Marvel Shows: What About Daredevil?
By Jakob Johns | Misfit Media Columnist
These days, the label “Netflix Original” doesn’t really mean much. It’s equivalent to a supermarket home-brand at this point, in that it will technically and legally fit the label of television/food, but probably won’t come with much sustenance. But, not so long ago, if something was a Netflix Original it meant that there was going to be some effort put into it. Streaming services weren’t a household necessity alongside the phone bill yet. Netflix was just some thing you heard about from some kid or vaguely remembered reading about on Reddit. Netflix was doing everything they could to jam their foot into the media market before they slipped back into the pit of could-have-been empires alongside MySpace.
Meanwhile, the Marvel train was running smoothly. They were officially chugging with no sign of stopping after Avengers, and had just let bangers like Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy out like it was nothing. And, they had a new Avengers sequel coming quite soon.
One of Netflix’s best decisions was eyeing Marvel and making a deal with them – give us some heroes, we’ll make some sideshows; you make a buck, we get some rep.
This leads us into Netflix’s Daredevil. I once compared Daredevil to Batman and Iron Man; Batman has money and combat prowess, Iron Man just has the money, which leaves Daredevil with nothing but his two fists and a lot of pent-up rage. While the Marvel films were starting to get cosmic and go to unprecedented scales of storytelling, Daredevil brought it back down to a gritty street level to tell the personal stories of Matt Murdoch bringing frontier justice to the city, and Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) trying to hold onto his humanity for dear life while simultaneously trying to establish a massive crime empire.
(Daredevil, Marvel, 2015)
Daredevil, and following shows Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and even The Punisher all continued this theme of small, gritty, borderline neo-noir superhero stories that were happening just under the skies that Iron Man and Thor were flying in. It came to a climax with Defenders, a slightly underwhelming team-up for the four heroes, before finishing up with some sequel seasons. The last real great hurrah was Daredevil season 3, a wonderfully dark tale of Matt Murdoch grappling with his violent methods and his religion while taking Kingpin on one last time.
And then… nothing. The status of these characters in the MCU is up in the air. The relationship appears to be one-sided: the MCU is somewhat referenced in Defenders shows, but the Defenders practically don’t exist in the MCU, even though it would have been great if they showed up in something like Civil War. We know that the battle of New York from The Avengers occurred in the Defenders shows, but we have no idea what events like the Snap from Infinity War did to affect characters like Daredevil.
(Daredevil, Marvel, 2015)
As Marvel starts to get their own streaming service going, I hope that they one day bring not just these characters back, but their amazing actors and stories as well. And, hopefully, as the new Marvel shows continue to get bigger and more cosmic, they consider bringing these uncompromising stories back so that the MCU doesn’t lose its edge. There are rumours that Daredevil will be showing up in the new Spiderman (Far From Home) and eventually in some shows later on, but will it be enough? Daredevil might come back, but will the grit? The blurred greys and reds? Is he even going to be played by Charlie Cox?
I’m going to get my action figures and imagine Spiderman teaming up with Daredevil to fight Kingpin. Meanwhile, think about revisiting shows like Daredevil among all these new Disney+ joints. Don’t leave those gems behind in the dust.