Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Marvel
I had never felt happier while sitting in front of a screen this year than watching She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, in the episode reintroducing Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil. The last time we’d seen the beloved (and exceptionally violent) lawyer-meets-superhero was when Netflix abruptly canceled his series in November 2018, a month after the third season premiered to critical acclaim. But after a brief appearance in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home confirmed that Cox’s take on the hero would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fan anticipation exploded.
We’ve finally gotten a fuller taste of what MCU’s Daredevil is like, and it’s not at all what we expected—or where. In the penultimate episode of the Disney+ show She-Hulk’s first season, we’re reacquainted with Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil—a far more comedic, agile, and confident version than he was on Netflix. But instead of feeling like a major downgrade of the brooding superhero, his She-Hulk appearance was a breath of fresh air. Based on this one-episode cameo alone, Marvel Studios has convinced me that it will deliver the best version of Daredevil we’ll ever see on screen.
The MCU offers a remarkable evolution from what Cox brought to the table in the Netflix show, which was produced by a separate, now-gone TV entity of Marvel Studios. It never sacrifices the character development the series had brought, but his She-Hulk appearance also shows us a different side of the superhero (and lawyer) than we saw on Netflix.