Marvel Television was established in 2010 to bring the MCU to the small screen. When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was announced as a spin-off to The Avengers, fans were thrilled by the prospect of further exploring this franchise on the small screen.
While the ABC series did feature some significant tie-ins during its first few years on the air, it was always adjacent to the MCU proper. A landmark deal with Netflix later saw Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist brought to our screens, culminating in a Defenders crossover.
Those shows referenced the Battle of New York, but again, they never felt all that closely tied to what was happening in the movies.
Eventually, we'd learn that there was a very real divide between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television. Kevin Feige wasn't closely involved with the latter beyond telling them which characters they could use (his old foe, Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, was the driving force behind Marvel Television), and by the time we got Cloak & Dagger and Runaways, it was obvious that these shows weren't exactly part of the MCU.
Still, many of the shows garnered both critical acclaim and large fan bases, prompting Marvel Studios to introduce some of the characters into the MCU when a new Marvel Television, led by Brad Winderbaum, was formed under Feige's watch.
Jeph Loeb was in charge of Marvel Television between 2010 and 2020. In an interview with Newsarama, he shared his thoughts on Daredevil: Born Again reviving the Man Without Fear, along with characters like The Punisher and Jessica Jones.
"I'm very happy for all my friends – actors, writers, directors, stunt folks, crew and everybody else who worked on all those shows and killed it – that they get to continue to honor those roles," he shared. "I'm not sure if anything like that has happened before – particularly on two different networks."
"One thing that I'd love to clear up – while it's an easy shorthand to call them the 'Netflix' heroes – the plain truth is Netflix was our network. They aired the shows that then Marvel Television created, produced, wrote, cast, shot, edited, scored, etc. – hours and hours of some of the most brilliant people who worked on those shows for Marvel TV."
"It was such an incredible team who have since gone out there and made names for themselves on nearly every other network/streaming service as executives/writers/producers – the works!" Loeb added. "Those folks are the real heroes of those six series!"
Original plans called for Daredevil: Born Again to be a full-blown reboot, but fan demand saw Marvel Studios pivot and keep that Netflix history intact. The MCU clearly isn't too beholden to what Marvel Television did—that's evident from the Darkhold's presence in WandaVision—but we can expect to see more characters from that era revisited in the coming years.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+, along with all those Netflix TV series. Season 2 is expected to premiere next March, with Season 3 confirmed for a 2027 release.