Daredevil is back with the 2nd season of Born Again, and Marco from Nerdkultur dedicates an entire video to the return. He explains why the series is one of the best Marvel productions in years.
Who is Marco Risch? Since 2015, Marco Risch has been working on his YouTube channel Nerdkultur with news, analyses, reviews, and interviews about current movies and series.
In addition, he meets weekly with his colleague Yves Arievich and chats in the Podcast Nerd & Kultur about pop culture film topics like Star Wars, Marvel, and DC.
Both the YouTube channel and the podcast are part of the Webedia network, which also includes MeinMMO.
In a new video on YouTube, Marco talks about the 2nd season of Daredevil: Born Again on Disney Plus. He explains why the return is so good.
The reset that Marvel desperately needs
What does the new season Daredevil: Born Again look like? With Born Again, Marvel continues the Daredevil series, which had 3 seasons on Netflix. The 2nd season of Born Again is therefore actually the 5th season featuring Charlie Cox as the blind hero. For Marco, it is easily one of the best MCU series ever
because it is the reset that Marvel urgently needs
.
This is already reflected in the images. According to Marco, the 2nd season has a dark film-noir look again, fitting the original series on Netflix. It relies on several stylistic devices:
- Match cuts, that is, images that are perfectly edited together
- A play with colors and their symbolism
- It uses silhouettes and light
- A significantly
more ambitious
color grading than the previous season
But not all of the stylistic devices are used meaningfully, as Marco explains. As a negative stylistic device, Marco mentions the lens flare, an effect that reflects bright light into the camera lens. He compares it to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek films. The problem with the effect is that there is no substantive reason to use this stylistic device.
Marco has a similar opinion about the handheld shaky cam
. These are scenes that were filmed by hand, without stabilization systems or tripods. This stylistic device can create closeness and drama, but season 2 of Daredevil does not use it that way. For Marco, it is completely unmotivated
.
The aspect ratios of the season also do not create a fundamentally positive effect. The season uses the CinemaScope ratio, which is known from the MCU. That is, the black bars you know from the cinema, only that it is a TV series. Marco praises the 16:9 ratio used by the Netflix seasons. This look, and thus the dramaturgy and emotional climax, cannot be reached by the Disney series. The focus, however, is still on the story.
Marco already showcased the strengths of its Netflix predecessor in a previous video. You can read all about it here:
Many interesting characters
How good are the characters in the new season? In the 2nd part of his video, Marco compares the latest season of Born Again with the current state of the MCU. At the end of the year, Doomsday is coming, and countless characters (like the X-Men) are returning and will have an appearance. Daredevil focuses on a smaller universe
, familiar to Netflix fans: The Defenders.
The Disney-Marvel series are only slightly acknowledged or, in the case of Echo, completely ignored. At least for Hawkeye fans, Tony Dalton returns as Swordmaster. According to Marco, this shows that Marvel boss Kevin Feige likes to recruit people from his favorite series. Tony Dalton is known as Lalo Salamanca from Better Call Saul.
In this context, Marco also mentions Michael Gandolfini, who plays Daniel Blake in the series. However, this is somewhat unintentionally funny, as the series constantly shoves him into scenes […], that could directly come from the mafia epic.
According to Marco, his role is often wasted.
Additionally, there are the characters Buck and Bullseye, who are positively mentioned. Overall, the character moments of the two are said to exude the long-lost Netflix charm. Marco then briefly focuses on the character of Vanessa Fisk. For Born Again, she is strong and different from the old
Vanessa, but with her new agenda, she functions nonetheless and so does her relationship with Wilson Fisk, which continues consistently.
As a new actor, the Scream villain Matthew Lillard also joins the series. Marco describes how he does what he always does in his roles: perfectly annoying. You can feel the chemistry and antipathy of the characters again. Of course, there is also Wilson Fisk.
The good and the bad
What is the highlight of the new season? For Marco, Daredevil and Wilson Fisk hold the series together. Both have an inner conflict. Wilson, as a power-hungry mayor, against the heroes in the underground. Marco compares Fisk’s task force to the images of ICE agents from the USA. This is not a conscious decision, as the series was shot a long time before, but not everything about it is coincidence: Just New York Born Again instead of Make America Great Again
.
Marco explains that you can still tell in the series that Drew Goddard, the writer of the first 3 seasons, is missing. Especially his sense for the characters and their inner turmoil. While he is currently celebrating success with The Astronaut in cinemas, Born Again, with its 2nd season, at least goes in the right direction and picks up where Netflix left off with season 3.
Born Again is not relevant to the larger narrative of the MCU, but it is also not an interchangeable MCU series. The characters have to live with the consequences, and that’s exactly what Marco likes about the 2nd season of Born Again. Which movies you should keep an eye on in 2026, Marco revealed in a previous video: Film expert reveals which 10 movies you should watch in 2026
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