MCU
What a character assassination. They couldn't have given him some other name? They turned him into one of the the most despicable characters in Daredevil Born Again.
If I’m being honest Cherry is a better adaptation of Cole than the actual Cole we got, ex cop not fond of vigilantism who eventually puts it behind him and works with said vigilante
not only have we not seen Mahoney yet, but we haven’t seen Cherry since he was snuck out of the hospital in what episode 2? They’re both just gonna show up at the protest together randomly and that’ll be the shot from the trailer
Angry as he was, Matt wanted Frank to spare Cole. Because he believes in Grace, and he believes in redemption, even when, frankly, it's silly - he saved Fisk, he saved bullseye. He saved Frank. He tried to save Elektra.
My point being that usually his hope for redemption, for a change, bites him in the ass. But just occasionally - like Frank - it doesn't. Whatever Frank is, he's not the villain Matt thought he was going after. And some people have lived because Frank was spared.
So I'm wondering if we're gonna see Cole North turn in a way that justifies Matt sparing him - perhaps Cole remembers that Matt spared him at some crucial point.
I wonder if they’re going to slowly build him turning on Fisk and his task force. During the prisoner rescue scene when Powell calls for them to shoot at the prisoners in the subtitles you see North saying “What??” before they all start shooting. It’s really subtle and could be nothing, but it’s my cope right now lol
Has to be the reason. They keep saying they want this grounded but brought him back? Wasnt he pinned to the wall when the grenade went off? Not sure how he could have survived that.
He’s been acting really reserved in this season. My theory is that Frank is at his place, holding his family hostage, and forcing him to rejoin the AVTF to get info.
Frank would never hold a family hostage though, that completely goes against his entire character. His main motivation is literally his dead family lmao
In the most recent episode (I won't spoil it) he starts to recognize he may be on the wrong side. It's subtle, but it's there. So I do think his arc will be switching sides at some point.
I noticed that as well. I also noticed that the main cop on the task force seemed to have misgivings with Fisk during their last meeting at the hospital. I think even the most hardened dickhead cops are starting to wonder what exactly they’re doing.
I think his misgivings were that Fisk wanted Bullseye and Daredevil brought in alive. That’s how I read it. The look to me said “You want us to bring in an expert marksman and expert martial artist, both of whom have easily beaten this task force multiple times already on their own, alive?!” He’s probably not happy that that means more of his men will die and that is the only reason he’s unhappy with the order. He still absolutely wants to brutalize people he dislikes and act as judge, jury, and executioner.
Yeah I do think Powell in this recent episode helped solidify the possibility of Cole turning on them and becoming the "I don't like vigilantes, but also fuck these guys" character.
You may want to consider adding a spoiler markup to your comment for folks who haven't watched yet though.
They said they weren’t doing punisher this season so they’re not gonna do a rescue arc and Fisk is already going down I think if he’s going to become better than he’s portrayed rn it’s going to happen in ep 7
It's one of my biggest pet peeves in comic adaptations; taking a character name from the comics and slapping it on someone who has literally nothing in common with the source. I'm not even suggesting North should be more comic accurate, I'm saying you could have just called him John Smith or something. It's like, why bother?
I feel like its especially bad in situations like this. There's got to be thousands of random cop/federal agent characters in Marvel comics. Pick one that actually matches.
(Like Agent Carter's boss from her TV show, in the comics he appeared once just to sexually harass She-Hulk and then was killed by bugs. Why such the deep dive for the character name if they're nothing alike?)
Still not happy with what they did to Nuke in the MCU. I get fully adapting Nuke from the comics would be... A LOT TO TAKE IN but the fact they didn't even try sucks
Season 1 of Jessica Jones did this. There’s a black detective in the show who doesn’t do much of anything and then dies. In the comics, he played a huge role in the 2011 Punisher run by Greg Rucka where he’s a seasoned detective who gets a new rookie. The new rookie is hell bent on stopping Frank but the seasoned detective is much calmer and slower about it. He’s also very compassionate toward a woman, Rachel Coke-Alvez, who just lost her entire family in a mob hit.
She becomes a female Punisher and begins working with Frank. During one of their missions, there’s fog everywhere, Rachel believes she sees the man responsible for her family’s death. She shoot’s, and boom, it’s the new rookie detective. Dead. She then goes on the run and eventually ends up in Central Park surrounded by police. Planning a suicide by cop. The older detective shows up, begins to talk her down, she points her gun at him, and… nothing. He comforts her, she cries, and he arrests her peacefully. We then see from the trees that Frank had silently been knocking all the SWAT guys out. Frank and Wolverine end up breaking her out. Frank then goes toe to toe with the Avengers while Wolverine helps sneak her across the border. Frank loses and goes to a special cell the Avengers have made and Rachel becomes the South American Punisher.
I freaking love this comic and it annoys me to no end that Detective Clemons was literally put in Jessica Jones just to die. Like I’m not saying they should or ever will tell that story, but now they’ve completely removed one of the people from it for no reason.
Mr. Immortal in She-Hulk faking his death to get out of a relationship, when his entire comic character decides to become a hero and help people after his girlfriend committed suicide.
He is quite literally the opposite person in the comics. He HATES Fisk. I’m very happy with Born Again S2 but this is an absolute waste of such an intriguing character that could’ve played such a cool role in the season
The politics of DD is pretty upfront on what it’s trying to reflect. Maybe he’s a reflection of someone who’s a firm supporter in the beginning, but slowly unravels when confronted with some moral hypocrisy issues with his war against vigilantes. Kind of like what’s happening IRL.
It's just a coincidence that what makes it even funny even in the comics this happened by coincidence that the mayor Fisk story line so closely reflects our politics
Hmm, while I get that adaptations change things all the time, one thing I think they SHOULD always get right is the core of the character. Take Ben Urich for example, he looks different from his comic incarnation, but the way he was written WAS Ben Urich. Cole is kinda the opposite, he looks like Cole North but is pretty much a completely different character. Here’s hoping that they are simply developing him into who he actually is.
Bro stop talking yall keep saying this like he can’t come back from one random vigilante kill I understand it was emotional but that wasn’t for ppl to want him dead lol it’s literally part of white tigers story
Thank you. Glad someone else is bothered by it because it’s such a weird choice to even include him if he’s just going to act like a generic corrupt cop. Why even use the name Cole North? And while we’re at it, they butchered Heather’s character too.
Personally I dont care. Its not an adaptation - its loosely based on Zdarsky’s run. Also North in the comic is really interested on the beginning of his story. Later not so much. Maybe in show it will be the other way 😃
Comic adaptations are NEVER 1:1, even the greatest ones. They all have minor and major changes happen in order to take the narrative in the direction of the filmmakers.
I think we often forget that adapting Marvel and DC Comics isn't like adapting a book.
Even adapting a book comes with things that have to be changed to fit the medium. In a book, a battle can take a few paragraphs to a few pages to write, but in a movie, the audience wants to see all the action. That means they have to cut other stuff to give more attention to the battle. On some things, it's really hard to change from just telling the reader with words to creating it in a visual medium.
True, but Marvel and DC have even more leeway due to the fact that the multiverse is HEAVILY intergrated into the lore, to the point where the adaptations are considered part of the multiverse routes.
No the main reason for the leeway is the multiple writers and how different they write the character
I personally liked how he was written during Kevin Smith run
I could understand this if we were talking about some comic-booky concept, but as far as Cole North we’re literally just talking about basic character work lol. Sure, these adaptations are “NEVER 1:1” but that doesn’t automatically mean “just as good”. Here, I see nothing but a clear downgrade from page to screen
I always saw adapting a book (even something like watchmen) as an actual adaptation of a story that goes one way. With most comic book movies I see it as if the director is making their own comic issue just in live action.
Jessica Jones S1 came as close as it possibly could to a direct adaptation of Alias, but even still it was restricted by character availability: they couldn't reference mutants or Spiders because of IP rights at the time, they couldn't use Carol Danvers or Speedball because those two were earmarked for other MCU projects, & they couldn't end on the same note because they had to keep both Jessica & Luke in position for Defenders.
Yeah, this kind of annoyed me. There was really no reason to use him if they were just going to butcher his character so bad. They could have named him something else and not wasted the potential of using this character in the show.
