The Man Without Fear? More like the Man with that crying face from Dawson's Creek.
- The trailer is stuffed full of dark, violent imagery... which is then followed by a bright cartoony logo.
- The fact that the show seems to go out of its way to avoid calling The City anything other than, well, the City, is kind of hilarious. Especially since it is so visibly New York City. This same problem does not seem to stop people from talking about Hell's Kitchen. It has actually led to people unfamiliar with NYC to assume that "the city" is called "Hell's Kitchen".
- In spite of the numerous Darker and Edgier aspects compared with the rest of the MCU, the show still isn't allowed to swear above a basic cable level. This results in some quite out of place uses of "freaking" and even "motherfreaking."
- The first scene of the first episode, with young Matt screaming "I CAN'T SEE!", due to the bad acting of the child actor Skylar Gaertner who was forced to act outside his comfort zone. Thankfully averted for every other scene involving Gaertner.
- The fact that they chose to call the Chitauri invasion, of all things, "The Incident." It's so mind-bogglingly generic that you almost expect that they would have called 9/11 "The Crash." Ironically, it was clearly used to avoid this trope, since simply coming out and using the words "alien invasion" would clash with the gritty and grounded tone of the series. But still...
- Fisk's press conference, where he rambles for around 30 seconds about a vague objective to gentrify "this city", followed by the protagonists collectively acting as though he had just delivered the equivalent of MLK's "I have a dream" speech.
- Just look at Matt crying, for the page image. In no way is that dramatic. At all.
- At the end of Season 1, Fisk staring at the wall of his prison cell which looks like the painting he owns and the wall his father forced him to stare at when he was a child. It's not that the symbolism is bad, so much that it's slowly and dramatically revealed as if it's a big surprise.
- One understands why they wanted Matt to show off his new armor for the final episode, but he spends so much time dramatically posing in it that it starts to get a bit silly.
- Fisk bellowing "I'm going to kill you!" just before his final fight with Matt. Even Vincent D'Onofrio can't make that line sound like anything but a blatant case of That Makes Me Feel Angry.
- Matt's new armor sparking as Fisk hits him with a pipe. It was probably to emphasize how much Matt needs it or how good of a craftsman Melvin Potter is, but it just comes off looking silly.
- In Season 2, multiple people refer to Matt's costume as "pajamas". If he were wearing a costume closer to his comic book costume (solid bright red, skintight suit) it would make sense. However, Matt's Netflix costume looks NOTHING like pajamas considering the heavy Kevlar body armor and combat boots. If he were wearing something more like Spider-Man it would make sense, but here it just sounds ridiculous.
- The fight scene in Season 2 attempting to top the hallway scene from Season 1. It starts off like the hallway scene but eventually escalates to fighting down a stairwell, to the bottom floor and then towards an elevator all the while fighting dozens of mooks. It can get more narmy after one remembers that Matt is stuck holding an empty gun in one hand and a chain in the other.
- The sheer amount of mumbling from Frank Castle. His performance is great, and it makes sense for his character, but having to pause, rewind and turn on subtitles kinda takes something out of a scene.
- Episode 11 of Season 2, ".380." Matt grills Blake Tower about where the Blacksmith's rival is, leading to this incredibly awkward line: "the only place where drugs and corruption rival your neighborhood... Chinatown" which is also uncomfortable given how close the series skirts towards the Yellow Peril trope.
- Karen's article at the end of Season 2 musing about what exactly makes someone a hero, basically concluding that it's anyone who lives in New York and can leave their apartment in the morning.
- Lampshaded by this fanfic
:Karen Page: Oh you’re both so funny. That was my first piece. Not all of us are geniuses at everything from the get go.
Matt Murdock: Sorry, Karen. I enjoy your writing really.
Karen Page: I can't believe how clichéd that first story was. [blushes] I can't believe my editor printed it.
Foggy Nelson: It's not that bad. We were just teasing.
- Lampshaded by this fanfic
- The usually excellent descriptive audio gets a bit awkward regarding the Punisher, as several blows in his fights are described as "punishing", and in turn he's described at these times as "the brute" to keep it from being too repetitive, but that also get a bit silly after you hear it too many times.
- During Frank's impassioned monologue to Matt at the graveyard in "Penny and Dime", count the number of times he injects "y'know?" into the end of a sentence. Note: doing shots for each one not recommended.
- While the scene is absolutely amazing, it's still a little giggle-worthy when you learn that Matt's "tears" are actually just Charlie Cox sweating his ass off in the suit.
- The short fight between Frank and Fisk, mostly because of Fisk's appearance, and the fact that they are both taking deliberate turns hitting each other.
- During the otherwise badass final fight with Nobu in the Season 2 finale, one of his random kicks at Matt sends Matt's helmet flying into freaking orbit.
- With Fisk's finely-shaven head and chubby body, putting him in a prison jumpsuit looks rather silly; he winds up looking like an overgrown two-year-old in a onesie. Especially not helped with the already-established fact that Fisk fights by brutishly flailing while screaming at the top of his lungs, which make his fight scenes come off like temper tantrums. Then again, that might be very much intentional, given his traumatic childhood.
- The entirety of the "Hand" plot which dominates the latter half of season 2 and The Defenders (2017) has aged poorly since its introduction into the franchise three decades ago. After around a season-and-a-half of dealing with realistic underworld villains, Matt's switch to fighting costume shop ninjas in order to avert an obscure and mystical Japanese prophecy comes across as somewhere between surreal and silly.
- One from production, but the reason why Matt doesn't have the red hair his comics counterpart has is because attempting to dye Charlie Cox's hair red just looked too silly, so they went with the more subdued copper-red tint to Charlie's brown hair.
- Season 3's rendition of the single-shot hallway fight is its most ambitious yet, and is mostly very impressive. Unfortunately, Matt being out of costume means that Chris Brewster (Charlie Cox's double) has to put much more effort into hiding his face from the camera, which is often very obvious.
- Season 3 leans very heavily into the Screaming Warrior trope. Dex's primal scream whenever he's frustrated after Fisk tells him to let it out is one of the most prominent examples.
- Julie Barnes' murder is shot in a bizarrely quick and perfunctory fashion. As it's shown through us seeing Fisk watch it on a small CCTV screen (to illustrate how cold and detached he is about having an innocent woman murdered), several fans said they didn't even realize it was her, and were quite confused when the show brings it up later.
- Matt and Dex's fight at the New York Bulletin. Improbable Aiming Skills plus weaponized office supplies straddles the line between Narm and Crazy Is Cool.
- In the comics, Bullseye can kill people with any thrown object including playing cards, pens, and even his own stool. Here, Dex still has his Improbable Aiming Skills but they often just bounce off the opponent realistically. Examples include a baseball he throws at Matt in the Bulletin attack, and utensils he throws at Fisk during the penthouse fight.
