Kingpin Turns Matt Murdock Into His Ultimate Foe — And It Has Nothing To Do With Daredevil
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 flips the board as Matt Murdock becomes Kingpin’s fiercest threat—without the mask. With Wilson Fisk ruling from City Hall as New York’s mayor and plotting a bigger power grab, the one enemy he didn’t see coming is the one out of costume.
Matt Murdock is somehow more dangerous to Wilson Fisk out of the mask than in it. Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again leans hard into that idea, and by episode 3, it looks like Fisk just handed Matt his best opening yet.
Where season 2 leaves the board
Fisk is mayor of New York and acting like the job is a throne. He is already hinting he wants more than City Hall. Meanwhile, as episodes 2 and 3 confirm, there is a low-key resistance brewing against him, with Daredevil loyalists biding their time.
The city is locked down under the Safer Streets Initiative, civilians are supposed to snitch on any vigilante sightings, and Fisk has an Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF) running point. The kicker: Fisk knows Matt is Daredevil. He even toys with unmasking him publicly, then backs off because Matt saved his life from Bullseye a few months back, and splashing that secret would muddle the heroic narrative he wants to sell.
So Fisk pivots to a slicker plan. He goes on the record calling Matt a hero who has been abducted. Now half the city is scanning for Matt Murdock, thinking they are saving him from scary vigilantes. Translation: Matt can not just walk around Hell's Kitchen as a civilian anymore without drawing heat.
The plan that looks smart on paper (and why it might blow back)
- Fisk wants Daredevil in custody, period. If he grabs Matt as Matt or Matt as Daredevil, same result: Matt is not walking out.
- By making Matt the missing-person-of-the-week, Fisk crowdsources the manhunt and keeps his message tidy.
- But he also overplays his hand. He forgets Matt is lethal in court, not just in alleys. If Matt stays underground long enough to build a case, Fisk just handed him a megaphone.
Vanessa is not wrong: Matt has always been the guy who stands up for vigilantes. He proved that way before Born Again season 1 when he defended Frank Castle. Matt's legal circle is already swiping at the vigilante ban (so far, not successfully), but Matt is simply better than most at gaming a broken system. Forcing him off the grid neutralized a threat in the short term; it also reframed him as a bigger one. If he surfaces with receipts, imagine him rolling out evidence live while Fisk has already labeled him a unimpeachable hero. People will listen.
Fisk flexes, Matt waits
Fisk is also staging a big boxing exhibition just to show he can. It is theater, and yeah, unnecessary, but it is a neat visual for what is happening: two heavyweights feeling each other out, jabbing for position. Fisk has the ropes for now, and yet, the more he struts, the more he risks leaving his chin exposed.
The comics playbook (with tweaks)
In the comics, Fisk also wins the mayor's office. His move there is very on-brand: he hires Matt Murdock as his deputy mayor to bury him in red tape, classic enemy-management.
'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.'
Daredevil: Born Again is clearly cribbing from that era, but not photocopying it. We are only three episodes into this season, and you can feel the writers remixing the core idea: Matt as a political and legal threat, not just a guy in red leather. Whether that becomes 'Deputy Mayor Murdock' in the MCU is anyone's guess, but the DNA is there.
Bottom line
Fisk thinks he simplified the problem to 'bring me Daredevil, any version.' Instead, he may have created the one opponent he can not out-punch: Matt Murdock, attorney at law, with the public primed to hear him out. It is early days, and Daredevil still has plenty of runway to make the next hit land where it hurts.