Daredevil: Born Again's Muse is terrifying, but I wish he'd never been unmasked

After seven episodes of teasing the identity of the villain Muse, we finally know who is underneath the bloody mask on Daredevil: Born Again.

Warning: We'll be getting into spoilers from Daredevil: Born Again episode 7 from this point on.

Muse is, as many fans online guessed, Bastian Cooper, played by Wednesday actor Hunter Doohan. And while Doohan makes the serial killer artist absolutely terrifying, he could have been even scarier if the show stuck to the comics.

Created by Charles Soule and Ron Garney in 2016’s Daredevil #11, Muse is a superpowered Inhuman, with the ability to absorb sensation from the area around him. Naturally, that makes him a near-unstoppable opponent for Daredevil, a blind superhero who is only able to operate by using his other senses. To make matters worse, Muse is able to turn those sensations into super-strength and speed, something Daredevil decidedly doesn’t have.

Horrifyingly, Muse is a serial killer artist whose medium of choice is human blood and body parts. We first get a sense of what Muse is capable of when it’s revealed he painted a mural in New York City with the blood of 100 different victims. Later, he graduates to sculpture made with the corpses of his fellow Inhumans. And though he dies after a confrontation with Daredevil’s sidekick Blindspot, he recently came back from Hell to possess the body of an art student in the currently running series Daredevil: Unleash Hell.

But what’s really scary about Muse beyond Garney’s excellent costume design that evokes the workmanlike artist along with a bleeding heart and more blood leaking from Muse’s eyes like tears, is that you never find out who he is. There’s no taking off the mask to reveal someone from Daredevil’s past, or that he’s another Marvel villain. Muse is Banksy, but with a bit more murder: he could be anyone, at any time. He is pure villainy, and pure art.

Change of approach

Daredevil: Born Again goes a different route with the Bastian reveal. There are similar touch-points with the comic, of course. Muse has indeed been painting murals with human blood and has had at least 60 victims – if not more. But unlike the comic book version that pretentiously espouses thoughts on the intersection of art and murder, when he’s in the mask on TV, he’s a silent killer.

Outside of the mask, he’s Bastian, a classic spoiled, disturbed rich kid who becomes obsessed with his therapist, Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva). In fact, in a flip from the comics, Bastian sees Heather as his muse, not the other way around where Muse is planning to inspire murderous thoughts in others.

Hunter Doohan is – to use a technical term – a total creepazoid in this week’s episode, something he excels at in other shows like Wednesday on Netflix. It becomes clear to Heather pretty quickly that something is very disturbed about Bastian. The clincher? He draws Muse’s mask in the blood from his own nose, which would probably be a good indicator to anyone, even without a degree in therapy. And when Daredevil tracks Muse down to Heather’s office, Muse slashes her arm, almost causing her to bleed out. Instead, Heather shoots Muse several times, killing him.

Like a lot of Born Again, what works here is the stakes of the fight between Daredevil and Muse are based on characters we care about – in this case, the relatively stable relationship between Matt and Heather that’s been spooling out throughout the season. It also ties into a conversation the duo had earlier in the episode about how Matt is tamping down his trauma. Muse/Bastian, meanwhile, is no trauma, all enjoyment of killing. Matt hates both sides of himself because he can’t fully commit to either; on the show whether Muse is in or out of the mask, he’s the same.

Masking feelings

While the show does give us a scary villain in Bastian, it’s hard not to think that turning him into a Criminal Minds style unsub mutes a bit of the power Muse had on the comic book page. There’s no reason to think he’d have his Inhuman powers of the show, as other than references to White Tiger’s (Kamar de los Reyes) magic amulet, Born Again has eschewed any of the more fantastical aspects of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) in favor of a more grounded approach.

The bigger divide is in terms of missing the theatricality of the villain. That’s down to unmasking him as your classic toxic male school shooter (albeit draining blood instead of shooting people with guns). But there’s a downsizing of Muse as an artist on the TV show, as well. His art is certainly better than average, but they’re not Banksy or Warhol. The “works” Muse created in the comics felt like they were nightmares straight from the depths of Hell. The ones on TV look like a viral promo campaign for the TV show Daredevil: Born Again.

Is this a misstep for the series? Not really, because it’s all about Matt Murdock’s journey: Muse, after all, is the villain that gets him to put the costume back on. And Doohan, as mentioned, makes a memorable baddie. But if Born Again had more fully embraced the mysterious, ostentatious artiste from the comics, we might have had an all-time great Marvel TV villain. As is, he likely won’t be fetching a high price at auction.

Daredevil: Born Again is airing weekly on Disney Plus. For more, check out our guides to the Daredevil: Born Again release schedule and our Daredevil: Born Again release schedule season 1 review.