Commentary — ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Would Work Better As ‘Marvel Knights’
by Frank Martin
There was a lot going on in Daredevil: Born Again. With so many characters, the show often splintered into a series of subplots. There were so many that it often felt as if Daredevil’s (Charlie Cox) main narrative thinned out as everyone else needed time to spread their wings and have their own character arcs. But it’s important to remember that this is a show from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans tune in because they love seeing grounded superheroes and super villains like Daredevil, Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), Bullseye (Wilson Bethel), and even Swordsman (Tony Dalton) in that world. Their stories are what felt the most engaging and fantastical. So, at that point, the series should have limited the screen time for some of its more normal characters and made a full-fledged Marvel Knight program that gave them all a bit of the spotlight.
The entire second season revolves around Mayor Wilson Fisk — aka Kingpin — enacting his Safer Streets Initiative, which outlaws vigilantism. Daredevil becomes Public Enemy #1. In order to test this new law, Swordsman is arrested and tried in a corrupt court. These vigilante laws are also used to go after Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), who isn’t a superhero. Even the villainous Bullseye becomes a subject of the Safer Streets Initiative. Later, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) ends up a target as well, before ultimately reuniting with Luke Cage (Mike Colter).
With all of these superheroes, it would be very easy to give them more time and flesh out their arcs rather than focus on the civilian characters. There are tons of crime and drama shows on TV. Fans tune in to the MCU to see the superheroes and villains they know and love from the comics. Furthermore, there are so many other street level characters the MCU can pull into service. Then again, it’s sometimes hard to bring together all of these big actors and characters in a massive show. There were probably a host of reasons why Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac), the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) — outside of a few appearances — and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) can’t appear prominently in Daredevil. But with the narrative already stretched thin with so many characters, it makes sense for the focus of the story to be on the larger-than-life characters made popular over the years rather than the smaller characters fans sometimes forget.
Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming on Disney+.
