Born Again’ Episode 3 Easter Eggs

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again Episode 3.The latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again, “The Hollow of His Hand”, features Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) doing one of the things only he can do: defend the innocent. But since he’s hung up his Daredevil suit following the death of his best friend, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), Murdock keeps his defense of the innocent to the courtroom — and he finds himself in for a fight when he defends Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes), the vigilante known as the White Tiger. Further complicating matters for Murdock is the fact that two corrupt police officers have been trying to kill the one witness who knows Ayala’s innocent. While “The Hollow of His Hand” doesn’t feature as many Easter eggs as the two-part premiere, Daredevil: Born Again still features a few bigger shoutouts to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Trial of the White Tiger Had a Very Different Outcome in the ‘Daredevil’ Comics

Ayala’s trial bears more than a passing resemblance to the events in Daredevil (vol. 2) #38-40 by Brian Michael Bendis, Manuel Gutierrez, and Terry Dodson. In both versions, Ayala is arrested after seemingly killing a cop, and Murdock ends up defending him. But there are some crucial differences. In the comics, Murdock was dealing with the fallout of having his secret identity leaked to the world, and tried to reject the case when Luke Cage and Iron Fist presented it to him — pointing out that having a suspected vigilante respect another vigilante would be a media circus waiting to happen. Eventually, Murdock did take the case…but Ayala was found guilty, and fled the courtroom before being gunned down. “The Hollow of His Hand” takes a different approach; Ayala is found to be innocent, but once he dons the White Tiger suit and heads back out on the streets, he’s shot by a mysterious assailant.

The Corrupt Cops in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Are Twisting the Punisher’s Message

What’s notable about the man that kills Hector is that he has a bulletproof vest that has a white skull painted on the chest — the signature emblem of Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka the Punisher. But that isn’t the only time the Punisher symbol shows up; one of the corrupt cops who attacked Murdock in the previous episode, “Optics”, has a Punisher tattoo on his wrist. “The Hollow of His Hand” also shows cops who have Punisher tattoos on their necks, hinting that they intend to utilize Castle’s brutal methods of inflicting violence upon those they deem guilty. It provides the perfect way for Castle to enter Daredevil: Born Again‘s narrative, since teasers have shown him and Murdock coming face to face, and could even bleed into the standalone special that Bernthal is co-writing and slated to star in. But the fact that Born Again is willing to continue exploring how people can get the wrong idea from the Punisher’s one-man war on crime is a genuinely exciting prospect.

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Features Another Nod to Spider-Man – but It’s Not Peter Parker

During Ayala’s trial in “The Hollow of His Hand”, Murdock reads off a list of police officers who’ve been saved by the White Tiger. One of those officers happens to be an “Officer Morales”, which could be a nod to Jefferson Morales, the father of fan-favorite Spider-Man Miles Morales. Jefferson canonically served as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics, but recent media — including Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and Marvel’s Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 — have depicted him as a police officer. It’s another way that Born Again is getting around the issue of not being able to showcase Spider-Man on television by utilizing references to Spider-Man’s world.

There’s a Blink and You’ll Miss It Nod to ‘The Incredible Hulk’

“The Hollow of His Hand” contains a brief reference to another Marvel film; a shot of a bus stop features an ad for Pingo Doce, a soda that appeared in The Incredible Hulk. During The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) briefly worked in a Pingo Doce bottling factory until he cut his hand on machinery. A drop of his gamma-powered blood got into one of the bottles, poisoning a man and alerting Thaddeus Ross to Banner’s location. While the Pingo Doce ad is a brief moment, it shows that Marvel Studios is slowly continuing to utilize elements from The Incredible Hulk.

New episodes of Daredevil: Born Again premiere Tuesdays on Disney+.

Daredevil: Born Again

Release Date

March 4, 2025

Showrunner

Chris Ord

Writers

Chris Ord

Franchise(s)

Daredevil, Marvel Cinematic Universe