Daredevil: Born Again Showrunner Addresses Defenders (& Spider-Man) In Season 2

Warning: Spoilers below for Daredevil: Born Again Season 1

Daredevil: Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane addresses the possibility of other Defenders characters or even Spider-Man appearing in Season 2. Following the explosive Season 1 finale “Straight to Hell,” Scardapane sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss the episode’s twists and turns and the series overall. When talking about Matt Murdock’s mission to assemble an army to fight back against Wilson Fisk, he was asked if Matt’s old allies the Defenders were at the forefront of his mind. Scardapane emphasized that while he’s always thinking about those characters, they won’t be brought into Born Again unless it feels right for the story. He also shed light on what it would take for Spider-Man to join forces with Daredevil.

“Without giving too much away … when you’re working in what I would call the Hell’s Kitchen corner of the MCU, those iconic characters are always in your mind,” Scardapane said. “The thing is that — and this is kind of hard, I’m trying to thread a needle here — you want to bring in people and relationships and past figures in Matt’s life because they help the story, particularly in terms of a story where Fisk has taken over the city. And there is a resistance and a rebellion, so to speak, rising. So there’s going to be people, vigilantes, superheroes that are involved in that. There has to be because this is happening to their city. That said, you also want to create a completely organic story for that. So who comes in and why has to be beyond anything earned.”

On the topic of Spider-Man, Scardapane explained someone else at Marvel would have to bring up the possibility for it to be considered. “We have our little corner that is Hell’s Kitchen and is kind of downtown from Avengers Tower. We kind of stay in our neighborhood until somebody says, ‘Hey, what about…?!’ When people on high or people on other shows or people in other movies are interested in our world, we’ll get a like, ‘What do you think of…?’ And I haven’t gotten any of that on Spider-Man yet.”

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In the mid-to-late 2010s, Netflix’s various Marvel series focusing on street-level heroes built up to a crossover event: The Defenders. The team consisted of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Since those Netflix shows wrapped up, the fates of many of these characters have been up in the air. Prior to Daredevil: Born Again Season 1’s premiere, Marvel executive Brad Winderbaum stated the studio was “exploring” the possibility of bringing the rest of the Defenders back, but nothing has been announced as of yet.

Daredevil has crossed paths with Spider-Man in the MCU; Charlie Cox has a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Spider-Man was also one of the characters Kingpin referenced in Born Again Season 1 when he outlined his plan to crack down on vigilante activity in New York.

If Matt Murdock is going to put together an army, it would make sense if he tried to reassemble the Defenders. He’s going to need all help he can get in the battle against Wilson Fisk and his task force, and there’d have to be a good explanation if the other three Defenders weren’t among the first people he called. The way Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 ended, with Fisk declaring martial law in New York and imprisoning vigilantes, would give the show’s creative team that desired organic route to bring those character back into the fold. It would be a shame if Jessica Jones or Luke Cage came back after all these years and didn’t have much to do. Scardapane, understandably, wants to make sure their returns would be worth it.

Spider-Man might be more complicated because it’s unclear how potential rights issues could create a hurdle. Vincent D’Onofrio recently explained that it’s unlikely his Kingpin would ever appear in a Marvel movie, as he is “only usable for television series.” Kingpin is a character “caught in between Marvel and Sony.” It’s possible Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is subject to similar restrictions, only he’s usable just for feature films. It’s one thing for Born Again to mention an unnamed hero who wears a “spider symbol” in dialogue, but an actual on-screen appearance might not be so easy to pull off. However, Disney and Sony could probably iron something out if they really wanted to.