presented visually over the years. In Daredevil Season 1, all the way back in 2015, the idea was introduced that his “vision” consists of what he describes as a “world on fire,” and I’ve never understood why filmmakers haven’t done more to explore that idea visually.
We haven’t actually seen a director explore the “world on fire” since the episode with that title (shout out to filmmaker Farren Blackburn), and I don’t really understand why at all. Whenever he is specifically shown “using” his powers – which is to say while trying to listen for a specific noise or scanning an area for threats – it’s typically depicted with close-ups of the hero’s face, some head tilts, and some clever sound design. We never get the chance to see things as Daredevil sees things, and it feels like a massive missed opportunity for some killer visual style.
In Born Again Season 2, I wholly expect the continuation of a number of cinematic traditions that have been maintained for the character – chief among them being single-shot fight sequences that see DD brawling with a bunch of guys in a hallway and/or stairwell. As excited as I am to see slick martial arts choreography and cinematography to match, however, I’m going to feel let down if another run with the character plays out and we don’t get the chance to revisit the special way that Matt Murdock perceives his surroundings.
I Need Much Less Skirting Around Canon And At Least One Real Spider-Man Reference
Part of the reason why Daredevil’s journey through the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date has been so weird is because of the strange relationship that has always existed between the character and the larger canon. During their original run, the Marvel Netflix shows were touted as being set within the larger continuity, but the stories always played on the fringes: Avengers tower was absent from the New York City skyline and it became a punchline that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would be mentioned via reference instead of by name (i.e. Hulk is just “the green monster” and Thor is “the guy with the hammer”).
An improvement in this arena came about with Born Again Season 1 (supported by the run following in the wake of the aforementioned She-Hulk and Echo, as well as the Hawkeye limited series), but I’m ready for the show to quit with the pussyfooting in Season 2 and for the canon to more fully commit to the bigger MCU picture.
I’m not calling for any A-lister cameos or major crossover storylines; I just want some kind of authentic acknowledgement from the show that other MCU events are playing out in parallel. For example, we know that the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day is going to feature a significant time jump from when we last saw Tom Holland’s Peter Parker at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home – so what about having a character provide an off-handed comment about the wallcrawler coming to somebody’s rescue in Queens? (Something at least more significant than Kingpin mentioning someone in a “spider costume” during a televised press conference).
I'm also very much open to some kind of commentary on the series that references the third act of Thunderbolts a.k.a. The New Avengers, which saw residents of New York City abducted into a supernatural darkness courtesy of Lewis Pullman’s Sentry a.k.a. Void.
To date, I would qualify Daredevil’s run in the MCU as one of the franchise’s greatest accomplishments, even with all of the various ups and downs behind the scenes – and if the right choices are made, I’m hopeful that Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 can be the biggest success with the character yet when it debuts for Disney+ subscribers on March 24.
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