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Kingpin’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force has been hunting Daredevil for months, but he’s managing to keep his head down. Kingpin knows Matt Murdock is Daredevil, and he even considers revealing Daredevil’s secret identity to the world. In the end, though, Kingpin believes that will muddy the message given Matt saved his life from Bullseye a few months ago. Instead, he hits upon what he considers a masterstroke strategy, unaware it has exposed him to a major weakness.
Kingpin Appeals to New York to Find Matt Murdock
Daredevil is already a wanted man, with the AVTF looking for him and civilians mandated to report any vigilante sightings under the Safer Streets Initiative. Kingpin turns the public on Matt Murdock as well, in a very smart way; he declares Matt to be a hero who has been abducted. Now, the public are looking for Matt, believing that finding him will mean they are rescuing him from dangerous vigilantes who are forcing his cooperation. Matt can no longer move out in the open, even in his civilian identity.
From the Kingpin’s perspective, it’s a masterstroke. He has one simple goal; to get his hands on Daredevil. It doesn’t matter if the Man Without Fear is standing before him in his office as Matt Murdock, or in his cells as Daredevil. Either will suffice, because there’s no way he would survive the encounter. Kingpin is confident of his absolute power, but ironically this is a mistake. He is overconfident, forgetting that other people can make moves back. In this case, he’s just given Matt Murdock a gift.
Matt Murdock Is Now A Much Greater Threat to Kingpin
There’s a sense in which Matt Murdock would have been a greater threat to Kingpin than Daredevil. As Vanessa notes, Matt always had a reputation as the vigilante’s champion; he earned that well before Born Again Season 1, daring to defend Frank Castle as the Punisher. Matt’s legal allies are already trying to fight against the vigilante ban (to little success), but Matt is simple a better lawyer, much more skilled at playing the system. Kingpin took out a major threat to his empire when he forced Matt to go into hiding.
Kingpin has unwittingly positioned Matt as a much more direct challenger. It’s true that, in the short-term, Matt will be vulnerable the moment he’s spotted and his presence is reported in to the AVTF; but in the longer term, assuming he can remain at large, he now has a platform from which to position himself as a threat. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where Matt found enough evidence to expose Kingpin, and then made a dramatic reveal in which he presented it to the world. Kingpin himself has acknowledged Matt as an uncontroversial hero, making it much easier for him to hold the public’s attention.
Kingpin is currently organizing a boxing match as a (frankly unnecessary) show of physical strength. This match serves as a nice metaphor for his battle of wills against Daredevil; each is trying to take the other down, with feints and jabs, attempting to box one another in. Kingpin is in a position of dominance right now, but he risks overextending himself and creating an opening. He may well have done just that.
In the Comics, Matt Murdock Became Kingpin’s Deputy Mayor
Born Again Season 2 is heavily influenced by the comics, where Kingpin did indeed become mayor of New York. Surprisingly, in the comics, Kingpin attempted to neutralize Daredevil by hiring Matt Murdock as deputy mayor. It followed the classic logic of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” with Kingpin attempting to tie Murdock up in bureaucratic red-tape. The comics understood that Matt Murdock is just as much a threat to Kingpin as Daredevil, and it seems the MCU has recognized the same truth.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the MCU is setting up Matt Murdock as deputy mayor, of course. Daredevil: Born Again is clearly heavily adapting the comics, meaning it wouldn’t be a surprise to see surface-level similarities rather than perfect recreations. Still, we’re only three episodes into the season, and the match between Daredevil and Kingpin is still in its early stages – no matter what Kingpin may think. Daredevil still has everything to play for.
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