Titles rarely come more loaded than Daredevil: Born Again. Disney+’s latest series is a reboot and continuation of Daredevil, the well-regarded Marvel show that aired on Netflix between 2015 and 2018. Charlie Cox returns as the blind crime-fighting lawyer Matt Murdock, while Vincent D’Onofrio is Kingpin, a villainous mafioso with a bald head and the dimensions of a mid-range people carrier. Amid a churning sea of superhero content, Daredevil managed to find its footing; it was gritty, modest in its ambitions, and beloved by fans.
The title Born Again is both an homage to a beloved 1986 Daredevil comic arc and a nod to the fact that this is a revival series. But there’s another metatextual meaning here. The past four years have seen Marvel try and fail to replicate its cinematic dominance in the world of streaming; Daredevil: Born Again is the 15th Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series to hit Disney+ since 2021. Marvel will be hoping that the series can itself be a rebirth – that the company’s misguided forays into the world of streaming can be transformed, phoenix-like, into something capable of flight. If Daredevil, a tried-and-true formula with a built-in fanbase, can’t do it, then I’m not sure anything will.
