Spider-Man will not be showing up in “Daredevil: Born Again,” but watching the series, I can feel some influence from Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” films. How so? “Spider-Man” and its sequels are as heightened as the original comics, whereas “Daredevil” prides itself on being a gritty crime drama. It comes down to the moments spent with ordinary New Yorkers.
The original “Daredevil” killed off journalist Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall), a longtime supporting character in the “Daredevil” comics. That forced the show to plug Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) into Urich’s role whenever the show needed a POV in New York media. “Daredevil: Born Again” is more directly continuing Urich’s legacy: his niece, BB Urich (Genneya Walton), is an independent reporter running a web show called the BB Report.
Each “Born Again” episode so far includes interludes from the BB Report, featuring BB interviewing New Yorkers about the issues of the episode: Wilson Fisk’s mayoral campaign, whether New York needs vigilantes, and, in episode 3, the trial of Hector Ayala aka White Tiger (Kamar de los Reyes). The montages are presented as footage from the BB Report itself, with low quality film grain and a smaller aspect ratio.
The scenes convey how the main cast of “Born Again” do not live in a vacuum. Their actions are rippling out across the city, and spurring mixed responses. The BB Report in the first episode cuts back and forth between an anti-Fisk voter and one of his supporters (who says that every other politician is a crook, right?).
Letting “real” New Yorkers give their opinions straight to the camera is cinematic storytelling right out of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man.”
Sam Raimi made Spider-Man’s New York City feel alive
No superhero filmmaker has actually captured what New York City feels like better than Sam Raimi. In his “Spider-Man” films, the five boroughs are a huge, vibrant metropolis filled with everymen and eccentrics, who all have strong community pride even if the city is too big to be close-knit.
We spend a lot of time with Spider-Man web-swinging over the streets of Manhattan, but the movies don’t forget about the people beneath him. The first film includes a montage of not only Spider-Man foiling crimes, but also of New Yorkers reacting to questions about the Wallcrawler from an unseen Daily Bugle interviewer. The montage has people from all walks of life: street musicians, construction workers, cops, and Lucy Lawless as a punk who thinks a Spider-Man with eight hands sounds hot.
When Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) quits being Spider-Man in “Spider-Man 2,” the Daily Bugle prints out a front-page edition: “Spider-Man No More!” Except we don’t stop at the newspapers being printed, we see people picking it off a newsstand as a street performer sings: “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, where have you gone to, Spider-Man?”
J. Jonah Jameson (J.K Simmons) libeling Spider-Man isn’t just life throwing more dirt in Peter Parker’s eyes; we also see how New Yorkers react to that coverage, with some believing Jameson and others not. Even the film’s action scenes always include the everyday people: in “Spider-Man,” a crowd shows New York pride and helps Spidey take down the Green Goblin. The train scene in “Spider-Man 2” has weight because a bunch of people’s lives are in danger, not just Spider-Man’s. And in the climatic Spidey & New Goblin vs. Venom & Sandman fight in “Spider-Man 3,” a crowd watches the battle and reacts just like the audience seeing the movie in the theater does.
The random New Yorkers in “Spider-Man” may be unnamed extras, but they all feel like they have life stories.
The MCU has forgotten about normal people, but Daredevil hasn’t
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going on for 17 years and 35 movies now. Along the way, as the setting’s ensemble cast of costumed characters ballooned and ballooned, the movies forgot to spotlight characters who don’t wear tights. As the MCU has gotten bigger, it’s also got more incestuous and insular. The movies have glossed over world-changing events like “the Blip,” focusing only on how they impacted the main characters.
“Daredevil: Born Again” rectifies this with the BB Report segments, which are dedicated entirely to showing how normal people feel. It not only takes inspiration from Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” though, but it also smartly updates it.
The major Marvel/DC superheroes were all created in the 20th century when the newspaper business was still going strong. The Daily Bugle is a cornerstone of “Spider-Man,” but it feels a bit antiquated nowadays. Like, Superman’s day job at the Daily Planet is too important to change, but gumshoe reporters like Clark Kent don’t really exist anymore. Journalism isn’t a working man’s job, it’s a privilege for the independently wealthy.
That’s why a lot of modern Spider-Man stories more or less drop the whole “Peter Parker takes pictures of himself as Spider-Man” angle and/or reinvent J. Jonah Jameson as a podcast host instead of a newspaper publisher.
In 1962, Peter’s pictures would’ve been invaluable, but in 2025 anyone and everyone could snap pics of Spider-Man with their cellphone. Coverage of Spider-Man, and pictures of him, also wouldn’t produce as many exclusives for the Daily Bugle because people would be able to read stories about Spider-Man online.
The BB Report is a more accurate picture of what news looks like today: an independent outlet that mostly runs short video bites perfect for TikTok and Instagram. Stan Lee said that Marvel stories must only use the “illusion of change,” but part of that is to reflect what the outside world looks like. In “Daredevil: Born Again,” the show updates the Marvel universe’s news media for the 2020s.
New episodes of “Daredevil: Born Again” drop Tuesday on Disney+.