Daredevil: Born Again Gets a New Trailer

In 1985 Frank Miller returned to Daredevil, over two years after leaving the comic book that turned him into a superstar. The artist/writer’s second stint with Marvel’s blind vigilante included a storyline called “Born Again,” with art by David Mazzucchelli, in which Daredevil’s archrival, Wilson “The Kingpin” Fisk, discovers his secret identity as lawyer Matt Murdock. The Kingpin uses that info to make Daredevil’s life hell in a grim and gritty story full of Christian symbolism that reads like a slightly more kid-friendly take on the “grown up superhero” stuff Miller was doing with Batman around the same time. I mean, “Born Again” turned Karen Page—the mandatory generic love interest every Marvel superhero had in the 1960s—into a heroin-addicted porn actress; comics sure weren’t just for kids anymore, mister.

Between his earlier run and this story, Miller’s take on Daredevil permanently redefined this once third-rate character, and over 30 years later “Born Again” was one of the primary inspirations for 2018’s third season of Netflix’s Daredevil series. And now, seven years after that season marked the end of Netflix’s show, Disney is about to launch a new Daredevil series, called—if you haven’t guessed yet—Daredevil: Born Again. Is it directly inspired by Miller and Mazzucchelli’s story, or at least whatever parts of it weren’t already gobbled up by Netflix, or is it just using a familiar name (and on-brand Christian references) to sell the new show to hardcore Marvel heads who have grown disaffected by Marvel’s recent stagnation? Fans will find out when the series starts on March 4.

A new teaser trailer released today (you can find that below) gives at least a few hints. Fisk is the mayor now, because crime really does pay in this (and our) world. Murdock is driven to put the devil horns back on and return to beating up criminals (in surprisingly brutal fashion for a Disney show). Murdock’s friends Foggy Nelson and (a presumably non-addicted, non-sex worker) Karen Page are back, as is Jon Bernthal’s take on The Punisher, the law-breaking antihero beloved by law enforcement nationwide. All these characters are played by the same actors from the Netflix series, including Charlie Cox as Murdock and the excellent Vincent D’Onofrio as Fisk. Like most teasers, it quickly cuts between multiple shots, not giving much sense of the story besides the set-up (Fisk is Mayor and Murdock is Daredevil again), but seemingly promising Daredevil fans that it’ll capture the tone of the character and the Netflix show. Many bones are broken.

The MCU’s been in a tenuous spot for years now, well off the blockbuster pace it established in the ’10s and that culminated with the back-to-back Avengers movies at the end of that decade. The R-rated Deadpool and Wolverine was a smash hit last year, though, and Daredevil seems like the kind of gritty, “grown up,” dude-focused show that could win back some of that lost audience. That’s assuming the fully grown, middle-aged YouTube and social media grifters who squeal about too many women in their comic book superhero shows don’t stick to their performative anti-MCU outrage. Of course the only way they’ll ever stop that nonsense is if Elon Musk himself buys Disney, so nobody get their hopes up. No matter what happens I’m sure people on the internet are drastically overreacting to this ad right this very moment, because that’s exactly what the internet incentivizes them to do.

Here’s that trailer, if you haven’t seen it yet. Looks like a TV show. I guess we’ll learn more when it starts up in March.