Superheroes, Politics, and Daredevil: Born Again
On March 4th, the first two episodes of the much-anticipated revival of Marvel’s Daredevil, Daredevil: Born Again, premiered on Disney+, bringing the once cancelled Netflix superhero drama back to life nearly a decade later. As a long time fan, I was both delighted at the Man Without Fear’s return and horrified at what a modern version of the show would entail. After the two-episode premiere, I now know that Born Again blows the doors off of Marvel’s other television efforts this decade, but more than that, it’s more valuable and relevant in these times than it ever was before. It asks the hard questions, as it always has, but it feels different this time. Born Again asks what superheroes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Daredevil mean in the political climate of 2025.
For those that don’t know, Daredevil follows Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a blind lawyer by day and masked vigilante by night, as well as his law partners Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). The second half of the show is their adversary, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), AKA the Kingpin of Crime. Businessman and head of a criminal empire, Fisk twists the system time and again to avoid punishment by the law. In Born Again, we see Fisk campaign to become New York’s mayor, and he wins, leaving Matt to deal with his biggest enemy’s biggest win.
After watching these two episodes, I knew a typical review wouldn’t express how I really feel. Of course my favorite show coming back from the dead would make me happy. Of course Cox, Woll, and D’Onofrio are delivering blistering, harrowing performances, embodying these character’s like a second skin. Of course the action is so thrilling and horrific I can’t help but cringe and cheer with every blow. It’s Daredevil. There’s my review. But what really kept me awake the night was how much I related to Matt after Fisk’s win. How after years of loving this show and this character, his anger was my own.
The parallels between Fisk and Donald Trump are obvious. Both aging businessmen that slide in politics, they throw their weight around, convincing the downtrodden that with their votes, they’ll tear down the system, but all the while, they are the system. It’s not subtle. Fisk becoming mayor is ripped right out comics. Charles Soule’s run established Mayor Fisk, but Born Again is serving as a loose adaptation of Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s run, an openly political series using Daredevil to tackle questions like the ethics of police killing, institutional corruption, and the prison industrial complex, among others. This is the natural territory that comes with making a story about the law. One could argue that Born Again isn’t making timely political commentary, only picking some recent, hot-off-the-presses stories to adapt, but intent doesn’t really matter when you so thoroughly see how Fisk’s election mirrors our most recent one. I’m not arguing that Born Again is somehow more political that the show’s previous incarnation, only that its themes are closer now. More urgent.
The parts that make up Daredevil, the character, perfectly allow him to marinate on the contradictions and complexities of what it’s like to live under systems of faith, morality, and justice—making him an avatar for discontent and disillusionment—and Daredevil, the show, has always risen to this challenge. Matt’s righteous anger has always been the rock upon which this church was built. Exploring where justice ends and vengeance begins is well-worn territory for superhero fiction, but never has Matt’s anger more real, more justified, more aligned with my own. Born Again feels different because I didn’t have much to really be angry about when I was 12 years old watching this for the first time, but I do now. When Matt walks through the streets packed with Fisk’s supporters, a volcanic island in an ocean of mirth, this new version of the show clicked for me.
Born Again then interrogates the role of the superhero as Fisk cracks down on New York vigilantes, even shouting out Jon Bernthal’s Punisher and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, but this plot comes into focus when Matt represents Hector Ayala, AKA White Tiger, in court. For interrupting a police beatdown and getting a cop killed, Hector is put on the stand and nearly crushed under the weight of the justice system, and that’s before they even know he’s a vigilante. This plot is still in its infancy, but we see that there’s a conspiracy inside the police to bury Hector fast, and these dirty cops have Punisher logos tattooed on their wrists This a clear shot at real life law enforcement who have co-opted the symbol, and stark reminder that vigilantism on screen is a lot easier to swallow than in real life. Where they’ll go with this is yet to be seen, but given Bernthal’s advertised return as Punisher, and his comic book counterpart explicitly condemning police using his symbol, I can hazard a guess.
Like it or not, Born Again is now firmly planted in the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I won’t pretend to be a scholar on the MCU’s relationship to American politics broadly, but its tendency to prioritize slim, fit bodies and its history of Jewish and Romani erasure aren’t great, frankly. Hell, Matt Murdock is supposed to be a redhead and they couldn’t get that right. Not to excuse any of these things, but I’ll be the first to admit that the superhero genre has a limited capacity for genuine political commentary. At the end of the day, we have to dress in funny suits and punch each other, but that hasn’t stopped the MCU from trying to say something in the past. Daredevil was always on the fringes of MCU canon, but Iron Man (2008) took on the military industrial complex, the Captain America trilogy saw the titular hero fight the government in two of the three films. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (2021) felt the most textually political a Marvel project had ever gotten, and most recently, we have Anthony Mackie’s Falcon taking on the mantle of Captain America himself.
Let’s talk about that, actually. I haven’t seen Captain America: Brave New World, and that’s for a multitude of reasons. For one, I’ll wait until it comes on streaming, and for two, its inexplicable inclusion of the Israeli superhero Sabra, who, despite multiple rewrites, still appears in the final film. I’m no activist for pointing this out, and I certainly can’t put my money where my mouth is while I have a Disney+ subscription, but this, again, speaks to the limits of the superhero (film) medium’s capacity for political commentary. When asked about Harrison’s Ford portrayal of the Red Hulk, who is also the President of the United States in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Anthony Mackie, star of the film, reduced such a reading as “political jousting,” and said we should just “go to the movies and chill the fuck out,” per Variety. I can’t believe I live in a world where Daredevil is doing more salient commentary on the Trump administration than the newest Captain America movie. A movie where the President of the United States gets big and red when he’s angry.
Somehow, I don’t think that the Daredevil team would be so quick to shut down such commentary. This reading has enhanced the show, made it timely and essential for processing life in 2025. Where Brave New World failed to make an impact, besides embarrassing Marvel even further, Daredevil has delivered with its trademark maturity. I promised myself that I wouldn’t herald Born Again as some “savior of the MCU,” (because I don’t care about the MCU at this point), so I’ll settle for it making me feel something. Like all great works of art, it’s helped me see the world outside my window and come to grips with it.
I first watched this show when I was 12. Honestly, I was probably too young to be watching, but I can’t say that it hasn’t been influential on my life and informed my own sense of justice and morality. It’s cheesy and it’s stupid, but seeing how well Born Again is adapting itself to 2025 makes me proud to say that. Its themes of anger and violence and their place within our systems of justice and law have never been more relevant. That’s why Born Again “feels different.” Daredevil hasn’t changed. I’ve changed. The world has changed, and it needs the Man Without Fear more than ever.