Spoiler alert! This article contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again episodes 1 & 2.
With the premiere of the MCU's timeline.
Daredevil: Born Again revives Netflix’s acclaimed Daredevil series, which kickstarted The Defenders television franchise. These were originally made as official MCU cannon but were subsequently removed when Marvel began making their own series on Disney+. However, after Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin were so widely praised, they were incorporated back into the franchise. This led to the Netflix saga also being reintergrated into the convoluted MCU timeline.
How Daredevil: Born Again Fits Into The Post-Endgame MCU Timeline
Marvel Have Not Confirmed When Daredevil: Born Again Is Set
Figuring out when Daredevil: Born Again occurs is a headache, but some clues help us piece it together. Charlie Cox has previously stated that She-Hulk takes place before Born Again. Meanwhile, Echo and Hawkeye (which introduced Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin back into the MCU) were both set in late 2024. Given that Matt Murdock appeared in She-Hulk after Echo, that means She-Hulk likely takes place sometime in 2025.
I Can't Believe I Missed The Coolest Detail About The Daredevil: Born Again Scene When Matt Murdock Uses His Heightened Hearing For The First Time
Daredevil: Born Again sees The Man Without Fear in a brand new series that includes new visual references to his enhanced superhuman abilities.
Based on details from Born Again, it appears the series opens in 2025, when Matt Murdock was still active as Daredevil. However, there's a major time jump: roughly 12 months later, the story moves forward to 2026. One of the biggest indications of the timeline is Wilson Fisk's campaign for mayor, which culminates in a major New Year's Eve event – likely marking the transition from 2026 to 2027. This means that Daredevil: Born Again will be one of the latest entries in the MCU’s current timeline.
Avengers: Endgame's 5-Year Time Jump Broke The MCU Timeline
Avengers: Endgame Introduced A Time Jump To Depict The Blip
Before Endgame, the MCU followed a timeline that largely mirrored real-world chronology. Iron Man (2008) was set in 2008, The Avengers (2012) took place in 2012, and so on. It was easy to track the age of time and understand when events happened relative to each other. Then came Endgame and its infamous five-year time jump. The movie begins in 2018 (the year Infinity War was released) but jumps ahead to 2023 after the Avengers kill Thanos.
Every Daredevil Character Who Doesn't Return In Born Again
The new series serves as a sequel to the Netflix-produced Daredevil show, but several important characters from the 2015 show do not return.
Since then, Marvel has struggled to keep its post-Endgame timeline coherent, leading to contradictory statements, inconsistencies, and a general sense of confusion about when exactly certain events take place. Now, everything is skewed with most of Phase 4 and Phase 5 stuck in a nebulous period between 2023 and 2026. Nevertheless, Marvel Studios still tries to maintain some sense of real-time progression, but it often contradicts itself.
For example, Agatha: All Along is set three years after WandaVision, placing it around 2026. Meanwhile, The Marvels seems to take place in 2025, overlapping with Ms. Marvel and Secret Invasion. Shows like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel have vague placement, with no direct indicators of when they happen. The biggest issue is that Marvel still wants to pretend the world naturally moved forward from the Blip, but because they’re forced to stick to their timeline, the cracks are increasingly visible.
How Marvel Can Fix The MCU Timeline
The MCU Timeline Is Reportedly Going To Be Tidied Up
At this point, there are only a few options for Marvel to fix the timeline mess. The simplest (and what they’ve largely been doing) is to just ignore it. Most audiences don’t actively analyze the timeline, so as long as each story makes internal sense, it’s easier to gloss over the inconsistencies.
A Daredevil: Born Again Episode 1 Easter Egg Has Me Convinced The MCU Show's Major Death Could Be A Fake Out
Daredevil: Born Again's sneaky comic easter egg may be hinting at the return of a major character, whose death may not be as permanent as it seems.
However, for viewers who do try to map things out, the contradictions pile up fast. The more radical and possibly necessary solution is a soft reboot, which could come in Avengers: Secret Wars. If Marvel uses Secret Wars as an opportunity to reset the timeline, they could bring everything back in sync with real time. This would be the cleanest way to restore order and make future releases easier to place.
Secret Wars is already rumored to be a major multiversal event that could rework the MCU’s structure, so reverting back to something closer to real-world time could be achieved. For now, though, we’re stuck in a post-Endgame world where the MCU timeline feels increasingly fragile. With Daredevil: Born Again further complicating things, it’s clear that Endgame's five-year jump was a storytelling gamble that may have done more harm than good.
Daredevil: Born Again
- Release Date
- March 4, 2025
- Showrunner
- Chris Ord
- Directors
- Michael Cuesta, Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Jeffrey Nachmanoff
- Writers
- Chris Ord
- Franchise(s)
- Daredevil, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Cast
Matt Murdock / Daredevil
Wilson Fisk / Kingpin
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