Popverse's top stories of the day

• Daredevil: Born Again's Disney+ viewership numbers suggest the MCU is in its nostalgia era
• MEMBERS ONLY: Marvel Matters: We shouldn't force Daredevil: Born Again to bring back its Netflix sister shows Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and more
• Lore Corner: Will Matt Murdock & Karen Page end up together on Daredevil: Born Again? Here's what Marvel Comics history tells us

Have you watched Daredevil: Born Again yet? If you haven't, chances are you've been rewatching the original Daredevil show to get a refresher on where the Man Without Fear has been all these years. At least, that's what the current streaming data says about the show's revival. 

Recently, Variety released data from Luminate that paints an insightful portrait of where the MCU currently stands with its properties. Born Again's two-episode premiere kicked off to a 7.5 million views within its first five days of release, a stellar opening for an MCU show, though not as strong as Agatha All Along's 9.3 million. That said, the three seasons of the original Netflix Daredevil show has increased 153% in hours watched "between the week before and the week of the Born Again premiere." That is, fans are enthusiastically doing their "homework" by reacquainting themselves with Daredevil's cast of characters, or even watching the show for the first time. Let's also remember that Daredevil: Born Again, unlike Agatha All Along, is a mature show with R-rated violence. 

Daredevil: Born Again's strong performance contributes to what could be an emerging pattern within the MCU of late - one that points to the power of pre-pandemic nostalgia. After The Marvels flopped at the box office last year with a $206 million gross, Marvel Studios bounced back with Deadpool and Wolverine, which grossed $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office. Deadpool and Wolverine's box office performance was impressive given that it was the MCU's first rated-R movie, and yet it still outpaced Marvel Studios's more family-friendly offerings in recent years. Like Born Again, Deadpool and Wolverine featured the return of a beloved character that originally gained popularity in the mid-2010s, well before the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted all of our lives. And in order to understand the plot of the story, viewers needed to be familiar with Deadpool's previous misadventures onscreen, in addition to Wolverine's. That is, they needed to have done their homework. 

This idea of "homework" is becoming more and more nuanced in the MCU. Films like Captain America: Brave New World and The Marvels both required fans to have watched one or more of the MCU's recent Disney+ shows, and it's been a strategy that's led to diminishing returns. In other words, The Marvels and Brave New World bank on casual fans to stay up to date with the latest Disney+ releases for the MCU. This contrasts sharply with Daredevil: Born Again and Deadpool and Wolverine, where loads of fans inadvertently already did their "homework" by watching the lead character's projects a decade ago, when the Marvel brand was still bulletproof. Given how the three seasons of the first Daredevil show have enjoyed a 153% increase in viewership recently, it's clear that both new and returning fans are willing to go back and invest themselves and their time in an older property. 

Both the original Daredevil show and the first Deadpool movie felt novel in 2015 and 2016 respectively because of their mature themes and violence. Plus, they're characters who are conducive to "water cooler talk" with your coworkers on a Monday morning. It's easy to explain who they are, what they do, and why you should care about them to someone who knows nothing about Marvel Comics ("he's a lawyer, he beats the crap out of people, and he's blind" and "he breaks the fourth wall, can heal real fast, and talks about chimichangas, haha"). Now try explaining why Carol Danvers, Kamala Khan, and Monica Rambeau are all collectively called "The Marvels" to Sugar's husband, Pete, from The Bear. These characters entered so many fans' lives for the first time before the MCU was bogged down by a ridiculous multiverse storyline that I don't think I'm even willing to do the homework for. It's only funny that Deadpool would reenter the zeitgeist within the very same mold he once resisted.

Remember when stories used to be stories? At least Daredevil: Born Again understands that. 

Fear not, we have the essentials when it comes to Marvel's Daredevil - especially with Marvel Studios' Daredevil: Born Again. Check out:

• The key difference between Netflix's Daredevil and Marvel Studios' Daredevil: Born Again, according to the showrunner
• The best Daredevil stories of all time
• What to watch before Daredevil: Born Again 
• Popverse Picks: Our favorite things for Marvel's Man Without Fear including Ann Nocenti comics, the Netflix series, and more
• How Vincent D'Onofrio reinvented Daredevil's Kingpin
• Marvel's Daredevil actors, ranked from Charlie Cox to Ben Affleck and even Rex Smith
• How Frank Miller accidentally killed a Daredevil cartoon (and Marvel killed a book to avoid pissing him off)
• That time we caught Daredevil actor Charlie Cox sneaking into New York Comic Con as Bluey