The second and third episodes of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 raised the stakes in the feud between Matt Murdock and Kingpin. The episodes also affirmed a key aspect of their rivalry from the comics while answering a question often asked by new readers.
The second episode of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, “Shoot the Moon,” finds Kingpin calling a press conference. The Mayor expresses his concern for Matt Murdock, who has been missing for several months. To that end, he asks the city to help find the hero who stopped his assassination by Bullseye.
This move masterfully limits Matt’s ability to operate in Manhattan, as he’s now being hunted in his secret identity and as Daredevil. Kingpin also suggests that Matt may be a victim of the vigilantes Fisk is fighting. The whole display serves to make Fisk look sympathetic.
Before the press conference, however, Kingpin’s fixer, Buck Cashman, suggests it would be easier to tell the world Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Kingpin seems to consider this briefly before rejecting the idea. This seems to call back to the original Netflix Daredevil series, where Fisk promised not to reveal Matt’s secret identity. However, there are more reasons in play beyond Kingpin keeping his word. All of these reference the long rivalry between Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock from the comics.
Why won’t Kingpin out Matt Murdock’s secret identity?
Kingpin gives Cashman three reasons for not outing Daredevil. The chief one is that it would hinder his efforts to paint all vigilantes as unstable. No good could come of confirming Matt Murdock, a beloved champion of lost causes, as a superhero. There were also the optics of trying to paint a blind man as a threat to society.
The third and final reason is personal. As Kingpin admits, “he saved my life.” For all his many sins, Wilson Fisk has a code of honor. He remembers those who help him and keeps his word once given. All of this echoes why Kingpin keeps his dance with Daredevil going in the comics.
In the original Daredevil: Born Again comics, Wilson Fisk tried to kill everyone who had been part of the chain of information that delivered him Matt Murdock’s secret identity. He did this because knowledge is power and for anyone beyond him to have that knowledge limited his power.
Pride was also a factor, as Kingpin wanted to beat Daredevil on his own terms. To Kingpin’s mind, simply exposing Matt Murdock as a vigilante who mocked the law he served as a lawyer would be a coward’s victory. It would also deny him the satisfaction of a physical confrontation. For all his efforts at playing the kingly gangster, Fisk is a thug at heart.
Beyond that, Matt Murdock’s secret is a useful resource to be exploited. This became the case in the MCU, as Kingpin frames Daredevil for a terrorist attack in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Episode 3 “The Scales & The Sword.” Without Matt Murdock running loose, his alter ego could not serve as Kingpin’s scapegoat.
Originally reported by Matt Morrison for SuperHeroHype.
