The MCU’s Obsession With ‘Daredevil’ Is Holding It Back

With its rollicking release schedule, the MCU feels impossible to get away from. Yet, while we’ve been inundated with Marvel content in the last few years, Echo is the first series since the early episodes of Wandavision that has felt like a creative endeavor rather than branded content. Despite a mixed response from some critics, Echo reminded me of another Marvel series marked by a sense of passion and creative drive behind the scenes—a series that Disney didn’t even produce: Netflix’s Daredevil.

This isn’t an accident. Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) is a supporting character in the Daredevil comics, and Daredevil even cameos in Echo as Disney builds hype for the character’s grand return in the upcoming series Daredevil: Born Again. Much as we cannot get away from the MCU, the MCU—and Echo—can’t escape Disney’s obsession with Netflix’s Daredevil.

Daredevil! How Disney wishes it could capture fans as Netflix’s landmark Marvel series did between 2015 and 2018. We know this is the case, because shades of the series filtered into the MCU almost as soon as it moved from Netflix to Disney+ in 2021.

First, Vincent D’Onofrio reprised his role as Wilson Fisk in Hawkeye before Charlie Cox briefly returned as Matt Murdock in the cameo-laden Spider-Man: No Way Home. Murdock would later squeeze himself back into the red leather in the messy—and possibly canceled—She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law. Now, both Daredevil and Kingpin appear in Echo.

All these cameos have made Echo and the rest of the MCU’s recent slate of television feel less an extension of its movie empire than a constant reminder of an old Netflix show. The goal of these shows appears to be building hype for when the MCU brings the character back wholesale in Born Again. Disney seemingly hopes that, by invoking the beloved Netflix adaptation, it can inject some magic back into its ailing franchise. But as news continues to filter through about Born Again’s chaotic production, is it sustainable to keep bringing Daredevil back to remind us of how good we had it before Disney started churning out television?

Netflix released Daredevil at a curious time in the MCU. Despite the runaway success of The Avengers, and with Age of Ultron soon to arrive, the MCU was only just codifying a cohesive franchise following the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014. It was hardly the Wild West, but in a more permissive and creative version of the MCU, Daredevil was able to carve out a niche that still feels unique in an endless stream of superhero media.

Plenty of credit for that is given to the gritty, violent world of Daredevil’s Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a tone that hasn’t transplanted well with the character into the inconsistent tone of the MCU since Avengers: Endgame. But to boil Daredevil down to fisticuffs is a disservice to a series that had a narrative core built on human, relatable stories.

Echo is arguably the first MCU series to successfully emulate that balance. It captures the tone and brutality of Netflix’s Daredevil while driving its story through character rather than mindless action. Through this, Echo ironically fashions an identity divorced from the wider MCU. This is, in large part, owed to its representation of disability and Indigenous voices, and Alaqua Cox’s remarkable performance. Cox particularly lends Echo a refreshing sense of authenticity rarely found in the MCU—reminiscent of Daredevil’s own approach to storytelling, yet which has been notably absent from Marvel shows since.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Echo owes a lot to Daredevil; its lead character is intrinsically linked to Daredevil’s storylines, but more importantly, it builds on the character-driven focus that made Daredevil so successful. That said, Echo never tries to be Daredevil. It fashions its own identity even while Charlie Cox’s Daredevil cameos and even as it remains beholden to the MCU’s content mill. It isn’t trying to recapture anything or look back, in stark contrast to many of the MCU’s recent offerings. Instead, it focuses on people and human drama, with superheroism coming second.

This character-driven focus is what Echo really captures of Daredevil without being a copy, and it’s this that is most likely to be lacking as we hurtle towards Born Again. Keen as Disney may be to recapture the magic of Netflix’s Daredevil, in the hopes that it might stymy the decline of its franchise offerings, Born Again is rapidly feeling like Disney’s attempt to simply rehash the earlier series. Following the WGA strike, Disney hit reset on the show, parting ways with the original showrunners to bring in Netflix’s The Punisher writer Dario Scardapane; cutting its initial slate of 18 episodes to meet deadlines; and pulling in as many people involved with the Netflix original as possible, including stunt coordinator Philip Silvera. That last bit may sound like good news for fans who want more of the same, but the chaotic nature of this production does not inspire confidence.

It’s impossible for Disney to recreate Netflix’s Daredevil, because that show belongs to another world—one that existed before superhero television was really a thing. Its identity is intrinsically linked to being separate from the all-encompassing MCU, and bringing Daredevil into a world populated by Spider-Man, vampires, and mutants—including, apparently, Echo—feels doomed to fail.

Because the answer here isn’t to simply plaster a horny dude in red leather on the screen. It’s to understand why Netflix’s Daredevil was so successful. But Disney can’t help but look back enviously and focus on the character of Daredevil, rather than what Netflix’s adaptation did with the character.

Echo draws from Daredevil but stands out simply by not relying on the series’ past glories—rather, it learns from the show to carve out a singular identity distinct from both the MCU and, ultimately, Netflix’s series to which it owes so much. That’s something the rest of the MCU needs to do as it continues to bring Daredevil back. Because much as Disney wants to recapture the magic of Netflix’s Daredevil, fans want the experience of watching Daredevil for the first time again, and Vincent D’Onofrio wants to keep playing Kingpin, Echo shows us that not only is there no going back, but we shouldn’t want to either.