A few days ago, we learned that Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again continues the story of Netflix’s Daredevil. That must be great news to some fans of the original TV show, though I’m certain a multiverse version of the Netflix characters would have worked just as well.
Charlie Cox, who is reprising his Matt Murdock/Daredevil role for the show, said during an interview that “a few years have passed” since the Netflix show. “In that time, Matt, Foggy, and Karen have found a pretty good rhythm. Matt’s made peace with his role both as a lawyer and a vigilante. Then, of course, shit hits the fan.”
But things aren’t as simple as that, considering what has happened in the MCU since the Netflix show. Thanos (Josh Brolin) wiped out half of the living beings in the entire universe at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. It took the Avengers five years to find a way to undo all of that.
With Born Again continuing the original Daredevil series, we’re bound to learn that that blip might have impacted some of the characters. Interestingly, the MCU timeline of events for the Daredevil characters has been revealed. It turns out that five years have passed since the Netflix show, which makes things very interesting.
Mind you, some minor spoilers might follow below.
According to Collider, Wilson Bethel and Charlie Cox took the stage at Fan Expo San Francisco. The actor, who plays Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye in the Daredevil TV shows, addressed the MCU timeline. That’s where the five-year gap comes from:
Yeah, I mean, Charlie [Cox] sort of alluded to it. But I think one of the things that’s interesting is, I mean, maybe it’s different on a sitcom or something like that, but if you’re on a show for over a period of time and the characters are aging together sort of in real-time, and if the show is well written and the writers are sort of responding to that reality transpiring, the wrinkles of their hair, et cetera, then in theory, the character is evolving in a way, whether or not the show was on air.
So there’s kind of like this funny thing stepping back after five years where Born Again will pick up with that amount of time having transpired. The show doesn’t pick up the day after we last saw it. It picks up five years later. And so in theory, these are characters who have all lived five years of life and all of the twists and turns that you take in the meantime. So whether or not even those stories are necessarily on screen, there’s just that little extra bit of life in there, which I think is… as an actor, it gives you an opportunity to bring whatever your own journey has been in that time and they get sort of a little longer in the tooth.
While Bethel’s explanation is great, it’s not enough if you want to understand exactly where we’re at on the MCU timeline. Luckily, I’ve already shown you how to watch Marvel’s Netflix shows in MCU timeline order.
We have a pretty good idea of the chronology of the Netflix shows compared to the rest of the MCU. We’re interested in Daredevil season 3’s placement on the MCU timeline. Here it is:
- Daredevil season 3 (October and November 2017)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- The Punisher season 2 (April through August 2018)
- Jessica Jones season 3 (April through August 2018)
So Netflix’s Daredevil concludes about a year before Thanos removes half of living beings from existence. Born Again picking up the action five years later would mean the story happens in the MCU at some point in 2022. But that’s a year before the Avengers bring everyone back.
As a reminder, most of Avengers: Endgame happens in 2023. The Marvels happens at some point in 2026 in the MCU. Agatha All Along also takes place around the same time. Deadpool & Wolverine happens in 2024, in a different reality.
I’ll also point out that Daredevil showed up in other MCU projects, including Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk, and Echo. Looking at the MCU chronology, that means the summers of 2023, 2025, and 2025, respectively.
Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) also appeared in Echo after showing up in Hawkeye first. The latter takes place around Christmas 2024 (MCU time).
If Bethel’s 5-year claim is accurate, then the first Born Again season might unfold several years before the events in Echo. If, however, the Disney Plus show picks up the action at some point after the events in Echo, then Bethel’s claim needs correcting. Born Again would be placed in late 2025 or 2026 on the MCU timeline, almost 10 years after the events in the Netflix show.
Figuring out the timeline is complex without actually watching the Disney Plus show. Thankfully, we don’t have long to go. Daredevil: Born Again hits the streaming service on March 4th.
