Marvel used its New York Comic Con panel to confirm that “Daredevil: Born Again” season 3 is the last one. It brought the Defenders out to soften the blow. Charlie Cox walked onto the Empire Stage on Thursday with Krysten Ritter and Finn Jones. The final season will debut on Disney+ in 2027. Marvel gave no month, though earlier reports pointed to March. The room booed when the ending was confirmed, according to The Direct and Looper. It was a reunion and a wake at the same time, and the crowd knew it.
Mike Colter was supposed to be there too. Marvel says a last-minute scheduling conflict kept him away and that he sent his regards. Cox kept it light. “The first time we were all back together again, it was like 2016 all over again,” he told the crowd, before adding, “We wish Mike could be here!” Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for the “Daredevil: Born Again” season two finale and for footage Marvel showed only in the room.
It was a reunion and a wake at the same time, and the crowd knew it.”
The footage has not been released online. GamesRadar says it opened with Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Danny Rand (Finn Jones) walking into a government building together. Then it cut to Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) in prison, where Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) sets off a bomb. Matt tears up his orange jumpsuit, turns it into a Daredevil costume and fights his way through the block. Looper reported “raucous applause” for the brawl. In voiceover, per GamesRadar, Matt accepts his sentence: “I made a choice to pay for my so-called crimes of stopping a madman from turning the city into his own personal kingdom.”
That costume is a statement. GamesRadar points out that it echoes the look Matt wore in Chip Zdarsky’s comic run. On screen it means something more specific. Season two ended with Matt confessing that he is Daredevil to bring down Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), and it put him behind bars for it. A man who unmasked himself in public cannot hide behind a mask again, so he builds one out of the uniform the state gave him. Three Defenders are working the outside while Matt is stuck inside, and the final season is built around closing that distance.
Cox was blunter about the ending than Marvel has been. He joked, according to GamesRadar, that the Save Daredevil campaign would be gearing up again and that nobody should want to face those fans. Fans already saved this character once, after Netflix canceled the original series in 2018. No panel report carries a Marvel explanation for the ending. A joke from the stage is the closest thing to a statement anyone has offered.
Brad Winderbaum opened the panel with the other headline. “Zodiac” is the actual title of the spy series Marvel greenlit in September, and it now has a logo and a date. It starts shooting in London in spring 2027 and premieres on Disney+ in 2028. Marvel’s own announcement confirms both. Casting starts “in the next couple weeks,” Winderbaum said. There is still no cast, no showrunner and no plot. “And no, I can’t tell you anything else about it yet because it’s a secret!” he told the crowd.
He did point at the logo. “For anyone who knows the comics, if you look closely at this title design, you’ll see a few clues about where we’re going,” he said. Gizmodo reads the “O” as one of Tony Stark’s arc reactors and the “A” as the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia. Zodiac began as a twelve-member villain team in “The Avengers” in 1970, and Nick Fury’s brother Jake later rebuilt it as a team of androids. A spy show with a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem hidden in its title points straight at the Fury version. Marvel has confirmed nothing. Our money is on S.H.I.E.L.D.
“X-Men ’97” season 3 also got footage, and it also stayed in the room. It opens on graffiti asking “Where are the X-Men?” in a city under lockdown, and GamesRadar says mutants cannot travel without papers. A Sentinel goes after a young mutant until the Brotherhood of Mutants steps in, with Mystique among them according to The Direct. Then Storm and Professor X ride in a limo and talk about an anti-mutant president on their way to a wedding. It belongs to Rogue and Gambit, and She-Hulk is on the guest list.
The new season premieres in 2027, and Marvel says a fourth is already planned. “I’m actually getting choked up thinking about one of the episodes right now,” Winderbaum said. A government hunting mutants and a wedding full of heroes do not end up in the same trailer by accident, and in the comics an X-Men wedding rarely goes quietly. Our read is that the wedding is the target, and that the threat outside will not stay outside for long.
“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” season 2 finally has a date. It premieres on Disney+ on January 13th, 2027, and Marvel released a poster rather than a trailer. The clip stayed in the room. /Film says Spider-Man interrupts Doc Ock feuding with Norman Osborn at a fundraiser and saves Harry from the side of a skyscraper, and the clip ends on a Venom reveal. Showrunner Jeff Trammell said Peter (Hudson Thames) loses his mentor this season: “sometimes that help comes in the form of inky black goo from space.”
“VisionQuest” closed the panel, six days before its October 14th premiere. A new trailer played for the room, and it has not been released online either. Most of what outlets described already appeared in last week’s final trailer. The Direct reported two new beats. Vision (Paul Bettany) and Ultron (James Spader) have to pass a prove-you’re-not-a-robot test to get into a building. And Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) says, “I have these memories of someone I know. He wasn’t human, but he called me son.” Looper caught a new Ultron line as well: “The hero’s journey requires a sacrifice.” Then Marvel screened the entire first episode.
That Tommy line is written to match his father. In the final trailer Vision says he has memories of someone he is not. Now Tommy says nearly the same thing about a father who was never human. Both of them carry another life inside them, which is the “WandaVision” trilogy in one sentence. On stage Bettany said he and showrunner Terry Matalas wanted to tell “a Super Hero story about fathers and sons but one with a robot and a human son.” Given Ultron’s line about sacrifice, our guess is that someone in that family does not walk away.
First reactions went up as the panel ended, Variety reported. They are warm. Demet Koc of Nexus Point News called it “a worthy successor to WandaVision.” TJ Zwarych of Agents of Fandom praised the chemistry between Bettany and Spader and put the one flaw on record: “It drags a bit in the middle.” Brandon Davis called it “smart, weird, ambitious, and creative,” but he hosted the panel, so weigh that accordingly.
Marvel Television’s slate through 2028 is short and easy to read. Born Again ends in 2027, a year that otherwise belongs to animation. Then 2028 has one new live-action series on the board, and it is “Zodiac”. Variety noted that “Wonder Man” was canceled a few months after its January premiere despite a second season renewal. Live action is losing shows faster than it is adding them, while animation is where Marvel is making long promises.
Marvel is closing the doors it opened on Disney+ and leaving one new one ajar. The Defenders show it most clearly, because Marvel finally has all four of them in one season and put three on a stage to promote the last one. If “Zodiac” turns out to be S.H.I.E.L.D., that is a real corner of the universe coming back to television, and it would be the only new one. The casting news due in the next few weeks will say more than the logo did.
What Do You Think? Should the Defenders get a project of their own after Born Again ends? Is “Zodiac” a S.H.I.E.L.D. show, or is Marvel hiding something else in that logo? And does a Rogue and Gambit wedding make you more worried or more excited for “X-Men ’97” season 3?
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