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So, Daredevil: Born Again is not playing with safe cards.
Marvel has always thrived on stories about power, fear and control. The X-Men’s legacy isn’t just about cool mutations or superhero battles. It is about what happens when the world turns against those who don’t fit into its definition of “normal.” Their fight wasn’t just against villains. It was against governments, propaganda and a public convinced that "safety" meant stripping them of their rights.
Now, Daredevil: Born Again is picking up that same thread. But this time, the ones being hunted aren’t mutants. They are vigilantes. The system doesn’t just want order. It wants compliance. And when individuals refuse to fall in line, history tells us what comes next.
What happens when the definition of "dangerous" expands?
The X-Men have already been through it. They were registered, regulated and exterminated. But now, the line between mutant and vigilante is blurring, and the fear that once fueled mutant persecution is shifting toward anyone who operates outside the system.
The MCU has spent years setting the stage for this. The Sokovia Accords were a preview. Wilson Fisk’s crusade against masked heroes is the next step. And with Captain America: Brave New World teasing adamantium’s arrival, bringing Weapon X and everything it stands for into play, the message is loud and clear.
Even the heroes who once fought against government oversight are no longer free. Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, now works directly for the U.S. government. His role in Captain America: Brave New World suggests that the very institution that once tried to control superheroes now owns one. If the system is tightening its grip on its greatest symbols, what chance do masked vigilantes have?
If you’re enhanced, superpowered or just wearing a mask, you’re a problem. And if the world convinces itself that you are the enemy, it won’t just rewrite the laws. It will rewrite history.
"Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the future controls the past." - George Orwell, 1984.
And just like before, it starts with fear. Fear leads to control. Control leads to annihilation.
The blueprint for extermination: From mutant registration to vigilante control
Marvel has spent decades exploring what happens when those in power decide that some people simply should not exist. It is a story told over and over again, from the Mutant Registration Act in the comics to the relentless cycle of oppression faced by the X-Men in every adaptation. It starts as a bureaucratic measure, a "reasonable precaution" against those with abilities.
Then, it mutates—pun intended—into an excuse for control, then for persecution, then for outright elimination. The Mutant Registration Act, first introduced in Uncanny X-Men #141 (Days of Future Past), was sold to the public as a necessity.
If mutants had abilities capable of leveling cities, then surely the government had a right to monitor them. It was not just about keeping records. It was about stripping them of their autonomy.
Soon, registered mutants were labeled "potential threats." Then came the Sentinels. Then came the camps. Then came the extermination squads.
The MCU adapted this concept into the Sokovia Accords, a worldwide agreement designed to regulate the Avengers after their battles started turning entire cities into collateral damage. What started as oversight quickly became government control, forcing heroes to choose between working as sanctioned agents or being branded as criminals. But that was just the beginning.
Now, Daredevil: Born Again is taking this same concept and applying it to vigilantes. The difference is that this time, it is not about superheroes battling alien invasions. It is about people like Matt Murdock, who have no cosmic power or super-soldier serum, but who are still seen as a threat simply because they refuse to be controlled.
Wilson Fisk does not need a Mutant Registration Act. He does not need Sentinels or Accords. He just needs the public to start questioning vigilantes. Once fear takes hold, the rest happens on its own.
The X-Men have already seen this cycle play out across different eras and realities. It has happened in the comics, in X-Men: The Animated Series and now the story goes on in X-Men '97. Mutant registration, persecution, endless torture—the list of horrors is long.
The same justification that led to the Sentinel program, to Genosha's destruction and to the dystopian future of X-Men: Days of Future Past is now creeping into the MCU’s street-level world. First, they question if masked heroes are really helping. Then, they label them reckless. Then, dangerous. Then, they hunt them.
The X-Men’s past is becoming the vigilantes’ future. And if history tells us anything, it is that when the system starts deciding who qualifies as a "threat," it never stops at just one group.
