Marvel’s mutant population has slowly been trickling into the MCU, not that Marvel can use these characters without having to share the rights with another studio. While new characters are being introduced ever since Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, mutants might have made an appearance in the MCU way before the Fox deal was even struck.
In Daredevil Season 3, we are introduced to Benjamin Poindexter, who takes up the mantle of Bullseye to make Matt Murdock’s life hell at the behest of Wilson Fisk, who is out to destroy Murdock for all the harm he has caused to his business and power. However, a lot of things point towards Bullseye’s powers being inherent, which could reveal him to be a mutant now that Marvel has the rights to those characters.
Bullseye allegedly had his abilities from a very young age
Benjamin Poindexter as a character has been revealed to have perfect aim since a very young age. These powers begin to develop when he is in Lyndhurst Home for Boys, where he is forced to live after his parents pass away. This is pretty reminiscent of mutants developing their powers right around the time they go through a stressful and traumatic situation.
Poindexter, towards the end of Daredevil Season 3, is paralysed from the neck down after Wilson Fisk clashes with the former FBI officer. a post-credit scene reveals that Poindexter is going through, experimental spine surgery to restore his legs, which is being led by one Doctor Kenji Oyama, whose work was used in Marvel Comics to kick off the Weapon X program, which eventually yields Wolverine.
This adds credence to the fact that Marvel might be developing Bullseye as a mutant in the MCU, something it has done with non-mutant characters before, like Kamala Khan.
Daredevil: Born Again could be the first verbal confirmation of mutants we get in the MCU
So far, despite the presence of fully mutant characters in teh MCU, the franchise has still shied away from the term ‘mutants’. While Professor X and Hank McCoy have made a full canonical appearance in the story and a non-mutant character has been confirmed to be one in the MCU, the word mutant is yet to be something that has to be thrown around, or even recognized as separate species from humans.
The closest the MCU has come to labelling mutants a separate species is calling Namor a mutant, but that could be because of his Talkani heritage. Daredevil: Born Again could see the MCU finally acknowledge the presence of mutants and start building the negative image these characters have in the public eye, shaping their understanding (or misunderstanding ) of the mutant population.
