2025 is a year of on-screen superheroes – but where are they?

Here’s the thing about Marvel’s new Disney+ series, Daredevil: Born Again. There’s not as much Daredevil in it as you might expect.

That’s because a fair amount of the story centers on our hero, Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock, turning his back on the superhero life, convinced he caused as much harm as good charging around Hell’s Kitchen in red body armor.

I’ve never been a fan of these kinds of stories, because you know events will eventually force our hero to get back in the vigilante game (the series ain’t called Matt Murdock: Born Again). And the longer it takes, the more frustrating it can be for an audience to watch a smart, talented guy twist himself in knots to avoid what every mouth-breather in the audience already knows: You need to suit up and kick some bad guy behind, already.

But I also think the initial reticence of the show to embrace Daredevil’s superhero-ness reflects an ambivalence about comic book stories that has spread across the industry – even as 2025 shapes up to be the year of the superhero in film and TV.

Bringing superheroes back, one TV show and film at a time 

Already this year, we’ve had the film Captain America: Brave New World, featuring Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as a Black man who becomes a flag-wrapped superhero. In May, Marvel’s take on villains trying to do good, Thunderbolts*, debuts. In July, we get director/writer James Gunn’s new take on Superman, alongside a new version of Marvel’s most venerated franchise, The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

TV-wise, we’ve already seen new seasons of Invincible on Prime Video and DC’s Harley Quinn on Max. Ironheart, a Black Panther spinoff with shades of Iron Man, debuts on Disney+ in June, while the second season of Gunn’s gonzo series Peacemaker is slated for Max in August. For Wonder Man, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Black Manta from the recent Aquaman movies) plays superpowered Hollywood stuntman Simon Williams on Disney+ in December.

There’s other comics-inspired stuff coming, too. But that’s a lot of folks flying around with spandex and laser eyes at a time when audiences seem more ambivalent about these stories than ever.

Rebuilding superhero stories when audiences are wary

And, as with any world-shaking superhero story, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Marvel is trying to rebound from recent, disastrous stumbles – where the difficulty of following up 10 years of success was, um, complicated when key actor Jonathan Majors was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and a string of ill-conceived movies followed.

Gunn is putting his stamp on DC, hoping to bring the explicit, savvy, fun sensibility that powered his Guardians of the Galaxy films to rescue classic superhero characters marooned in morose films like Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. So all eyes are turned to his Superman with a simple question: How can you make this character compelling for right now?

Daredevil: Born Again answers that question for the Marvel-verse by once again presenting a conflicted, street-level hero in Matt Murdock – the orphan blinded by radioactive elements who gained extraordinary hearing and powers of balance in return. Working as a principled lawyer, he struggles to manage his anger and channel his vigilante impulses, all in the universe originally created for Netflix’s three-season Daredevil series.

A fair amount of this new series may feel a bit like a bait-and-switch to longtime fans: a key supporting character dies early in the series, and several others from Daredevil’s “Scooby Gang” of helpers don’t show up meaningfully until deep into the season. It all adds up to a show that is kind of like the Netflix version and kind of not – never fully committed to either echoing old storylines or moving toward a new narrative with new people.

The Born Again series was delayed by the Hollywood strikes and then, according to an interview in ScreenRant, completely overhauled to show that character death I’m hinting about onscreen. (That overhaul also brought a costumed Daredevil into the picture earlier, according to The Hollywood Reporter.) The result is a continuation of the story from the Netflix series littered with new characters and situations – along with its sometimes gory, in-your-face violence, beefed up by better special effects and more expansive production.

Compelling action — with a catch

The first episode does offer some thrilling action in that vein, as Daredevil takes on a classic villain, a prominent character is killed and then Cox’s Matt Murdock meets with Vincent D’Onofrio’s crime boss Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin. But then, as so often happened on the Netflix version, the story lags and we see Daredevil less.

I felt many times that I was watching producers’ hesitancy to get too “comic book-y” – resulting in scenes with a lot of talking and not a lot of forward motion or excitement. In particular, perhaps because actor Kamar de los Reyes died back in 2023 after filming his scenes, his work as Hector Ayala (White Tiger) ends with a disappointing abruptness.

I’ve always enjoyed the moments when Murdock uses his powers in civilian guise – there’s an episode where he’s caught in a bank heist, which is super entertaining – but too much time without Daredevil leads you to wonder why they made this series, if they’re going to hesitate showcasing the hero at its center.

As usual, the most compelling performance here comes from D’Onofrio as the Kingpin. As the season begins, Fisk also seems to be trying to behave differently, renouncing his criminal past and running for mayor of New York City.

Eventually, Kingpin sits at the center of a story that echoes some of the changes we are seeing President Trump enact in real life, as he tries consolidating presidential power in his second term. Those changes constantly raise the question: is this making things better, or just empowering and enriching the people who run everything?

Is the future of superhero film and TV less super?

Given the success of past series like Andor – which served up a Star Wars story shorn of Jedi magic or lightsabers – I see the value in offering a show lighter on superhero stuff to hook viewers who may have a visceral reaction to costumes and superpowers.

But ultimately, superhero stories center on the thrill of seeing someone virtuous cut through the nonsense to deliver justice. Along the way, we need compelling, complex heroes, villains who have an understandable – if twisted – point of view and stories which resonate beyond an elegantly choreographed fight scene or dazzling special effects.

I’m not sure the first season of Daredevil: Born Again completely delivers on all those necessities – after watching the screeners, I was less impressed than I’d hoped. But it does better than an awful lot of disappointing recent film and TV efforts. If this year of the superhero is to really take flight, storytellers need to show audiences they know how to make these tales entertaining and relevant again.

Or it won’t be the Kingpin or Lex Luthor who kills off superheroes in TV and film. It will be a disinterested audience, demanding something better.