10 Comic Book Characters Who Were Better On TV Than In Movies
1. Daredevil
Of all the superheroes who failed to impress in cinemas, only to get a second life thanks to television, very few can claim to be on the same level as Daredevil.
The 2003 film starring Ben Affleck as the Man Without Fear tends to get more flak than it deserves, and the much ballyhooed director's cut is genuinely worth seeking out. Still, 20th Century Fox's Daredevil movie absolutely pales in comparison to Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix in every conceivable way.
Daredevil represents Marvel Television at its absolute best, featuring street-level heroics, courtroom drama and, above all else, brilliant characters. At the forefront of the series was Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, whose commitment to the role deserves the same amount of praise Robert Downey Jr. has received for his portrayal of Iron Man. In fact, it's honestly a shame that Marvel will likely recast the role at some point, because it's pretty much impossible to imagine anyone doing it better than Cox did. He really was that good.
On top of that, Matt Murdock himself is only half the story. In fact, this list very well could have been made up almost entirely of Daredevil characters. We had to give everyone else a chance, obviously, but make no mistake, there are numerous other examples of this series showing the big screen how its done when it comes to portraying certain characters. From Daredevil himself to Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Ben Urich, Jack Murdock, Kingpin, Elektra, Bullseye and even the aforementioned Punisher, quite literally every single character that had previously been in a movie got a better showing on Netflix's Daredevil.
If the cancellation of The Punisher was disappointing, the cancellation of Daredevil was an outright travesty. But even though a fourth season seems like little more than a pipe dream at this point, the three seasons we do have will forever stand as a testament to the fact that TV superheroes can not only hang with the big screen players, but set the bar while they're at it.