Disney and Marvel Studios have steadfastly answered the prayers of Daredevil‘s fanbase by bringing Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk all the way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their respective appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye. Now, with the news that a reboot of the Netflix series is in the works at Disney Plus and the confirmation that Cox and D’Onofrio will be coming head to head once more in the upcoming Hawkeye spinoff series Echo, fans are growing weary of some loose ends left yet unaddressed in Phase Four of the MCU.
The third season of Netflix’s Daredevil saw Matt finally defeat Fisk, throwing him back in prison, and threatening to hurt his wife Vanessa if he ever stepped out of line again. In Hawkeye, however, Fisk roams free. But, the finale of the Disney Plus show didn’t exactly give him a happy ending either. Maya Lopez, aka Echo, shoots him off-screen with the intention of leaving viewers wondering whether he was dead. The popularity of the character as well as the source material of the comics, though, all pointed towards him surviving, even if possibly losing his sight.
As for Matt, his cameo in the third Spider-Man movie, where he acts as Peter’s lawyer, flows smoothly with the conclusion of season three of Daredevil, where he, Karen, and Foggy decide to rebuild their law firm.
Considering the magnitude of the pact made between Matt and Fisk at the end of their stand-alone show, the fact the mob boss is now free should be cause for a major upset in the vigilante’s life. This has led fans to understandably question whether Matt knows about this development, and what that might mean for the future of the two characters in the MCU.
Other details like how and why Fisk got out of prison, and the whereabouts of supporting cast Vanessa, Foggy and Karen are also brought up by this Reddit user and Daredevil fan.
One major theory that one commentator proposes and that would be an easy solution for all these questions refers back to the recently introduced Multiverse and claims the versions of Matt and Fisk that fans have met in the MCU are actually variants. Other fans think Matt might have been snapped away by Thanos in the aftermath of Infinity War, and the power gap left by his absence made Fisk’s escape from prison possible.
Likewise, some fans believe future MCU installments featuring these two beloved characters won’t really bother to create a bridge between season three of Daredevil and Matt and Fisk’s current predicaments. Hopefully that won’t be the case, considering the Netflix show’s canon is often celebrated as some of Marvel’s best live-action work, and most of its fans should want the new chapters to continue, and not rewrite the story they love.
Soon fans will get all the answers. Although there’s little information available about the Daredevil reboot, Echo is scheduled to debut on Disney Plus in 2023.