While Marvel Studios is barred from including Spider-Man in Daredevil: Born Again, it doesn't mean they can't name-drop him or the rest of his extended cast.
Recently, the Marvel Studios Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum reaffirmed that Sony Pictures still has the exclusive "long-form television rights" to Spider-Man. This means that he and any other affiliated characters cannot appear in any live-action Disney+ series unless they are approved and/or co-produced by Sony.
The news put a big damper on Spider-Man and Daredevil fans expecting a team-up between the two superheroes. However, that hasn't stopped Marvel Studios from referencing the wall-crawler and his world in the show that skirts the contract.
Was Spider-Man's Dad Name Dropped in Daredevil Born Again Episode 3?
In the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again, "The Hollow of His Hand," when Matthew Murdock was attempting to prove the goodness of Hector Ayala through his acts of heroism as the White Tiger, he listed police officers Hector had helped in the past: "Officer Reyes, Officer Wong, Officer Morales, Officer Grant..."
The name that stuck out immediately to fans was "Officer Morales," the father of Miles Morales, aka Spider-Man, Jefferson Morales, who is a police officer in the Insomiac video games and Spider-Verse films, as opposed to a SHIELD agent in the comics.
Of course, this could be a coincidence, as the other names don't appear to directly reference other police officers from Marvel comics or other adaptations. However, considering Born Again already referred to Peter Parker's Spider-Man as "a man who dresses in a spider outfit," this wouldn't be out of line.
As for its legality, Morales is just a name and isn't unique to Jefferson Morales as a character. So, there's a layer of deniability, like how Fisk doesn't refer to the wall-crawler by name.
Yes, His Last Name is Morales, Not Davis
Some have disputed that this name drop was about Miles Morales' father, claiming that the character's last name is Davis, not Morales.
While that might have been true in the comics for years, Jefferson didn't have that last name in either of the Spider-Verse films. Miles even called him "Officer Morales" in the sequel when trying to apprehend The Spot. Jefferson's original last name wasn't even mentioned in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Marvel changed his last name because it had some weird implications, considering it was a black character named after the President of the Confederacy. The name was merely a terrible coincidence and a lack of proper research by the character's creator, Brian Michael Bendis.
The name was finally changed in 2021 in issue #22 of Miles Morales: Spider-Man, written by Saladin Ahmed, in which Jefferson decided to legally change his last name to his wife's, making him Jefferson Morales. The name change was then subsequently cemented in Across the Spider-Verse, which came out in 2023.
The in-universe reason for the change was the same as the real-world reason, with the name being "tainted," with Jefferson even remarking, "I don't know why the hell my parents named me that."
So, in all likelihood, this was a harmless reference to the father of Miles Morales, who will hopefully make his MCU debut soon.
New episodes of Daredevil: Born Again will stream every Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
