The stories of Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) are deeply intertwined in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like many Marvel Comics fans, I was delighted to see D’Onofrio’s nuanced, but frightening portrayal of Fisk in the original Daredevil Netflix series. And after that show’s cancellation, I was thrilled to see him and Cox return to the MCU just days apart from one another in Hawkeye and Spider-Man: No Way Home, respectively.
The Disney+ revival series Daredevil: Born Again has doubled down on Fisk’s importance to the mythology, positioning the character as a secondary protagonist whose unsuccessful attempt to deny his true nature mirrors Matt’s own, though the characters’ opposite moralities continue to put them at odds. However, as important as they are to one another’s histories, in the comics Matt and Fisk are not inseparable, and eventually I’d like Born Again to remind viewers of that.
The end of Season 1 sets up an even larger role for Fisk in the currently filming second run, but after his next inevitable defeat, the creators should seriously consider giving the character another hiatus, or at least significantly reducing the size of his role for a time. This would both emphasize the versatility of Matt’s character and mythology and ensure that the pair’s existing confrontations with one another have the proper weight and lasting significance to the overall narrative.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 Shouldn’t Overuse Wilson Fisk
By the end of Born Again Season 1, Fisk is in his most powerful position yet, engineering a chaotic blackout as a pretext to use his new job as mayor to declare martial law in New York City, while he and his wife, Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) attempt to use the town of Red Hook’s free port status as a way to turn it into their own city-state. Backed by an assortment of corrupt police officers and other city officials, the Fisks abduct and/or murder many of their political rivals, as well as some of the local vigilantes and superheroes who would potentially fight against them. The couple’s dominion over the city likely won’t last long, however, as Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) is already in the process of escaping their personal prison in the season finale’s mid-credits scene. Meanwhile, Matt and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) are building a rebellious army to overthrow Fisk, with it having since been confirmed that they will be joined by other vigilantes and heroes from throughout the MCU, such as super-powered private investigator Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) in Season 2. I hope this is for an adaptation of the comic book crossover Devil’s Reign, which ends with Fisk being ousted from the mayoral office.
As synonymous as D’Onofrio’s Fisk has become with Daredevil, the creators of the Netflix series were wise enough not to overuse the character. Although he is the main antagonist of the first season, his introduction is gradual, with D’Onofrio not actually appearing onscreen until the end of the third episode. While Matt quickly begins to learn about Fisk and the threat he poses, the characters don’t meet in the flesh until the ninth episode, with Matt instead battling subordinates from the lower echelons of Fisk’s criminal conspiracy throughout the earlier episodes. While promoting Born Again, Cox himself has noted how important the limiting of the characters’ direct interactions is, as it makes each one momentous.
After Matt and company get Fisk imprisoned at the end of Season 1, the character appears only in three episodes of Season 2, and is left out of the crossover miniseries The Defenders, in which Matt and many of the series’ other cast members appear, entirely. While the portrayal of ninja cult The Hand, who serve as the main antagonists of the back half of Season 2 and The Defenders, was divisive, I thought Fisk’s absence was necessary and effective, making his return to prominence in Season 3, in which the character negotiates a reduced sentence, much more devastating than it would be if he never left the spotlight and ensuring that the consequences of Season 1 were sufficiently influential. As excited as we were to see the character again, I had mixed feelings about Fisk immediately being back in a position of power upon his return to the franchise despite his climactic defeat in Season 3. Given this and that his mayoral term represents not just the main problem of the first two seasons of Born Again but also a culmination of the character’s involvement in Hawkeye and Echo, it is imperative that his next defeat be similarly significant and satisfying.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Would Benefit From Expanding Its World
Matt’s rogues’ gallery is not as extensive as some other superheroes, but there are still plenty of compelling villains to move to the forefront in future seasons, including several that have already been established in the MCU. Fisk tends to be a more constant problem, but in the comics, the assassin Bullseye is an even more personal foe for Matt, as he has killed both Karen and Matt’s other greatest love interest, Elektra Natchios (though the latter is resurrected). The same could be said of the MCU Bullseye, Ben “Dex” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel), (even if his assassination of Matt’s best friend, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), turns out to be fake as I hope), as Dex did in fact kill Paul Lantom (Peter McRobbie), the priest who helped raise Matt, back in Season 3 of the Netflix series.
Despite this, Born Again has used Dex more as a wild card, as he has just as much animosity for the Fisks as for Matt, but once Wilson is out of the mayoral job, it would make sense for the former to occupy a leading villain role for a period. Likewise, Daredevil Season 3 and Born Again Season 1 highlighted that Vanessa can be her own kind of villain, separately from Wilson. Born Again also featured more tension than ever in the Fisks’ relationship, and while they reconcile by the end of Season 1, a more serious falling out between them occurring alongside Wilson’s downfall as mayor would make sense to me as an additional karmic punishment and Vanessa could then be explored as a more independent figure.
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Fisk’s simply corrupt followers, like Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini), may not be very dangerous without their leader, but other members of the Born Again cast could pose or lead to future threats. Although the serial killer Muse (Hunter Doohan) is killed at the end of Season 1, members of the creative team have described his role as continuing to influence the story next season, which could mean that he either inspires copycat killers and/or that the original incarnation could be supernaturally resurrected as in recent comics. While some of Matt’s goofier opponents, like the various incarnations of Stilt-Man, will likely remain limited to the comics, there are still some serious foes, like Mister Fear, yet to be adapted.
Depending on how long the series continues, return appearances by Elektra (Élodie Yung) and the Hand may be inevitable given how crucial they are to the comics’ mythology, and there’s also always the possibility of antagonists from other parts of the MCU being brought onto the show, as Daredevil showrunner Erik Oleson planned to do with Iron Fist’s Mary Walker/Typhoid Mary (Alice Eve) in a hypothetical fourth season of the Netflix series. But ultimately, the actual identity of his successor (or successors) isn’t as important as Fisk being taken out of the spotlight for a time, which I’d argue is essential to ensuring that his current and past appearances continue to have meaning.