Marvel’s latest plan to combat comic book burnout is simple: overpower us with nostalgia. In 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home reunited three different Spider-Men and broke franchise box office records. Similarly, Deadpool & Wolverine crammed in as many cameos as possible and upcoming blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday will feature the return of former Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. seven years after his gallant departure in Endgame. He’s unlikely to be the only OG hero getting a call back either – even if Chris Evans swears blind he’s hung up Captain America’s shield for good.
It’s the same story on TV, too. Daredevil: Born Again may be a direct sequel to Netflix’s Daredevil, which ran for three seasons and spawned a mini-universe before Marvel scrapped the whole thing in 2019 so Disney+ could take over, but it’s so much more than a wistful walk down memory lane. As Daredevil’s best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) explains in the opening scene “It’s not about nostalgia. It’s reverence for the past and a hope for the future”.
Born Again starts an unspecified amount of time after the events of the Netflix show, which ended with our heroes putting crime lord Wilson Fisk AKA The Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) behind bars. Really good lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is now running a successful firm with Nelson alongside tenacious former journalist and one-off lover Karen Page (Deborah Ann Wolf), while also moonlighting as the vigilante Daredevil. Then tragedy strikes when a familiar face comes looking for revenge.
We won’t spoil that shock here, but the plot jumps forward one year. Murdock has hung up his mask, moved out of Hell’s Kitchen and is now a fancy full-time New York City lawyer. Arch-rival Fisk reappears after almost getting killed at the end of the Hawkeye series. He too has left his Kingpin alter-ego behind – and is running for mayor instead, under the slogan “Fisk Can Fix It”. Not wanting to waste any time, the writers end the very first episode with Fisk’s triumphant election victory.
The following eight episodes unfold just as rapidly. Both men wrestle with authority, power, past trauma and the desire to make a difference in an unjust society. Murdock’s new love interest Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) happens to be Fisk’s marriage counsellor, with the pair on rocky grounds after the increasingly formidable Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) stepped up to run the illegal empire in his absence. It gives D’Onofrio plenty of grey area to play in and peppers this gritty crime drama with a lot of heartfelt moments.
There are also moments of extreme brutality. Fisk’s anti-vigilante task force of corrupt cops look to Jon Bernthal’s Punisher for inspiration in dealing out justice. Masked serial killer Muse (no, Matt Bellamy does not appear) is perhaps the most terrifying of comic book villains, while a death in the season finale is easily TV’s most gruesome. Yup, even worse than that head-popping scene from Game Of Thrones.
Spontaneous interviews filmed by newcomer BB Urich (Genneya Walton, playing the niece of Page’s mentor Ben) ground the show in the everyday lives of New Yorkers and Murdock is regularly confronted with broken systems of support as well as shotgun-wielding bank robbers. The show often flies closer to the harsh realities of Matt Reeves’ Batman universe than the colourful sheen of the MCU.
Still, Daredevil: Born Again does a brilliant job of embedding itself into that shared universe. Events from across the MCU are naturally referenced and there are also a few tantalising teases about what comes next. Thankfully, a second season is already in the works. None of that distracts from a tightly wound plot that makes space for emotional growth and more than a few big swings. Nostalgia be damned.
The first two episodes of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ are available to watch on Disney+ now ahead of weekly episode drops