The following contains spoilers forDaredevil: Born Again.
Whether it’s met the high expectations that viewers had after the original NetflixDaredevilseries’ three-season run,Daredevil: Born Againon Disney+ is an admirable, explicit foray into the MCU proper following Matt Murdock’s piecemeal cameos inSpider-Man: No Way Home,She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, andEcho. Its first season focuses on a parallel between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk gradually relapsing into their darker alter egos asDaredeviland Kingpin, respectively, while a handful of other characters, both new and old, are folded into the mixture.
Despite how wildly successful it could be, players have yet to be graced with a modern, AAA Daredevil game in the same vein as Rocksteady’sBatmangames or Insomniac’sSpider-Mangames, even whenMarvel currently has a several upcoming gamesto look forward to, such asMarvel’s Wolverine,Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra,Marvel’s Blade, EA Motive’s Iron Man game, and Cliffhanger’s Black Panther game. Plus, among all that a Daredevil game could achieve, it’d be a shame if Muse, an undercut antagonist fromDaredevil: Born Again, was shelved now for the foreseeable future.
Daredevil: Born Again’s Muse is a Forgettable Footnote in Season 1
Depending on what fans enjoyed about Netflix’s series or what they had hoped to see from thepopular Disney+ show, it can be a bit disappointing that the originalDaredevilrun was teased as being carried over intoBorn Againonly to have a new cast of characters predominantly take the limelight, none of whom are arguably as interesting or charismatic as those that came before. The season finale corrected this by reprising Karen Page once again, as well as exhuming an unsurprisingly bitter and murderous Frank Castle, but halfway through the season was an even stranger occurrence.
BeforeBorn Againbegan airing on the streaming service, promotional material teased theDaredevil villain Muse, a serial killerwho would be revealed to paint murals throughout the city with his victims’ blood. Muse had apparently been doing so for quite some time and amassed 60 victims before anyone caught wind of his gruesome activities, which, even in a city as bustling and gargantuan as New York, seems outlandish and absurd.
Even worse, though, is how quickly Daredevil is able to discern Muse’s whereabouts thereafter, and when Muse attempts to kill his therapist (Matt Murdock’s then-girlfriend, Heather Glenn) in the next episode he is slain by her in self-defense. So, after all the macabre, exciting hype the character provided as a demonstration of the show’s willingness to depict a dark story,Muse is only around for two episodes ofDaredevil: Born Againand is swept under a rug about as hastily as he was introduced.
How Muse Could Elevate a Hypothetical Daredevil Game
Muse’s visual design was debatably perfect inDaredevil: Born Again, but the comic book source material iterations of him are fairly different. Indeed, the original Muse has the tremendously convenient ability to dispel sensory information and thus makes it challenging for Daredevil to ‘perceive’ or track him, as well as generic, superpowered qualities beyond those of a regular human.
Regardless, Muse was a blank canvas forBorn Againto paint on, and it’d be excellent ifa hypotheticalDaredevilgameat some point in the future adapted him somehow.
It could be fascinating to come across posed corpses and disturbing murals in an open-world Hell’s Kitchen, for example, and battling an enemy with unpredictable movements could actually allow Daredevil and Muse to go toe-to-toe realistically. In the meantime, no Daredevil game is confirmed to be in development, and it’s anyone’s guess whether there will ever be one, let alone whether Muse would have a role as a villain in it.
