Daredevil: Born Again Rumors Giveth and Taketh Away

Television

Is there hope for Daredevil: Born Again yet? Maybe; some good and bad rumors are swirling right now. The first two come from trusted scooper Daniel Richtman (whose blog is behind a membership paywall on Patreon, but JoBlo gives a rundown of his report), who says that Born Again will be split into several different arcs, with each arc stretching over two or three episodes. He also says that Disney and Marvel are shooting for a TV-MA rating, which would not only keep it more in line with Netflix’s Daredevil, to which it is a sequel, but also not, but also kind of, but also not really, but also maybe, depending on who’s talking and when. This will also coincide with Hulu merging with Disney+, which will likely happen by the time Born Again is ready to air.

If this is true, the dark tone is a very positive development. For a while, they’ve been saying this would be a lighter take on the character, with a lot more comedy and probably less violence. In other words, it was being Disney-fied, and after getting a taste of what that would be like on She-Hulk, it’s safe to say most people were dreading what Disney would do to Matt Murdoch and his gritty, mature section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The mini-arc thing could go either way; I hope there is an over-arching storyline like the other seasons, but the shorter stories can work too. I suspect this is Disney taking advantage of the halted production thanks to the writers’ and the actors’ strikes, which is a smart move that should be replicated elsewhere. Obviously, the darker tone is a change in course based on the response to a lighter Daredevil (and all the awful Disney+ shows, including the one where they stuck poor Matt), but maybe the mini-arcs are as well; with that mentality, they can get through the shoddier stuff they’ve already filmed in the beginning and make something better later in the show. So it’s possible there will be a couple of arcs that resemble the earlier tone while the rest is darker.

But it’s not all sunshine, because a Twitter account called Marvel Updates shared some alleged information about some of Born Again’s story elements. I don’t know how trustworthy this account is, but WorldClassBullshitters shared it, so I’ll at least treat it as a legitimate rumor.

The main plot of #DaredevilBornAgain is #MattMurdock trying to find a killer while Fisk is trying to get vigilantes outlawed in New York and Punisher trying to make the dirty cops stop using his logo! pic.twitter.com/f1zTWN6lM8

— Marvel Updates (@Updates4Marvel) July 22, 2023

The first two are fine. Daredevil tracking a killer can be very cool if done well, and it fits with Richtman’s account of the series being dark. And Kingpin trying to outlaw vigilantes gels with rumors that Born Again would see him either running for mayor or just being the mayor (a far cry from that stupid Hawaiian shirt from Hawkeye). And the Punisher trying to get “dirty cops” to stop using his logo is completely in line with how Disney and Marvel have been forcing obnoxious woke politics into everything they do. If you haven’t seen it, cops and military personnel have been wearing the Punisher logo, and since these people hate cops and the military, they don’t like that one bit. In the comics, they once had the Punisher lecture cops on using the symbol; later, they went so far as to remove Frank Castle (after resurrecting his wife so she could insult and abandon him, which she says she’d always planned to do) and make someone named Joe Garrison the new Punisher. I hope the Born Again rumor isn’t true, but I can see them turning the Punisher into a mouthpiece for their politics, even as all of their woke garbage crashes and burns, because that’s ultimately what they care about.