Of Marvel’s street-level heroes, Matt Murdock — better known as Daredevil — is maybe their most popular. A lawyer by day and crime-fighting vigilante by night, the blind hero led his own Netflix series for three seasons, and when fans thought they might never see him again after the series was canceled to make way for Disney+, the clever hero popped up briefly in Spider-Man: No Way Home, confirming his move to the MCU proper.
Not only is he now set to receive his own Disney+ series, Daredevil: Born Again, but the devilish vigilante is also set to pop up in a number of upcoming MCU projects featuring other heroes, including Spider-Man: Freshman Year, Echo, and this month’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. While it’s unknown what role he’ll play in any of those shows, fans are ecstatic at the prospect of getting to see Hell’s Kitchen’s best hero again — and so is She-Hulk’s creative team.
In an interview with Collider, She-Hulk creator Jessica Gao spoke about getting to write Matt Murdock into her show, a half-hour legal comedy that couldn’t be more tonally different from the Netflix-turned-Disney+ series that introduced Matt Murdock to the viewing public and the MCU. Initially, Gao and her team had no intention of touching Murdock, as he seemed too far out of the realm of possibility, in terms of characters Marvel would allow them to use. But when news reached them that not only would the Man Without Fear be returning to a new series, but that Charlie Cox would be reprising his role from the Netflix series, the team went wild, taking a “snowball’s chance in hell” to incorporate the vigilante into Jen’s story:
“Daredevil was a special case. Most of the time, what we do is mine the movies and the comics, and we pick a character we wanna use, then we think of what the best and funniest way is for us to use them, and then we ask Marvel, if we can have them. But Daredevil was a dream that we dared not dream. We were like, “Oh, there’s no way. That’s not even on the table.” It never even crossed our minds. And then, we got wind, one day, that not only was he on the table, but Charlie Cox would be coming back as Daredevil, so we immediately started thinking of ways to incorporate him into our show. If we only had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting him on our show, it was still a chance, and we were gonna take it.”
When asked what it was like to work with Cox, who’s played Matt Murdock since 2015, Gao has nothing but praise for the Kin star, commenting not only on his love for the character, but also his willingness to experiment and lean into the more comedic style of She-Hulk, as opposed to the more grim dramatics of Daredevil and The Defenders:
“He has such reverence and love for that character. It’s clear that the character meant so much to him, but he also came very game to play around. He was totally up for more funny banter and having this fun dynamic with Jen and She-Hulk. It really feels like the character from the comics. It was so fun because he really does fit into the show so perfectly. They’re both lawyers, and they’re both superheroes. Who else can say that they have that in common? It was just very fun thinking about what their dynamics would be, based on the personalities of these two characters.”
She-Hulk is streaming on Disney+ now, with new episodes premiering on Thursdays. Check out the trailer for the series below: