Who is Muse? Daredevil: Born Again villain explained

Daredevil: Born Again Episode 4 ended with a glimpse of the show’s newest and scariest villain: Muse.

Daredevil has long been one of Marvel’s most popular superheroes, with a title that’s been in fairly constant rotation since the ‘60s. However, for all his popularity, he doesn’t get a lot of new, lasting villains.

It doesn’t hurt that he goes toe-to-toe with some of the most memorable Marvel villains. Be it battling The Kingpin for the heart of Hell’s Kitchen or engaging in the kind of classic epic ninja sagas against The Hand that gets the title a book of the year nod, Daredevil isn’t hurting for classic stories. 

Still, there have been attempts at making new heroes. In 2016, the Daredevil relaunch tried to give the Man Without Fear a new iconic villain in the form of Muse, a terrifying street artist who doubled as a serial killer.

Muse’s origin in Daredevil comics explained

Muse is introduced in the 2016 arc Dark Art. In the story, Daredevil is balancing his civilian identity’s change in career as a District Attorney and his superhero identity’s role as mentor to a young vigilante, Blindspot. 

In Dark Art, Daredevil and Blindspot discover a painting made with the blood of over 100 people. Trying to find the creator of the painting, they stumble across an art gallery where all the art pieces are the bodies of dead Inhumans. 

The macabre art pieces are the work of Muse, a mysterious serial killer who proves to be immune to Daredevil’s enhanced senses. He attempts to kidnap city officials to make a new art piece but is stopped by Blindspot. Before Daredevil can intervene, Blindspot has his eyes gouged out for his trouble. 

Muse would be imprisoned by the Inhumans but escaped in the wake of New York’s anti-vigilante laws enabled by The Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. Blindspot, who by this time had regained his eyesight by allying with The Hand but was succumbing to the influence of The Beast, called out Muse by defacing one of his art pieces.

Blindspot and Muse would fight, but Blindspot fought off the influence of the Beast long enough to refuse to kill him. Muse, distraught that Blindspot stole his spotlight, walked into a burning debris pile to his death. He’s remained dead ever since, but given how often characters are revived by The Hand or other means, it’s not a stretch to believe he could return at some point. 

After Episode 4, find out about Kingpin’s dark Adam secret, when Born Again takes place in the MCU timeline, and check out our ranking of every Marvel TV show. Also, if you want to know what to watch before Born Again, we’ve got you covered – and if you want to read deeper, discover Daredevil’s darkest story that’s too weird for the MCU.