Scrapped Daredevil Episode Would Have Featured The Punisher In An Unexpected MCU Crossover

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Daredevil: Born Again writer Jesse Wigutow breaks down the series' planned bottle episode featuring two surprising stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Speaking to IGN, Wigutow confirmed that early plans for Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again included "A kind of singular bottle episode around the Punisher crossing into the Daredevil space. This was two, three years ago, and one thing led to another, and I came in to largely focus on that." According to Wigutow, the episode in question would have centered around Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher, and Alaqua Cox's Maya Lopez, better known as Echo.

"It involved the Punisher and Echo kind of spending an interesting night together — not romantically, but narratively," Wigutow explained. Although Wigutow did state that the plans for the episode eventually "fell away," there is still a possibility that the idea could be revisited in the future depending on what the trajectory of the characters involved look like in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Who knows, maybe it comes back again. But the story has been a little kind of crooked in terms of the development, and it was part of a former idea."

Whereas Bernthal's Punisher series has been a streaming mainstay since the days of Netflix's Defenders line-up of Marvel series, Cox's Echo is a far more recent addition to the MCU, having made her first appearance in Hawkeye back in 2021. Like her comic book counterpart, the Maya Lopez of the MCU lost her father at a young age, unknowingly at the hands of the Kingpin, who went on to raise the girl as his own and see to it that she be trained as a capable fighter. In her adult life, Maya sets out to take revenge against the person responsible for her father's death, which she mistakenly believed Daredevil to be responsible for. Fortunately, the truth eventually came out, leading Maya to turn against the Kingpin after setting her sights on the true target of her rage.

How Daredevil: Born Again Paves the Way for Other Fan-Favorite Heroes to Make a Comeback

Just as Bernthal's Punisher made a comeback in Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again, another fan-favorite Netflix Defenders hero is set to return to the small screen for the series' upcoming second season. Specifically, Krysten Ritter, who will be returning to the role of Jessica Jones for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. Ritter recently discussed not just reprising the role, but what she would like to see for the character going forward, noting that "there's some stuff that I would like to [explore]." Ritter added, "There were the comics for… well, I'm not going to say anything else, okay? There was definitely some stuff I wanted to explore and would love to explore."

Daredevil: Born Again is currently available for streaming on Disney+. Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is set to premiere in March 2026.