Marvel couldn’t wait to bring Daredevil (Charlie Cox) to the MCU, and neither could we, the fans. We saw Matt Murdock suit up as a very good lawyer in Spider-Man: No Way Home and then rock a new Daredevil suit in She-Hulk and Echo. We knew all along that Daredevil would get his own MCU TV series, a two-season adventure that already seemed to be much larger in scope than any other MCU Disney Plus show. But we had no idea what sort of mental gymnastics Marvel would put us through to connect the brand-new show to the three seasons of Daredevil released by Netflix several years ago.
For a while, it seemed like we’d get a soft reboot of the story, with the multiverse providing the plot armor necessary for Marvel to maintain some continuity. Then, we learned that Born Again will continue the Daredevil story rather than introducing the MCU Daredevil variant that would feel familiar to the audience. With a few months to go until Born Again hits Disney Plus, we finally have a proper explanation about the link between the two shows.
Warning: Some minor spoilers will follow below, but they don’t involve plot details for the new show.
While not all Multiverse Saga movies and TV shows have been hits for Marvel, the studio proved it could make us fall in love with alternate versions of our favorite MCU characters.
I like the Loki (Tom Hiddleston) variant in the Loki TV show a lot more than the MCU’s Loki Prime, who died heroically in Avengers: Infinity War. Similarly, the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in Deadpool 3 is just as exciting as the one we’ve followed in the Fox universe. Maybe even more so, considering this Wolverine is a deeply flawed variant.
What I’m getting at is that Marvel could have always rebooted Daredevil so that everything felt familiar. It could have given us an almost identical Daredevil variant as the Netflix show. But Marvel could have made adjustments to the plot and the characters so that everything made sense within the MCU.
Put differently, the MCU Daredevil could have been nearly identical to the Netflix variant. He could have gone through similar events as other Daredevils from the multiverse, including the Netflix version. We would have loved that brand-new Daredevil version, too.
Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about any of that. The Daredevil in the Netflix show is the same Daredevil we’ll follow on Disney Plus. That means all the characters in that show, Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) included, were always in the MCU. We did see Wilson Fisk in the MCU already, by the way. The villain appeared in Hawkeye and Echo.
In an interview with Empire, Daredevil star Charlie Cox clarified everything for viewers dying to see the next chapter in Matt’s life:
There was talk early on about reinventing the whole thing, to see if Matt was a slightly different person. But it ended up more of a continuation. A lot of the history follows on. The relationships and dynamics set up in the previous seasons still exist.
That also means the Defenders, which we saw in Netflix’s other Marvel shows, are part of the MCU.
As for when the Disney Plus show happens relative to the Netflix story, Cox explained the new story follows the same characters a few years down the line:
A few years have passed. 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.
I can’t wait to see what exactly will hit the fan. I say that as I’m aware that a scary new Marvel villain will appear in Born Again. Wilson Fisk will not be Matt’s only worry.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Marvel ties the current story to the Netflix show. On that note, I’d be curious to see what happened to some of these characters during the blip. Some were likely gone for five years, while others had to deal with the loss.
With nine episodes in the first season, there’s plenty of time to go into that and more. Daredevil: Born Again starts streaming on Disney Plus in early March.
