Marvel Studios’ Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is quietly breaking new ground for the MCU. According to a new report, the season, set to debut on March 4, 2026, will not feature a single scene in which Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil meets or interacts with Season 2's new antagonist, Mr. Charles, played by Matthew Lillard. It’s a surprising choice, since a substantial amount of the attention surrounding the season thus far has centered around the mysterious new villain.
Lillard’s Mr. Charles is confirmed to operate in a storyline completely separate from Daredevil himself. The antagonist will still play a major role in the season’s larger narrative, but his path will never directly cross with Hell’s Kitchen’s Devil, according to an Entertainment Weekly feature.
That makes Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 the first-ever live-action MCU Disney+ series in which one of the show’s primary antagonists never interacts with the series' titular hero.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Separates Hero and Villain
Unlike the traditional MCU structure, where the hero’s journey mirrors or dovetails with that of the central foe, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 may go for a different approach with Lillard's character.
The Scooby-Doo alum's Mr. Charles, previously described as a deeply unsettling and psychologically driven antagonist, will exert influence without ever directly confronting Daredevil. According to previous reports, the character is tied to darker, more disturbing corners of New York’s criminal ecosystem, serving more as an obstacle for Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk.
That separation appears intentional. Charlie Cox’s Daredevil is already juggling legal warfare, vigilante pressure, and the return of familiar faces like Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones. By keeping Mr. Charles out of Matt’s orbit entirely, the villain can loom large without the season culminating in another rote finale boss fight.
In most previous Disney+ shows, even when antagonists were introduced late or positioned at arm’s length, the central hero almost always confronted them directly by the end. Instead, the show’s second season could explore an angle in which Daredevil’s central conflict with Wilson Fisk leads to Mr. Charles’ demise, or possibly, his rise, with Murdock accidentally creating his next big bad.
This story choice isn’t unprecedented, though, as Daredevil: Born Again is not the first MCU Disney+ series to experiment with distancing heroes from their biggest threats.
Other MCU Disney+ Villains With Limited Hero Interaction
Loki Season 1
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) don’t meet He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) until the finale. Hints of Majors’ animated Kang the Conqueror variant pepper the season, but his physical presence is saved for a single, exposition-heavy confrontation in the final episode, "For All Time. Always." Until then, he exists more as a looming but largely unknown concept than an active opponent.
Hawkeye
Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin looms over the back half of Hawkeye’s first season, mainly interacting with secondary characters like Echo (Alaqua Cox) and Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga). Even in the season finale, the only main character he interacts with is Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop. Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) never meets Fisk at all, even though the violet-clad archer notes in the previous episode that he’s aware of who Fisk is.
Moon Knight
Ammit (Saba Mubarak), the soul-eating Egyptian goddess Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) worships, doesn’t appear until the finale, though she’s referenced throughout the season. She spends nearly all of her screen time battling Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham) in an epic kaiju battle on the Giza Plateau. While the towering gods fight among the pyramids, Marc Spector/Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) and ally Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy) take on Harrow in the streets of Cairo, never interacting with the crocodile-headed goddess.
