What to Watch Before Daredevil: Born Again

 

With Marvel Studios latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Daredevil: Born Again Season One fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to take a quick break from my usual content and make a guide for anyone wanting to catch up or refresh before it hits theatres. Here’s What to Watch Before Daredevil: Born Again.

 

The best place to start is with Daredevil’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, the first season of Daredevil which was initially produced for Netflix but which can now be seen on Disney+. This first season introduced Charlie Cox as lawyer and vigilante Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin along with Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson and Aylet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna along with numerous other characters who would go on to appear in the various other MCU-related shows from Netflix.

 

Next up, Daredevil Season 2 introduced other key characters including Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle aka The Punisher, Matt’s former mentor Stick, played by Scott Glenn along with his former lover and trained killer Elektra Natchios as portrayed by Élodie Yung as a war with the criminal organisation The Hand escalates. It’s confirmed that Jon Bernthal will reprise his role in Daredevil: Born Again.

 

After this we have the crossover event mini-series The Defenders which sees Matt Murdock meet and team-up with the super strong private investigator Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), bulletproof badass Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Danny Rand aka the Immortal Iron Fist (Finn Jones) to stop the machinations of The Hand, led by Alexandra (the stunning Sigourney Weaver). The series ends with Matt Murdock believed dead in massive building collapse which leads into…

 

Daredevil Season 3 opens with a recovering Matt Murdock and leads to Wilson Fisk being released from prison a free man. Wilson Bethel portrays Special Agent Benjamin Poindexter (known in the comics as Bullseye) who is recruited by Fisk to impersonate Daredevil, framing him for various slayings. The season and series ends with a three-way battle between Murdock, Fisk and Poindexter. Poindexter is left paralysed and undergoing surgery, while Kingpin is beaten and sent back to prison, with he and Daredevil reaching an uneasy agreement that Fisk will leave Karen and Foggy alone in exchange for Daredevil not revealing Fisk’s wife Vanessa’s criminal involvement in events. The Netflix era ends here and we wouldn’t see Charlie Cox in the role for quite some time.

 

Perhaps an expected place for Vincent D’Onofrio to appear as Wilson Fisk and cement the prior series events as ‘canon’ to the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper, the Disney+ Hawkeye series reveals The Kingpin to be the big bad behind the show’s events, having been released from prison once more and using the Tracksuit Mafia to reclaim his former empire. Notably, Fisk is shown to have a close relationship with protégé Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) until it’s revealed he is responsible for her father’s murder, resulting in her shooting him in the face.

 

Released in the same week, Spider-Man: No Way Home featured Charlie Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock in a cameo appearance as Peter Parker’s lawyer. This moment got gasps and applause in the cinema when I saw it.

 

Matt Murdock returns in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in Episode 8, even suiting up in a new Daredevil costume inspired by his earliest comic appearances and teaming up with fellow lawyer/superhero Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk before the pair share a one-night stand. Daredevil briefly returns for a cameo in the show’s finale Episode 9.

 

Finally, during a flashback in the Disney+ mini-series Echo, we see Daredevil battle Maya Lopez in Episode One. The show follows Lopez returning to her home town and reveals Wilson Fisk survived being shot before culminating in the two facing off. Ultimately, Fisk returns to New York with his mind set on becoming the Mayor of New York City, leading into Daredevil: Born Again.

 

You may choose to skip some of these entries, but I’m sure watching them all will provide further depth and understanding for Daredevil: Born Again.

 

Until I discover how to fight blind, I remain

 

frogoat

 

  

 

 

 

 

Clones in the MC2 (Part 1)

 

Warning! The following post contains spoilers for comics from fifty to as recently as 15 years ago! It is not often a comic book storyline comes along that is so universally beloved for its consistency, quality, and brevity, but the ‘Clone Saga’…is not one of those storylines either. Though it is often unfairly maligned for bad writing and its excessive, unnaturally protracted length, the Clone Saga also delivered some spectacular stories with top tier writing with memorable, iconic, and beloved characters. Some of these characters heavily influenced the MC2. Which brings me to the subjects of today’s post: Clones in the MC2.

 

But before we start talking about clones, we need to detail where they came from, who created them. Which means we need to talk about Professor Miles Warren, who first appeared teaching biochemistry at Empire State University during Peter Parker’s first day of class in Amazing Spider-Man #31 and should not be confused with Peter Parker’s Midtown High School teacher, Mr Warren who first appeared way back in Amazing Fantasy #15 before being (sur)named in Amazing Spider-Man #8. Many years later, Untold Tales of Spider-Man #25 would establish the two men of science as brothers.