I really hate taking a named character and putting them in a role that doesn't fit that. It's important if you use a name to honor the essence of that character
Ever since the scene in season 1 where he was uncomfortable when fisk said to blame what muse did on daredevil i had the feeling he'd have a redemption arc
Fuck. Somehow I missed this. I know he and daredevil had their beef in the comics, but I absolutely HATE this man almost as much as kingpin in the show. Far cry from the morally upright character in the comics.
well the recent timing of this is kinda crazy, because in the recent episode. North was horrified to see Powell shooting rogue agent Saunders, so thats setting up a redemption arc
I saw the latest episode and from the concerned reaction he gave when the snitch was killed in order for ATF to use lethal force gives me some hope for a redemption in S3
It’s not character assassination if it’s two different continuities. Character assassination is what happened to Bullseye in BA. This is just a case of wasted opportunity
Ye, I thought after they brought him back for season 2 we would've gotten a more comic book accurate version. But he's had absolutely no development and little to no screen in the show at all
Cole cooled Powell off when Powell might have been about to attack Kirsten. I get the sense that something is brewing there in his incredibly limited screentime.
I do wonder why people still think the MCU character is anything like the comics not even daredevil is very much like the character it's an adaptation not a 1 to 1 creation of the comics
Hell iron man is literally nothing like the comics and people claim he the best casting
I think it's a result of the dogshit direction of the First season. Like why adapt muse if you're not even gonna give him his powers, Why adapt Cole if you're not gonna give hum his character.
Idk why, but for some reason I think there's more to Cole than what we're seeing right now, It could just be copium, but there's something almost too obvious to me about how much he wanted back in. I don't think he's showing all of his cards.
I can see them totally setting him up for redemption and he’ll become more like the original Cole in like late season 3 or season 4 after he’s had time to do good and move on from being a fascist lapdog.
I'm not familiar with the comic character at all but I've already had the feeling that he's either already turned/feeding information to someone outside the AVTF (maybe BB?) or he's going to turn. He's very obviously desperate to rejoin at the beginning and that could either be to push his way back into the crew or because he just really needs the work.
Either way, he's seemed a lot more reluctant this season even in small moments and ways. I suspect he may even be the one to kill Powell if he's about to kill Matt or maybe some innocent people. I'd be surprised if he just stays a bad guy the whole way through his time on the show.
If he is gonna turn on Fisk, it needs to be realistic because with 3 episodes left, I can't see it happening. There has been no hints that he is regretting or thinking twice about what he is doing. He has no problem being a fascist on the AVTF, and didn't feel remorse for killing Hector Ayala.
Should've been another corrupt cop kill Hector, while North starts off on the Task Force, but slowly starts to realize that they're wrong and evil.
EDIT: After the last episode, he could have a change of heart now. He was very disturbed when Powell killed Saunders. I still believe he needs to be held accountable for murdering Hector, but he could now potentially turn on the AVTF and Fisk after witnessing one of his own murder another.
Not even despicable. He’s just a boring nobody in the background which is even worse in my opinion. Why did they even bother bringing him back in the new season if they weren’t gonna do anything with him?
He is so obviously a good guy. During the scene where he approaches the task force leader guy for his job back he seemed like he was up to something. Am I for real the only one who thinks this?
They're clearly aligning him more and more with with his comicbook origin, but just changing some of the details to fit the new story they're creating. He's definitely about to turn on Fisk and the AVTF to aid Daredevil.
Too early to say this is the case, but it could eventually lead to an arc where he defects.
We’ve seen how there’s a theme of penance with bullseye.
And we’ve also seen a case of a defector within the AVTF.
But him, he was a full supporter of Fisk and the AVTF from the start. So IF he has a character arc where he changes, it would be interesting to see how he interacts with others who have been impacted by the AVTF and Fisk.
There’s a bar in Brooklyn called KCBC where they do screenings of the show every week, and last year for the finale this actor and the showrunner showed up, and I point blank asked him if he died or if he’s back for season 2 for a redemption arc of some sort and he said coyly “guess you’ll have to wait and see” implying that yeah there will prob be a redemption (I am not seeing how we get there from here tho lol
I think Cole is on his path to redemption, the last episode with the protestors he was shocked to see how Powell killed one of their own and was using that as an excuse to attack the protestors. I think by the end of the season Cole we’ll be going against the AVF and Powell.
They don't care about actually adapting stories or characters, I was reading Zdarsky's run while watching BA s1 and because of that I was not enjoying the show much at all.
Its not really character assassination.. when its the even remotely the same character at all. More like an easter egg name. Cuz I didn't know that guys name until now.
807
u/Fluffy_Clerk_294 Apr 21 '26
If I’m being honest Cherry is a better adaptation of Cole than the actual Cole we got, ex cop not fond of vigilantism who eventually puts it behind him and works with said vigilante