Daredevil: Born Again is finally here! The two episode premiere brought plenty of violence, death, and devilish angst with it. If you haven’t seen the first two episodes, stop here if you want to avoid spoilers.
SPOILERS BELOW.
You’ve been warned, but, one final time, here come the spoilers. In The first episode of Daredevil: Born Again, Wilson Bethel, Bullseye, goes on a rampage killing quite a few innocent bystanders as well as his intended target, Foggy Nelson. After only a few minutes of seeing Foggy, Karen, and Matt all take a walk to their favorite bar to do a bit of drinking, Bullseye appears and shoots Foggy straight in the chest.
Right after Foggy is shot, Matt Murdock appears as Daredevil to take on Bullseye in a brutal fight that sees Daredevil stabbed with at least ten throwing knives, many innocents killed, and Bullseye nearly killed. As Matt listens to his best friend’s heart stop beating, he continues to beat Bullseye to a pulp, then pushes him off a roof. It’s not the tallest roof in New York City, but Matt sure did soften Poindexter’s skull with his fist, then the fall seemed to do the job, but it turned out to be a bit of a cheap bait and switch, as Bullseye moves, showing he is not dead.
Daredevil does not become a killer in the first episode of Born Again, but it was pretty clear that his intention was to kill Bullseye. However, the second episode in the two episode premiere left things a little more vague with an intense cliffhanger.
In episode two, a vigilante by the name of White Tiger intervenes when two cops are beating up a seemingly random civilian. He doesn’t know they’re police officers at the time, and they don’t know he’s White Tiger either as he is traveling the city without his suit or amulet. During the fight, one of the officers slips and falls into an oncoming train. Hector Ayala, the civilian identity of White Tiger, is promptly arrested and taken into custody.
Later in the episode, Matt overhears Hector being interrogated, steps in to speak with him, then decides to take him on as a client. He accepts the risk of being labeled anti-cop for defending someone that killed one of NYPD’s finest (or not so fine in the case of these officers). His entire case rests on finding the person Hector saved from the two officers.
Finally, through some superpowered detective work, Matt is able to locate the witness, but only through overhearing a phone call in which two cops say his address during a plan to kill him. Matt is able to get there first and warn the suspect, allowing him to escape, but when he confronts the two officers, things get ugly. Matt genuinely does not want to fight them and even lets them beat him up for a while, but when one of them pulls a gun, the Devil comes out.
Matt swiftly, efficiently, and brutally takes them down. He slams one of their heads into the side of a refrigerator several times, then smashes him head first into the floor. A cracking sound can be heard, and it certainly seems like the man’s neck could have snapped. Matt unleashes a roar of rage, and the episode ends on a huge cliffhanger.
Daredevil is not a stranger to killing. He generally has a no kill rule, but that rule isn’t as strict as characters like Batman. In Frank Miller’s run in the 80s and 90s comics, Daredevil kills several goons, and, in more modern comics like Chip Zdarsky’s run, he accidentally kills someone, similar to the events of Born Again.
Ultimately, we don’t know for sure whether the corrupt cop is dead or alive. As of right now, Daredevil is not a killer, but that could change at the very start of episode three or whenever we learnt the fate of the officer. If he did end up killing the cop, it would play right into Fisk’s hatred for vigilantes, allowing him to enforce extremely strict laws against them.
The show is sitting at a pretty solid eighty three percent Rotten Tomatoes score, and the reaction from fans seems to be pretty positive across the board.
Do you think Daredevil has become a killer? Let me know in the comments!