Daredevil’s Most Influential Writer Has Officially Been Crowned, And It’s Not The One Fans Think

Daredevil is enjoying a tremendous heyday with the second season of the Disney+ TV show Daredevil: Born Again and the first issue of Stephanie Phillips and Lee Garbett’s ongoing Daredevil run launching simultaneously. Both hail from a rich tapestry of Marvel and Daredevil lore, with the show exhuming the canon of the original Netflix show and the book inheriting the continuity of the comic source material, and there has already been plenty of homage paid to it.

Part of what makes the Daredevil shows so great is that they have always been at least a little bit faithful to the stories and characters they are inspired by, especially considering that Netflix’s Daredevil adapts Frank Miller’s The Man Without Fear miniseries. However, while Miller and many other Daredevil writers are undoubtedly deserving of praise in terms of their profound contributions to the character and Marvel’s mythology, Brian Michael Bendis may take the cake regarding which comic writer has been most influential to today’s popular iterations of Matt Murdock.

Brian Michael Bendis Is Still Shaping Daredevil’s Legacy

Stephanie Phillips answered fans’ questions in a League of Comic Geeks Community AMA on May 19 and reiterated some of those answers in a recent TikTok video. Here, when answering what Daredevil series is her favorite and inspired the tone of her own run, she said:

“I usually say Born Again is one of my favorite comic books of all time, and that’s absolutely true, but I have a very close, personal relationship to the Bendis and Maleev run of Daredevil. I love it, it’s very nostalgic for me; I read it in its entirety and I loved every single issue of it.”

Moreover, as seen in the Disney+ show’s episode credits, Marvel’s Brian Michael Bendis is a consulting producer on Daredevil: Born Again. This would hardly be Bendis’ first producing role in comic book-related media, including Jessica Jones, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but it is always neat to see his name attached to popular, well-received movies or TV shows based on characters he has either written or created, contributing his authenticity and expertise to these projects.

Daredevil Is In Great Hands

Therefore, it will not be surprising at all if the tone of Phillips and Garbett’s run evokes that of Bendis and Maleev’s, and we have already seen that influence in Daredevil: Born Again (the White Tiger trial, notably), with a high likelihood of far more comic book nods and Easter eggs to come throughout Season 2 and onward. Either way, both Daredevil: Born Again and this Daredevil comic are signs of a bright future for the character.

Following a divisive first season, there is an argument to be made that Daredevil: Born Again could never excel to the same heights as Netflix’s Daredevil. However, while only a few episodes in, Season 2 is already a neat climax to the events of Season 1 that is showing promise in Dr. Heather Glenn’s psychological decline, Jack Duquesne’s Swordsman finally allowed to play, and the eventual appearance of Alias Investigations’ Jessica Jones.

The first issue of Phillips and Garbett’s Daredevil run is out now and establishes a brand-new status quo for Matt Murdock as an Empire State University law professor, as well as a mysterious character named Omen, who is desperately searching for Matt and runs into Daredevil. It is a wonderful foundation from which a compelling narrative may be told, and it is exciting that we have it and Daredevil: Born Again to look forward to now.

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+ and Daredevil #2 is scheduled to be released on May 6, 2026.