Weapon X, X-23 and the cycle of turning heroes into weapons. This isn’t just about who is being targeted. It is about why. Governments don’t just fear superpowered individuals. They fear what they cannot control. And history shows us that when they cannot control something, they find ways to own it. That is the essence of Weapon X. This wasn’t just an experiment on mutants.
The Weapon X "program" was an industrialized effort to strip individuals of their humanity and turn them into tools of war. Wolverine was the most famous victim, a man brutalized, erased and rebuilt to serve a government that saw him as nothing but a weapon with claws. His life was rewritten. His past was taken from him. His body became government property. And the terrifying part? He wasn’t the first. He wasn’t the last.
In the comics, Weapon X was just one chapter of a much larger book: Weapon Plus. It didn’t start with Logan, and it didn’t stop with him. The entire foundation of superhuman enhancement in the Marvel Universe is tied to this program. Captain America? Weapon I. Deadpool? Weapon XI. The program evolved, not just targeting mutants, but expanding its reach to anyone who could be transformed into an asset. Then came X-23.
Unlike Logan, she wasn’t captured and modified. She was manufactured. A clone of Wolverine, engineered to be a more obedient version of him. But, like Logan, she rejected her programming and became something her creators never intended: free.
X-Men: Evolution first introduced her, but it was in the comics and Logan (2017) where she truly stepped into her own as a product of government overreach who refused to be just another tool. Now, the MCU is laying the groundwork for the next phase. Adamantium is coming.
Captain America: Brave New World is bringing the metal that defined Weapon X into the equation. And if the past is any indication, adamantium is never just about making better armor. It is about making better weapons. If the MCU follows the comics, Weapon X is about to return. And here’s where things get dangerous.
Weapon Plus didn’t just target mutants. It targeted anyone deemed "useful." The same system that turned Wolverine into a government asset created Captain America. If the program resurfaces, what’s stopping it from setting its sights on vigilantes?
The MCU is already establishing a world where masked heroes are no longer just outlaws. They are seen as a problem that needs to be handled. But what happens when those vigilantes and the X-Men realize they are fighting the same war?
For years, mutants have been on one side of the persecution line, street-level heroes on the other. Now, Daredevil: Born Again is showing us that the line is disappearing. The same institutions that once came for mutants are shifting their gaze toward anyone who refuses to be controlled. And if that happens, maybe it is not just about who is next. Maybe it is about who fights back together.
Daredevil, White Tiger, Spider-Man: The evolution of who gets hunted
The problem with drawing a line between “normal” and “other” is that the line never stays in one place. At first, mutants were the problem. Their very DNA made them a threat. But history has a habit of shifting its targets, and now, vigilantes are inching dangerously close to that same category. The real question isn’t just who qualifies as a mutant, but who qualifies as a threat.
Daredevil has never been considered a mutant, but let’s be real. He is not exactly "normal" either. His heightened senses give him abilities far beyond any regular human, and in a world where the government decides who is dangerous based on what they can do rather than what they choose to do, that is a problem.
The moment society starts asking, "Who gets to operate outside the law?", enhanced individuals like Matt Murdock will be shoved into the same category as those born with the X-gene. If mutants were targeted because of their gifts, what happens when people realize Daredevil’s abilities make him more than human?
White Tiger exists in an even murkier space. Their power comes from the mystical Tiger Amulet, an artifact that enhances her strength, agility and reflexes. But in the eyes of those who want control, does it really matter how she got their powers? The government does not care whether someone was born with their abilities, gained them through an accident or inherited them from an ancient lineage. Power is power, and if the goal is to regulate those who possess it, then magic isn’t going to get a free pass.
And then there is Spider-Man. Poor Peter Parker has spent his entire life trapped in the Schrödinger’s Cat of heroism, constantly shifting between being New York’s beloved web-slinger and public enemy number one. The Daily Bugle has been running smear campaigns against him for years, painting him as a vigilante menace who operates above the law.
However, if Daredevil: Born Again is doubling down on the idea that vigilantes need to be eliminated, then it is only a matter of time before that same ideology catches up to Spider-Man. This is not just about masks. It is about power. About who is allowed to wield it, and who is hunted for having it.
