The ne’er-do-well Phil Urich is one of my all-time favorite comic book characters, and there’s a very real chance that he now exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to the TV show Daredevil. For a geek like me, this is pretty exciting news — but it might only exist in my head. I don’t have any proof, this is just an elaborate fan theory.

But who doesn’t love fan theories?

My childhood hero, ladies and gentlemen

Due to the SPOILERS nature of my theory, I’m going to save the bulk of my evidence for after the jump. Some people haven’t watched the whole season yet, and they need to be protected from this mind-blowing news. Just know that Ben Urich is a main character in Daredevil, played by Vondie Curtis-Hall. And in the comics, Ben has a nephew named Phil, who sometimes works with him at the newspaper.

Phil started out as a superhero in the 90s, taking on the identity of the Green Goblin for a short-lived series (that just so happened to serve as my gateway into comic book fandom). But most recently, Phil has been a bad guy, jumping through various goblin identities, like Hobgoblin, Goblin Knight and, most recently, the Goblin King.

I doubt we’ll ever get to see any of these identities in the movies or TV show, but now that Spider-Man is back in Marvel’s loving arms, you never know…

Anyway, join me after the jump to see my evidence that Phil Urich is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! And again, watch out for SPOILERS for Daredevil!

Sadly, as we all learned in Episode 12 of Daredevil, intrepid newspaper reporter Ben Urich is murdered by the villainous Wilson Fisk. Considering the character’s importance to the Marvel Universe, nobody could have predicted that death would be his fate in only the first season of Daredevil! There are four more shows to do, surely a crime reporter could have been a solidifying character in all of them, like Phil Coulson.

But nope, Ben dies. And then this young man shows up at his funeral at the start of Episode 13, a young man important enough to serve as a pallbearer.

Wait…on the left…is that the mobster Ben spoke with at the start of the series?

I have searched high and low on the Internet for some word on this guy’s casting, but I haven’t found anything! Not even the IMDB page for Episode 13 has anybody listed as ‘pallbearer’ or ‘young man’ or ‘funeral attendee’. There’s nothing! He’s little more than a glorified extra.

But that’s not my only evidence.

At the funeral, someone in Ben’s family says that he and his wife, Doris, never had any children of their own. And the other pallbearers, and most people at the funeral, are white, so there wasn’t a big Urich family turnout, meaning there aren’t a lot of young black men to choose from.

There’s only one young man at the funeral, one who is important enough to be a pallbearer, and Ben didn’t have any sons.

Did they ask a known crime lord to come back from Florida to serve as a pallbearer?

So until I hear otherwise, that right there is Phil Urich!

If anybody has any idea of the actor’s name, please let me know. Like I said, I’ve been scouring the Internet, but haven’t been able to turn up a single thing!

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