Marvel has released a sizzle reel of forthcoming Disney Plus shows, which finally gives us our first glimpse at next year’s revival of Daredevil, along with a wealth of other programs.
The new slate from Marvel Studios TV includes seven shows, five of them brand new, one a revival, and the last more of the extremely hit-or-miss What If? And if you’re me, the most exciting of these is Daredevil: Born Again, showing footage for the very first time since it was announced in 2022.
Daredevil was the highlight of Netflix’s collection of Marvel dramas back in 2015, and the central pillar of that whole Defenders franchise. Charlie Cox was so brilliant as the lawyer-cum-crime-fighter, but human shapeshifter Vincent D’Onofrio was the stand-out star as Wilson Fisk, his performance so utterly mesmerizing and terrifying. Both reprise their roles in Daredevil: Born Again, along with, well, the whole cast! Deborah Ann Wolf and Elden Henson are back too, despite not appearing in the clips, as well as Jon Bernthal returning as Frank “The Punisher” Castle. The only disappointment for me is no sign of Krysten Ritter returning as Jessica Jones.
However, it’s far from alone in looking promising. There’s the new Spider-Man animation, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which, while doomed to lie in the shadow of the impeccable Spider-Verse movies, is set in the MCU! It features live-action actors reprising roles, such as Charlie Cox playing Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin, along with the likes of Paul F. Tompkins and Eugene Byrd (as Lonnie Lincoln, rather than Jefferson Morales who he played in Spidey and His Amazing Friends). However, rather sadly there’s no sign of Tom Holland, with Spidey himself played by Hudson Thames, who voiced the character in season one of What If? It streams on January 25.
There’s also Ironheart, which sees the character—Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne)—who first appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever spin off into her own show. She’s a genius teenage inventor, and has created a suit that might be better than Tony Stark’s. This one’s been held back forever, with filming apparently completed in 2022, suggesting a horrendous amount of post-production meddling. It’s finally on Disney Plus June 24.
A show I’d never heard of before now, Wonder Man looks immediately intriguing. It’s based on the extremely long-running comic character, but seems to be making an origin story of its own. Ben Kingsley is once again playing his bonkers role, originally from Iron Man 3, of Trevor Slattery, seemingly casting a new superhero TV show called Wonder Man… Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections and Black Manta in DC’s Aquaman 2) auditions for the role of Wonder Man, and seems to have powers of his own? Very early days on this one, as it’s not airing until December 2025.
Along with What If?, there are two other animations—Marvel Zombies and Eyes of Wakanda. The former is a What If? spin-off and I’m struggling to care, but the latter is much more interesting, an exploration of Wakandan warriors throughout history. Eyes is out August 6, 2025, with Zombies following October 25.
Marvel’s TV outings have come to be known by many as “homework”; an obligation to sit through in order to understand what is going on in the big-screen movies. It’s hard to argue against that when it comes to sitting through something like the snore-fest of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, if you want to know what’s going on in the forthcoming Thunderbolts*. (Don’t look for a footnote, that’s the dumb name of the film.) But turning your back also means you’d miss out on the complete joy of Ms. Marvel, and all its setup for the lovely and hilarious movie The Marvels. It’s a minefield, and one distinctly not helped by the way Disney Plus refuses to create a section just for its TV shows on its app.
Oh, and if you aren’t watching Agatha All Along, you’re doing life wrong.
However, this slate certainly looks more promising than the recent disappoints of Echo, Secret Invasion, and the god-awful second season of Loki. Perhaps less homework and more enjoyable screen-time.
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