Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 adapted one of the Man Without Fear’s most explosive comic book arcs, but it couldn’t use the best bits. The Kingpin of crime will never be greater than he was in Born Again Season 2, when Wilson Fisk ruled the city as mayor. It was a brutal term, with martial law, mandatory curfews, and a vigilante ban. The Kingpin of crime was setting the weather, and Daredevil‘s heroes and villains had no choice but to react to it.
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By the end of Born Again Season 2, it was clear this story – lifted straight from the comics – had been very different to its source material. There, it all began in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, when the wall-crawler emerged from a trip to the Negative Zone to learn months had passed and the Kingpin of crime was now mayor of his city. Naturally, that was an idea that soon span out into other books, especially into Daredevil. In the end, it all came to a head in the so-called “Devil’s Reign.”
Devil’s Reign is the Story of the Kingpin’s Downfall
Written by Chip Zdarsky and featuring art by Marco Checchetto, Devil’s Reign was essentially the Kingpin’s endgame as mayor of New York. Although Kingpin is normally cold and rational, he was shaken to the core by the discovery he had once known Daredevil’s true identity, only for his memories to be wiped by the Purple Man. Furious at this invasion of his own psyche, Kingpin launched a brutal campaign against everything Daredevil stood for, banning vigilantes and using the Purple Man’s powers to ensure he was re-elected.
In the comics, New York City is the home of a staggering number of vigilantes and superheroes – all of whom were affected by Kingpin’s ban. The Fantastic Four were arrested, Danny Rand was attacked by Kingpin’s “Thunderbolts” enforcers, and Taskmaster led a raid on the Daily Bugle to draw out Spider-Man (who’d actually been replaced by a clone at the time). Kingpin’s plans escalated as he came closer to regaining his memories, finally reversing the Purple Man’s conditioning and learning Daredevil was Matt Murdock.
The end of Devil’s Reign was a suitably dramatic one, because Kingpin didn’t know that Matt Murdock had himself been replaced by a mystically-created doppelganger (an arc that had been running for several years). Kingpin brutally murdered “Matt Murdock,” but was seen doing it, and his open crime brought an end to his reign. A pro-vigilante candidate won the next mayoral unopposed: Luke Cage.
Marvel Couldn’t Tell Anything Like Devil’s Reign
Daredevil: Born Again couldn’t possibly tell this story in a faithful way, of course. Inspired by the Marvel Netflix shows, it’s a lot more grounded than the comics; Born Again‘s returning villains are nowhere near as spectacular as the comics, there are far few superheroes in New York, and Mike Colter’s Luke Cage was relegated to a cameo rather than a political rival for Wilson Fisk. Timeline-wise, the story was set six months into Fisk’s career, nowhere near the next elections. The anti-vigilante laws were less an endgame than an opening shot, which changes things quite radically.
In the comics, Fisk established an alliance with Doctor Octopus, who wanted to get his hands on the Fantastic Four’s technology. Doctor Octopus retrieved variants of himself from alternate timelines, where he’d possessed the bodies of Ghost Rider, the Hulk, and Wolverine. This “mad scientist” sub-plot was understandably far too fantastical for the MCU, given the Fantastic Four don’t even exist in this timeline (yet).
There was, however, one other twist loosely inspired by Devil’s Reign. In the comic book arc, Kingpin struck a deal with a billionaire couple known as the Stromwyns, who considered him their pawn in New York. There’s a sense in which Marvel did something similar with Born Again‘s Mr. Charles, who works for the Contessa. Things played out far worse for the Stromwyns, with Kingpin ultimately deciding he was nobody’s pawn and killing them. Mr. Charles, in contrast, survived Season 2 unscathed (and with Bullseye in tow).
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Image Courtesy of DC Comics
