Warning! This article contains spoilers for Heroes Reborn: American Knights #1
Marvel’s version of Batman is facing off against a villainous Daredevil. Heroes Reborn is more or less Marvel’s attempt at indie-comic publishing, using alternate versions of their characters while introducing new, more generic superheroes to create an all-new universe, not unlike Invincible or The Boys, albeit more family-friendly than those famously violent and fantastically gory comics. However, the latest installment in the Heroes Reborn universe is introducing a much more brutal storyline reminiscent of their previously launched Marvel Knights banner that is teasing a ‘versus’ battle that fans have always wanted to see.
In Heroes Reborn: American Knights #1 by Paul Grist with art by Chris Allen and Marc Deering, an alternate version of Daredevil who has been dubbed the Saint is seen violently taking down a mugger on the streets of Washington, DC. Simultaneously, Commissioner Luke Cage is interrogating a known criminal, working to gain information on Turk, DC’s resident crime boss. Cage passes the information he learns off to Nighthawk, Heroes Reborn’s version of Batman, who uses his high-tech gadgets and superior detective skills to take down Turk once and for all while Luke Cage continues to pursue Washington’s newest masked menace.
With some help from fellow detectives Misty Knight and Jessica Jones, Cage is successful in tracking Matt Murdock, a cleric with the church of Mephisto and the so-called Saint vigilante. Once his secret identity is revealed after he is caught killing one of his victims in the hospital, Murdock barricades himself in his church before he is brought out by Cage and then shot by the other officers waiting for him outside. The Batman-inspired hero Nighthawk swoops in at the last minute, saving Cage’s life but is seemingly too late to save Murdock as he is seen bleeding out on the pavement outside the church in which he worshipped.
While the two don’t fight and barely even share the same panel throughout the course of the issue, Marvel’s Batman and a murderous Daredevil could be on the precipice of an epic confrontation. Murdock was shot upon exiting the church, deemed by a dirty cop as being too dangerous to be kept alive, but it was never confirmed that he died. The one-shot comic ends with the potential of the following issue, and Marvel has set the stage for an epic event pitting alternate versions of similar vigilantes against one another.
With the potential promise of a Batman versus Daredevil payoff fight to come, the lack of one in this issue is undoubtedly disappointing, though that may have been deliberate. Marvel is trying something new with Heroes Reborn, stepping away from their usual action-packed splash pages and instead of taking their characters in different directions. American Knights, for example, is a dark and gritty look at a society imbued to the core with sinister influence made clear by the bizarre Church of Mephisto. An epic fight was teased, but the anticlimactic ending proved how true this corner of the Marvel multiverse is to their new direction of a more creatively unique with an independent feel to the stories launched under the new banner, achieving the goal of the Heroes Reborn experiment while not completely taking off the table the possibility of Marvel’s Batman facing off against a villainous Daredevil.
