Ever since Charlie Cox made a cameo appearance as Matt Murdock giving legal counsel to Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans have been excited to see him integrated into the mainline Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the penultimate episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s first season, those dreams finally came true as Matt faced Jen Walters in court and later teamed up with her to take down her supervillain client, Leap-Frog. The episode, titled “Ribbit and Rip It,” provided fans with all the Murdock courtroom action and all the Daredevil crimefighting action they could’ve hoped for.
The fan base of the grim, gritty Netflix series that first introduced Cox as Daredevil was divided on the character’s appearance in She-Hulk, as he was given jokes, sight gags, and gloriously unrealistic action scenes to suit the tone of the show he was guest-starring in, not the tone of the show he came from. Writer Cody Ziglar did a terrific job of portraying the Man Without Fear faithfully while fitting him into She-Hulk’s satirical, slyly self-aware style. But the Daredevil seen in She-Hulk might be more than just a She-Hulk version of Daredevil. His appearance alongside Jen might be a taste of what’s to come when Matt gets his own Disney+ series in 2024.
Since the rights to the Netflix characters reverted back to Marvel, the studio has welcomed Cox’s Daredevil with open arms. After his cameo in No Way Home and his guest spot in She-Hulk, not only is Cox confirmed to return in both Echo and Spider-Man: Freshman Year; he’s also starring in his own series, Daredevil: Born Again, which will premiere in the spring of 2024 with a whopping 18-episode run. Kevin Feige will co-produce, while Matt Corman and Chris Ord are attached as head writers.
With the announcement of a new Daredevil streaming series, some Marvel fans are hoping it’ll essentially be season 4 of the Netflix show. But Cox already dispelled these rumors in an interview with extraTV after the D23 announcement: “It is a season 1, it is not season 4, so it is a whole new thing, which I think is the way to go. If you are going to do it again, do it differently.” Feige isn’t just taking the familiar dark, brooding Daredevil from Netflix and cramming him into the MCU; he’s crafting his own Avengers-adjacent version of Daredevil and bringing back the actor everyone already loves to keep playing him in this new incarnation.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen didn’t just get a snappy updated outfit with a golden tinge in She-Hulk; he’s got a whole new characterization to match. The quippy one-liners and more comic-booky, less realistic physicality seen in Daredevil’s She-Hulk episode could be a teaser of how he’ll be portrayed in the MCU going forward, including in Born Again. His original Netflix series was a standalone narrative with its own gritty sensibility and a self-contained world. But in Born Again and his other upcoming MCU appearances, Daredevil will have to fit into the larger context of this established universe. His portrayal in She-Hulk might be a sign of things to come.
As is the standard for the MCU, Daredevil is given plenty of quips in his She-Hulk episode. He explains the difference between goons and henchmen and bickers with Jen over whose lead to follow in the warehouse infiltration, since he has more experience but she has more actual superpowers. The episode also has plenty of self-aware jabs poking fun at Matt’s use of “echolocation” to see and his sacrilegious choice of costume. When Jen mistakenly stops Matt from apprehending Leap-Frog without realizing who was on the right side of the fight, she jokes, “I’m sorry that I assumed the guy dressed as the Devil was the bad one.”
Not only does Daredevil have a newfound sense of humor in the MCU; his action scenes are also much less grounded than the brutal, realistic fisticuffs seen in his Netflix debut. There’s more of a far-fetched comic-booky vibe to his physicality in his recent cameo. He clings to a speeding sports car, jumps off every rooftop he finds himself on, and scales the side of a parking garage in seconds. The Man Without Fear’s newfangled superhuman athleticism will make him a worthier ally alongside fellow MCU heroes like She-Hulk, Shang-Chi, Sam Wilson, and the Fantastic Four.
Corman and Ord co-wrote the wacky Christmas movie Deck the Halls, so it stands to reason that their Daredevil series will be lighter and more comedic than Drew Goddard and Steven S. DeKnight’s version, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s clear that the Daredevil seen alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the MCU won’t be the same Daredevil that fans are used to, but the character’s on-screen future is still bright. Cox brings just as much charm and nuance and likability to this new incarnation of the character, and his appearance in She-Hulk proves that a Daredevil with a sense of humor can be just as engaging as the aloof antihero seen on Netflix.