 

Shortly after the death of Gwen Stacy, we are introduced to new villain The Jackal in Amazing Spider-Man #129, who manipulates the vigilante known as The Punisher into targeting Spider-Man. The Jackal’s identity remains a mystery until Amazing Spider-Man #148 where he unmasks himself as Professor Miles Warren. Having orchestrated the apparent ‘return from the dead’ of Gwen Stacy (Amazing Spider-Man #142), Warren reveals that he coveted Gwen and blames Spider-Man for her death. Using cell samples obtained during one of his classes, Professor Warren tricked his lab assistant Anthony Serba into cloning Gwen and Peter. Initially led to believe the cloned cells were taken from a rat, upon realizing the truth Serba was murdered by Miles. Professor Warren disposed of Anthony Serba’s body, convincing himself ‘The Jackal’ had committed the crime. Afterwards, Warren fully developed his Jackal persona, and used hypnosis to ‘re-educate’ and control the newly awakened clone of Gwen. Having been drugged by The Jackal, Spider-Man awakens to find himself facing his ‘Spider-Clone,’ with neither Parker knowing which of them was the original thanks to both sharing the same memories up to that point. Breaking free of her mental conditioning, the clone of Gwen lashes out at Miles for his actions. Warren regained his senses just long enough to apparently die in his own timed explosion, along with the clone of Peter (Amazing Spider-Man #147-#149).

 

The clone of Gwen Stacy would bid Peter farewell and depart, while during a battle with Spencer Smythe’s Spider-Slayer, Peter would have the revelation he genuinely loved Mary Jane Watson. Despite having Dr. Curt Connors run a test to find out if he or his doppelgänger was the original, Peter chose to throw away the results without reading them, certain only the one, true Peter Parker could have felt that way. Worried a corpse bearing his face would be found, Peter disposed of the ‘Spider-Clone’ down a smokestack, believing he would be shortly thereafter incinerated (Amazing Spider-Man #149-#151).

For a while that was the end, until Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #25 introduced a ghoulish new villain named Carrion who knew Peter was Spider-Man. Later in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #30 it was revealed that this mysterious figure was a clone of Miles Warren, though writer Bill Mantlo originally intended Carrion to be the ‘Spider-Clone’, badly decayed and clad in the remnants of the Green Goblin’s discarded costume.  It’s revealed that prior to his final confrontation with Spider-Man, Miles had injected a cell sample from himself into a ‘clone casket’ to incubate but the process had gone wrong, leaving the clone’s body within to wither and change but kept alive. Eventually set free, the Miles Warren clone sought revenge on the wall-crawler before finally perishing by the tendrils of his own ‘Spider-Amoeba’ experiment (Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #31).

Relentlessly pursued by the High Evolutionary’s Gatherers from her quiet life as a teacher in Lansing, Michigan, the clone of Gwen Stacy makes her way to New York to seek Peter Parker’s help (Spectacular Spider-Man #142-#143). After reaching Peter and realising he is Spider-Man, the Gatherers capture clone Gwen and take her and Spider-Man to the High Evolutionary who runs tests on her. After a clash with Spider-Man and the Young Gods, the High Evolutionary claims that Professor Miles Warren had not, in fact, cloned anyone and proposes that Warren had instead kidnapped a woman of similar age and appearance and via infection with a genetic virus, transformed her on a molecular level to resemble Gwen. The Young God known as Daydreamer used her abilities to apparently revert ‘Gwen’ to her former appearance (Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8). 

According to Professor Warren’s journal recovered from his old laboratory, the woman Warren apparently abducted was a student named Joyce Delaney. Miles’ former assistant Anthony Serba had also been transformed in the ‘Spider-Clone’ by the Professor’s genetic virus, and a version of this would also later turn Malcolm McBride into a second Carrion, with the implication being that another host body had been altered to become the original Carrion seen in earlier stories (Spectacular Spider-Man #149). These issues served to retcon the Original Clone Saga so that there had never been clones at all, a status quo that would not last for long…

 

That’s where we’ll pause for now before the 90’s Clone Saga kicks off. Special thanks to arias-98105, the Marvel Chronology Project, the now-defunct www.samruby.com (via the Wayback Machine) and the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe and the Marvel wiki as well as the Clone Saga Chronicles Podcast which I re-listened to while working on this project.

Until I uncover a genetic virus to rewrite my DNA, I remain

 

frogoat