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I can’t believe what Daredevil: Born Again did to this character.
Author’s Note: As someone who holds the Daredevil comics extremely close to my heart, Daredevil: Born Again was one of those recent times MCU projects I’d been vigilantly hopeful about.
I knew it wouldn’t be a photocopy of the comics panel for panel, word for word, but I still imagined at least a silhouette of the soul the original stories had.
But when Daredevil: Born Again overturned a deeply upright character like Cole North into a Punisher-lite villain, my jaw didn’t just drop — it stayed there for a while. This wasn’t a reinterpretation. It somewhat felt like betrayal.
All the opinions written here are those of the authors alone.
There are deviations in adaptations that you can as a fan live with and even welcome with open arms. But then there are those choices that feel like a solid punch in the gut — the kind that make you think if the writers even read the primary source material in the first place.
That’s precisely how I felt while watching Daredevil: Born Again, particularly when it came to the character of Cole North.
As someone who kept an eye on his comic book journey — from his moral firmness to his developing alliance being formed with Matt— the version of North introduced in Born Again felt like total infidelity.
Not just of the character, but of everything he ever stood up for. And that’s a tough pill to swallow, isn’t it?
Daredevil: Born Again doesn’t just change Cole North — it erases him
When I first saw this rendition of Cole North in Daredevil: Born Again, I thought, ‘Alright, this could get interesting.’
A by-the-book cop? Sure. He’s a little bit rough around the edges? All the better. But then… they placed a gun in his hands, stuck up a Punisher skull on his suit, and turned him into the very thing his comic self actively stood against.
It wasn’t just artistic liberty or merely a twist. It was an overall character collapse for Cole.
In the comics, Cole’s hatred for vigilantes isn’t deep-rooted in some hunger for power — it’s all his own moral compass. He believes in the system. He also questions it, sure, but he wants to mend it from the inside.
That subtlety is what made his character feel extremely refreshing within the comics.
Here was an officer who denied the use of guns after going through a traumatic shooting incident. A man who taught himself in hand-to-hand combat as compensation. A man who could take on Daredevil with his bare fists and still sleep soundly at night because he believed he was doing the right thing.
But in Daredevil: Born Again, none of these things matter. Character arc from the comics? All thrown out of the window.
Cole’s core characteristics — his guilt, his growth, his eventual alliance with Matt— get flattened all in favour of turning him into a toughened killer.
The creators of the show could’ve perhaps easily created a new character, but alas, they pasted a familiar name on an unfamiliar person and hoped fans wouldn’t notice. Spoiler alert: We did notice.
The show sacrificed one of Daredevil’s most promising dynamics
What makes the Daredevil stories so commanding isn’t just Matt’s inner chaos — it’s also the people that surround him.
Cole North, in the comics, is one of those atypical characters who doesn’t start off his journey with Matt as an associate or a friend. He starts off being a presence in Matt’s life as a challenge. An obstacle, if you will.
Someone who influences Matt to reconsider what justice truly feels like.
Their unwilling partnership in the comics comes around and is now one of my favorite arcs.
North doesn’t miraculously become Daredevil’s bestie over the course of one single night. They brawl, quarrel, clatter — but sooner or later? They find a middle ground and have mutual respect.
That kind of slowly turned alliance makes up for good storytelling. And in a world where most of Matt’s relationships are marked with misfortune or duplicity, Cole truly was a strong reminder to Matt that trust can be developed slowly, and also be earned.
In Daredevil: Born Again, that arc is not visible. Instead, we get a cop who murders a much-loved vigilante (White Tiger/Hector Ayala) and then dies in a grenade blast himself. His relationship with Matt? Reduced to nothing but dust. That complexity? All gone.
The chance to show that not all cops are ragdolls of Wilson Fisk, that some are worthy of growth, vanished. It's not just unsatisfying as a fan; it’s a missed chance to lift up the show’s themes.
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What Daredevil: Born Again did to Cole North is more than a character blunder — it’s a caution. A reminder that an adaptation should come with a core understanding and certainly not with erasure.
Changing stories and elements for a new way of bringing the story to life is completely warranted and is fair. But when these changes betray everything, what a character in essence truly stands for, there’s your problem, something fans hope will be taken care of moving forward.
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