From the very beginning, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has largely utilized its source material as a springboard for its own stories. Often, the films and shows in the MCU have gone their own way, but every once in a while, they’ve done almost perfect one-to-one adaptations of the stories fans previously read on the page. Some of those are fleeting visuals, like Captain America vs Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, while others are longer, like Spider-Man trapped under the rubble and Doctor Strange performing surgery from the Astral Plane.
Ever since Marvel’s Daredevil premiered on Netflix back in 2015, the series has been a pretty accurate depiction of the man without fear that adapted his comic storylines and even visuals in distinct ways, often more so than other MCU stories. Ironically, even though the series has returned as Daredevil: Born Again, the Disney+ series is adapting a totally different storyline from Marvel comics, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less accurate. With over fifty episodes to his name so far, these are the moments from Marvel’s Daredevil and Daredevil: Born Again that are ripped right from the pages of comic books.
Matt Murdock’s origins are naturally the very first scene in the Netflix TV series, showing a young Matt after he saved an old man on the street from getting hit by a truck. As we know, that truck was carrying radioactive materials, which splashed Matt’s eyes and rendered him blind (with the side effect of superpowers). The opening scene is quite similar to a few different versions of the origin as seen in Marvel comics, with flashes of it from Daredevil: Man Without Fear, Daredevil: Yellow, and Daredevil Volume 3, all offering a perfect visual reference for the TV series.
In Season 2, Episode 3 of the original series, Frank Castle is able to take Daredevil as his prisoner, chaining him up on a rooftop. The pair spend the entire episode having a philosophical discussion that culminates in Frank giving Matt a choice: either kill the gangster in front of him, kill Frank to stop him from killing him, or do nothing and have a death on his conscience.
This moment is pulled directly from a Marvel comic, but not a Daredevil series. Instead, the scene comes from Punisher #3, from the “Welcome Back, Frank” arc. It’s a near-perfect recreation of the scene aesthetically, with some minor differences. This moment is shockingly close to the pages of Marvel’s comics…up until a point. In Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comic, the scene ends with The Punisher revealing there was no firing pin in the weapon at all; it was all a mind game to mess with Matt. The Daredevil TV series takes it in another direction, with Matt shooting his way out of his restraints and subduing Frank (who still manages to shoot the guy anyway).
Scott Glenn makes his debut as Stick, Matt Murdock’s trainer and leading member of The Chaste. Across the seventh episode of the original series, there are multiple scenes between Stick and a young Matt that are pulled directly from the pages of Frank Miller’s Daredevil: Man Without Fear, especially the training sequence in a dank basement. Glenn fully embodies the character that Miller created and is one of the best casting choices across the entire MCU. There’s one more scene that’s pulled directly from Miller’s work, when Stick meets with Stone of The Chaste, the group meant to destroy The Hand.
As noted before, the first episode of Marvel’s Daredevil is one of the most accurate across the series. Immediately after the already hyper-accurate opening scene of Matt Murdock getting his powers comes another major moment, with Daredevil confronting gangsters in a shipping yard by the docks. The scene, while not 100% the same, is incredibly close, not only in terms of how Daredevil navigates the area, but how he fights the gun-toting thugs, and, most importantly, in his black sweatsuit costume.
As implausible as it might seem, yes, Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, was elected mayor of New York City not only in Daredevil: Born Again but in the pages of Marvel comics. The ascension of Fisk to the role of Mayor begins in Charles Soule’s Daredevil run, with a major campaign promise being, you guessed it, being tough on vigilantes. On the screen, it happens quickly, while in Marvel comics, it was a storyline seeded for quite some time, with Kingpin winning goodwill with the citizens of New York by actually being a force for good during the Secret Empire crossover.
Despite that distinction, there are similarities across Daredevil: Born Again with how the Mayor Fisk plot plays out across Soule’s run on Daredevil and even Chip Zdarsky’s run as well, as he held the position for over five years in continuity. In the comics and the series, he deputizes his own police force to hunt down vigilantes. There is one main distinction between how the “Mayor Fisk” storyline plays out on the page and how it does on screen, which is that in the comics, Fisk cheated. It’s revealed in the comics that Fisk rigged the election in order to be elected mayor, which is something that the TV series doesn’t appear to be headed in that direction in the slightest.
