With the year-long production about to get underway in New York City later this month, there has been so much Daredevil: Born Again news!
Rumors and reports have been raging around what this season of television might look like when it finally premieres in Summer 2024, and everyone wants to know just how closely it may or may not conform to the beloved Netflix Daredevil series from 2015, which our Pop Break TV podcast Bill vs. The MCU just so happens to be rewatching right now.
Co-host of that podcast and Podcasting Director for Pop Break Alex Marcus decided to sit down with former Marvel Writer and Editor D.G. Chichester to get his thoughts on what Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige needs to include in the new series to do justice to the iconic character and which MCU favorites would pair well with the hero.
Below is an excerpt from that discussion. To hear the complete, unabridged interview with Chichester, who was the main writer of the ongoing Daredevil comic title for much of the 1990s, make sure to download this week’s Bill vs The MCU podcast on the Pop Break Today podcast feed!
Check Mr. Chichester’s Substack: Storymaze with D.G. Chichester
Alex Marcus: Of course, the Daredevil Netflix show … for a while they said, “Oh, it’s part of the MCU,” and then everybody just quietly stopped talking about that and now it seems pretty clear that it wasn’t ever really part of it. But he [Daredevil] is being introduced properly now. He appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home. He appeared in She-Hulk. He’s getting [Daredevil: Born Again]. His show has like an ungodly amount of episodes. We’ve been told. Just like 18 episodes. Many people expect some special guest stars coming in. What are some different characters, either from these Netflix shows or from the wider MCU, that you think would make a good pairing for Daredevil, based on those [appearances] that we’ve seen in the MCU proper?
D.G. Chichester: I would love to see the Punisher back again. I mean that would be amazing. I think that he’s a great contrast, Jon Bernthal, I don’t know if he’s in the running. He should be. I think his portrayal in the Netflix series was second to none, and he captured the strange dynamic of Frank Castle and the Punisher as a character and the contrast that he had with Charlie Cox, and the dynamic that they really pulled off. I think that would be great to have that kind of come back in. (Editor’s Note: Jon Bernthal has been confirmed for the series].
I think if they lean into the character as they have, I wouldn’t be presumptive enough to sort of say what they could make work. I think that I never would have thought the She-Hulk stuff would have worked as well as it did. You know, it was just brilliant, and it was just so much fun. I think it put some people off because it wasn’t so grim/dark as some of the Netflix stuff was. But on the other hand, I think that that’s, and I have no insight into where they’re going, but, you know, I presume just from what little we’ve seen, and if anything, about the title Born Again has truth to it, you know, my guess, my semi-educated guess, would be that Matt Murdock starts here. He starts in a much higher place.
And if you go back to prior Born Again, right, Matt Murdock had a penthouse, right? He had a happy-go-lucky life a little bit. You know, he wasn’t as tortured always. So why not have him be a little happy for a while? And you know, connect with some other characters in New York, and then he’s going to get the [explicative] kicked out of him. And then he’s going to dive, you know, as opposed to just picking up the pieces from the Netflix one where he was already kind of here right?
But I think that’s an interesting thing that he could connect with some other folks, and possibly folks we’ve seen in the New York space already. Could it be Miss Marvel? Could it be Hawkeye? You know those sorts of characters that they’ve sort of established in that setting. I think it would be great to sort of, kind of seal that energy.
Alex Marcus: Are there characters that you think are part of his supporting cast that are essential to a Daredevil story? Because, right now we don’t know anything about the new show. We don’t know if, you know, Foggy and Karen are going to be a part of it. We don’t know what is going on with that and there’s been a lot of sort of upset-ment in the fans saying “Well, you can’t make the show without Foggy. You can’t make the show without Karen. You can’t make the show with this person or that person. You need everybody back,” and, you know, they obviously want to do their own thing. Try to make it be a different type of show from what already existed. But are there characters that you think are core to who Daredevil is, as a character, that need to be part of the show if they’re doing justice to him?
D.G. Chichester: I think Foggy is essential. I think Foggy is an important part of Mat Murdock. And when Matt slips, which he often does, you know, Foggy is there to pick the pieces up in a lot of ways. I mean, especially with the Netflix show, my son and I would joke all the time. Yeah, Matt’s a great lawyer, but you really want Foggy in your seat because Matt’s very distracted, and, although we saw in No Way Home, he’s a very good lawyer.
Alex Marcus: As long as he shows up to court…
D.G. Chichester: As long as he shows up to court…but I think Foggy, you know, creates a counterbalance and brings him back around in a lot of ways. You know, the vigilante and lawyer contrast, which is such an exciting part of Daredevil, and Matt Murdock has a necessary counterbalance in Foggy that, without him, you know you get pulled away too much. Matt can do it on his own, but I think there’s a real quality to Foggy.
Alex Marcus:
Now, speaking a little bit more about what could come, if Kevin called you tomorrow and was like, “Hey, I want you to write one episode of this show. It’s not going to be connected to anything else. It’s just the episode of TV that you would want to write as a Daredevil writer and fan. What would be your pitch to him?
D.G. Chichester: I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m way too busy [laughs]. You know, I’ve got to do like a bottle episode?
Alex Marcus: Yeah.
D.G. Chichester: You know, I, I did a story shortly after Three hundred, which Ron Garney illustrated, which was called “Thirty Four Hours,” and it was just a series of like little vignettes around the city, and it was sort of semi based on real events; the thirty-four hours that had been going on in New York City, at one point, where there had been no murders committed, and so Daredevil, just then hit every other possible little bit that he could sort of influence, you know? In his neighborhood and across the city.
And I think there might be something to that, you know, where there would be these either legal moments, you know, and it wouldn’t even need to be Daredevil necessarily, you know; but maybe Matt, going from legal thing to legal thing to legal thing, or Daredevil just sort of touches in and out of people’s lives without having to be some big dramatic thing. But just you know, he’s the billy club that kind of comes in […] or, you know, pulls somebody off the subway tracks. It’s just this rotating, tireless motion either as the lawyer or the vigilant, that could be a really interesting bottle episode. You know that just sort of shows that influence happening and that commitment to the community as either the lawyer or the vigilant, but ultimately for justice. That could be a really compelling piece of television.
To hear the complete, unabridged interview with Chichester, who was the main writer of the ongoing Daredevil comic title for much of the 1990s, make sure to download this week’s Bill vs The MCU podcast on the Pop Break Today podcast feed!
