Daredevil Trailer Is Here!

The first trailer for the Netflix Daredevil series has arrived! As you may know if you’re reading this, this is the first of four series set in the same Marvel Universe as the Avengers movies. The others will focus on Jessica Jones and Luke Cage before bringing them all together as the Defenders.

So, what’s in this trailer? There’s a lot to unpack. We see glimpses of Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin and Rosario Dawson as the Night Nurse. We see Matt’s Catholic background. We see a LOT of the ninja-esque, eye-covering costume from Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr.’s Daredevil: Born Again. We see drug labs and hints of domestic violence and murders that look a little too grisly for Marvel’s silver-screen offerings. This all makes sense for DD.

There are a few things we don’t see. We knew already that Bullseye wasn’t going to be in the series, but there’s also no glimpse of long-term characters like Elektra or Typhoid Mary. There’s none of the classic red suit. (Or the original yellow suit, or that weird armored number from the 90’s, but we weren’t really expecting either of those.) There’s none of the sly dialogue between Matt and Foggy that Bendis and Brubaker (and even Stan Lee) gave us so much of.

I’m intrigued to see where all this goes. It looks like the shadow of the Ben Affleck Daredevil may be looming over the proceedings, making them afraid to go too “superhero.” That makes sense. The world of Daredevil is smaller-scale than a lot of other comic books. Mark Waid has suggested that his blindness, combined with his reliance on hearing and his radar sense, make it hard for him to participate in the enormous scraps that the Avengers get into. But even at its most “dark and gritty” (Remember, this is a book that ALAN MOORE once parodied for being too grim,) Daredevil is still fundamentally a superhero story, and even Frank Miller, for all his urban realism, gave us a story full of immortal ninja assassins.

All of this is just to say that I’m excited that they’re exploring the possibilities Daredevil offers, as far as a down-to-earth crime story. This looks about as Scorcese as you can get while still having people jump off rooftops. I find myself hoping that there’s still time for the other things that make the character and his world so lovable, but for context, this is a 90-second preview of a 10-hour production. For now, let’s just bask in the excitement that this thing even exists. And watch the trailer again.