We're just a few weeks out from the long-awaited return of Daredevil to our screens with Daredevil: Born Again landing on Disney Plus on March 4. To tie in with the new show, Marvel has today republished the original comic Born Again storyline in a Premier Collection trade paperback with an introduction by Matt Murdock actor Charlie Cox.
In his intro (revealed in full by Collider) Cox admits to having had an "almost total lack of knowledge about the wonderful universe of Marvel" before he was cast in the role, stating "I'd never actually read a comic book, and so great was my ignorance of the character that in my first audition I neglected to portray him as blind – thinking 'Daredevil' was simply the noun used to describe a skydiver or mountaineer." That changed, however, when he was granted a Marvel Unlimited subscription and a reading list of titles to help him get up to speed before filming the first series of the Netflix show.
Cox went on to list some of the comics he'd read while in training for the original Netflix series. "I made my way through countless Daredevil issues, hooked from the very beginning. I began with everything Frank Miller, then jumped back to the character's inception with Stan Lee and Bill Everett. I am loathe to single any out – but along with Born Again and Man Without Fear, I loved Daredevil: Yellow, Guardian Devil, End of Days and, of course, the spellbinding run in the early 2000s from Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev."
Cox's whole intro is worth a read and reveals Cox's thoughts on the original arc and how it impacts Daredevil. "By stripping Matt Murdock of everything in Born Again, we are given a glimpse into our hero reduced to his bare bones. Mirrored thousands of miles away by his greatest love, Karen Page, they literally struggle to take one step at a time. In these spine-tingling early pages, Mazzucchelli's emaciated Matt is regularly found curled up in the fetal position juxtaposed with the towering, rounded Wilson Fisk. The image created in our minds is every bit as imposing as Miller's depiction of the sinister strings that are pulled to unravel Matt's life. This combination of the Visual Monster and the evil that cannot be seen is as chilling and claustrophobic as it gets!"
The new Premium Edition trade paperback of Daredevil: Born Again is out now from Marvel Comics.
Where does Born Again sit on our list of the best Daredevil comics of all time?
