Daredevil returns for She-Hulk — but do fans want the jokey MCU version?

Marvel fans are hungry for just about any new movie or show, but Disney Plus’ She-Hulk: An Attorney at Law became a major event for longtime MCU devotees when mega-franchise mastermind Kevin Feige revealed that the series would bring Charlie Cox’s Daredevil back into the fold. Every episode of the series has premiered since then. She-HulkThis was met with one burning question. Daredevil when will he appear??

It’s good news for all those eager viewers. Daredevil appeared this week in the final episode of The CW. She-Hulk Season finale.

And now for some potentially bad news: He’s not exactly the Matt Murdock people fell in love with during the character’s Netflix years.

MCU Phase 4 Daredevil has a lot of smiles, just like so many New Yorkers. He has the charm, even in his combative lawyer mode, protecting Luke Jacobson and the tailor-to-the heroes from the whiny Leap Frog. Matt bounces through parking garages in his suit of yellow and red, thanks to a Marvel Studios proper budget. We thought we knew Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, but it turns out that after three seasons of DaredevilHe was just getting started, with a brief stint in the Defenders.

Cox’s Matt Murdock has been through hell — if the hell that happened during his stand-alone series and The Defenders remains MCU canon (which, based on The Kingpin’s appearance in HawkeyeIt appears to be a “yes”. In three seasons Daredevil battled Wilson Fisk and met The Punisher. The Punisher outmaneuvered Bullseye who assumed the role of his double. Iron Fist joined Jessica Jones and Luke Cage to defeat the old syndicate called The Hand. The Netflix Marvel shows were technically part of the MCU, but kept at an arm’s length on Netflix, where more mature storytelling — and bloodshed — could play out. This approach slowed down the cinematic experience for good or bad. DaredevilThe long-take hall fights were a big deal. Matt was able to pound the hell out of the goons. Street-level stories were kept under wraps in order to make it easier for lower-budget production designers.

Image by David Lee/Netflix

Despite all of the Netflix experimentation, this is still my favorite. DaredevilMarvel fans loved the original. Save-the-show campaign after Netflix pulled out of season 4 exploded like Chitauri soldiers from an internet portal. Feige received a slew of questions regarding a possible revival or cameo by Cox during almost every round Avengers PR. The answer was never yes… until it was.

Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock last saw us was last year. Spider-Man has no way home for a split-second appearance as Peter Parker’s lawyer. Feige was rumored to have been there for years, but he went an extra mile in the aftermath. There is no way home press tour to insinuate that Cox’s Daredevil was here to stay.

“If you were to see Daredevil in upcoming things, Charlie Cox, yes, would be the actor playing Daredevil,” Feige told CinemaBlend in December 2021. “Where we see that, how we see that, when we see that, remains to be seen.”

Now we’ve seen it — and Daredevil’s appearance in She-Hulk, acting 30 and flirty with Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters, is only the beginning. Cox has been cast to play the role of Cox in the next HawkeyeSpinoff series Echo, which will delve deeper into the backstory of actor Alaqua Cox’s deaf assassin character and her ties to Kingpin. Marvel Studios will then produce a second series of the Netflix original, entitled Daredevil is Born Again. The series has no details, but Cox will be back in spring 2024.

Gritty fans DaredevilSince moving from Netflix to Disney Plus, series should have been thrilled. But plugging the established version of Matt Murdock into the new-and-improved MCU was never going to be an easy task: The Netflix series was born in the wake of Marvel’s darkest hour, the Battle of New York. The MCU’s fictional Big Apple was healing, and Hell’s Kitchen became a microcosm for how grim life in this Cinematic Universe could get. Matt was “The Man Without Fear,” but his world was built to terrify — literally, DaredevilWas shot as a cold, dark and bleak scene Law & OrderThe episode featured brutal beatings of the faces. Cox could smile occasionally, but his mental state was already fractured. In the purest sense, the show was grimdark. It made sense when Tony Stark was suffering from PTSD, and Sokovia was being ripped apart by sentient AI. That’s not the tone of the MCU of today. This is far from true.

Image by David Lee/Netflix

Over the past 10 years DaredevilMarvel only increased its self-referential humor and flippant jokes since it premiered. Joss Whedon’s down-to-earth humor for Iron Man, Captain America led to an even more dominant and meta-comedy-style for each new Marvel blockbuster. Dan Harmon’s influence is probably responsible for this. Harmon with a punch! Doctor StrangeIn 2016, script seemed to have opened a pipeline. Rick and MortyVeteran comic book writers to be part of the Marvel team. She-HulkJessica Gao, the showrunner of “The Walking Dead”, is available. Rick and Morty alum. Former Rick and MortyJeff Loveness, a writer, was offered the job. Quantumania: Ant-Man & the WaspAnd I’ll be writing next. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Michael Waldron is another animator, and he wrote both Loki Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of MadnessBefore landing that gig, you need to be able to write Secret Wars with Avengers.

Zack Snyder fanatics get flack for endlessly complaining incessantly about Marvel style jokes in the their Serious DC movies, they’re not completely wrong to detect the influence: The Marvel style is real, and the levity is getting excessive within the actual MCU. Thor: Love and Thunder was a movie about godly genocide and one’s purpose in the universe… but also a silly escapade with honking goats and Taika Waititi’s patented deadpan jokes that undermine the drama at every turn. Marvel was built on an honest portrayal of the comic pantheon. It escaped the hacky plug and play, afraid-of-color impulses that characterized late-1900s or early 2000s adaptations. But now they’re breaking the fourth wall, dunking on D-list heroes, and turning characters like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel into caped-crusading variations of Juno (minus the hamburger phone). Everyone zings. Now Daredevil does, too.

Image: Marvel Studios

Marvel has changed the wiring of Matt Murdock so that he fits in She-HulkIn this updated version of MCU. Luckily, Cox can play those notes — he’s an absolute hoot as he defies gravity during battles and banters with Jen like they’re Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man. He even gets into a hallway fight as a nice throwback… though it’s immediately interrupted by the more powerful She-Hulk. Marvel’s signature move is to defy expectations, regardless of how they might be enjoyed by the audience.

Daredevil is Born Again may very well return the character to his darker roots — and certainly, he’ll be back in New York where brooding and grimacing come much easier — but after this one-off episode, I can’t but feel a little nostalgic for a bygone era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios was founded on the idea of bringing comic book storytellers and artists to life in an unaltered way that no movie studio can imagine. Daredevil has a dark side, which is why he needs to be introduced to the camera with a smile to show that this is all Dumb Comic Shit. She-HulkJen makes fun of his mustard-and ketchup outfit design. Tony Stark is not every character. Spider-Man is not every character. Daredevil, that’s what it is. And while it’s great to see him back in the Marvel mix, Charlie Cox being perfect casting, you have to wonder if this is what people who’ve spent the last five years cutting Matt Murdock fancams were really hoping for.

There are big questions about the future of Marvel in play right now: What’s happening to the multiverse? What’s the deal with the mutant population? What role does the Fantastic Four play? After the Daredevil and She-Hulk collision, there is one last question: Is Marvel able to take serious characters seriously again?