The X-Men have been here before, but this time, it is not just mutants who need to worry. It is everyone who refuses to be controlled. And when the government starts deciding who qualifies as "dangerous," it is never just about one group.
The list always gets longer—And Daredevil: Born Again is bringing more into the fold. Summing it up.
Marvel already showed us what’s coming. Marvel has been telling this story for decades. It always starts the same way. A government steps in, claiming to have the solution to a perceived problem. It offers registration, oversight, regulation. It convinces the public that those with power need to be controlled. And then, once that fear takes hold, the real agenda begins. The moment society accepts that "some people" need to be monitored, that they are inherently dangerous, the path to extermination is already set.
X-Men: First Class peeled back the curtain on how this process begins. It showed how governments manipulate and discard superpowered individuals, treating them as convenient weapons when needed and as liabilities when they step out of line. The CIA had no problem exploiting mutants when they were useful in the Cold War, but the second they became inconvenient, they were abandoned. Magneto saw it happening in real time. Charles Xavier wanted to believe in coexistence, but the events of X-Men: First Class made it clear.
"Peace was never an option." — Eric/Magneto in X-Men: The First Class (the movie).
Mutants were not considered equals. They were assets or threats, nothing in between. The full horror of that system played out in X-Men: Days of Future Past, a story where "mutant control" escalated into all-out extermination.
The Sentinels were not just designed to track mutants. They were programmed to evolve, to eliminate anything that could challenge the established order. The worst part? It did not stop with mutants. By the time the Sentinels reached their full potential, they were eliminating anyone who could one day pass on the X-gene. It was no longer about who had powers. It was about erasing the possibility of them ever existing.
The system that once promised order is shifting into something darker. It always does. The moment society is convinced that an entire group of people needs to be monitored, history has already chosen its outcome.
And Daredevil: Born Again is playing with that same fire. Vigilantes were never part of this equation before. They were separate from mutants, separate from the global conflicts of the Avengers. But now, the lines are blurring. The same system that once came for mutants is turning its gaze toward anyone who operates outside government control. It is not just about registration anymore. It is about redefining who qualifies as a threat. The X-Men have already seen how this ends.
The question we're left with now is whether the MCU’s vigilantes realize it before it is too late.
1984, Brave New World and the dystopia of hero regulation in X-Men history and Daredevil: Born Again
This isn’t just a Marvel problem. It is a dystopian story that has been told countless times. Societies rarely fall into oppression overnight. It happens gradually, under the guise of order, stability and, worst of all, necessity.
1984 warned about the dangers of rewriting history.
“Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the future controls the past.”
Wilson Fisk is following that blueprint to perfection. He does not need to outlaw vigilantes outright. He just needs to change the way people see them. If he controls their story, he controls their fate. Captain America: Brave New World took a different approach. It was not about fear, but about acceptance. Compliance was not forced. It was embraced.
The title of Captain America: Brave New World is no coincidence. It suggests a world where control is not imposed, but welcomed. If people can be convinced that regulation is for the greater good, there will be no need for force. Dystopias do not seize power. They convince people to hand it over willingly. And that is exactly how heroes, once celebrated, become the ones who need to be eliminated.
Breaking the cycle or becoming its next victim?
The X-Men have lived this nightmare before. They were hunted, registered, exterminated, and turned into weapons. It always starts the same way, with governments promising control in the name of security, convincing the public that enhanced individuals are a danger that needs to be contained.
Now, the same cycle is beginning again, but this time, it is not just mutants on the chopping block. Vigilantes, enhanced humans, and even Avengers are being pushed into the same category. The same institutions that once targeted the X-Men are shifting their focus toward anyone who operates outside the system.
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Daredevil: Born Again is not just about one hero trying to survive. It is about the MCU redefining who qualifies as a threat. If history is repeating itself, then this is no longer just a battle for masked vigilantes. It is a war against the very idea of resistance.
And when that moment comes, when the system demands absolute control, the only question left is not just who will fight back, but how many will stand together.
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