The Defenders show & 2 of the members deserved better than what they got. So let's start with the parts: Luke Cage & Iron Fist.
I have heard from a friend who loves Luke Cage & watched the show & said it had more talking that action in it & feel that he needed to be better balanced story & action. Not to downplay the story, but I feel like a street hero needs a lot of street action. After all, he has some of the best hands on the street rather than just being a bulldozer. Also:
This is one of the healthiest & loving relationships in Marvel so seeing this get ruined hurt me to my soul like Shun Goku Satsu.
Iron Fist.....I believe I need to talk about this. This isn't me being a pessimist, his lore so rich. With some minor changes, people would have loved him.
With that being said, the Defenders show was bound to end too soon & it's failure is the only reason why Spider-Man is the "face of street level heroes of the mcu" (not my words). In my opinion, Spider-Man in the MCU just barely is in my opinion.
What do y'all think?
Okay so in the comics, Jessica Jones & Luke Cage 1 of the strongest married power couples & it is healthy along with being an interracial couple (which in the comics I can’t think of any straight interracial couple that is still together, so this is big). As a matter of fact, Luke after hearing he got Jessica pregnant wanted to become a family & she eventually said yes……….so why did they turn into some fling in the MCU? Be raised basically by a Black Panther (the irl group) I assume the worst but I really hope I’m missing something.
Was there like something behind the scenes that had this change happen?
Since characters of the Defenders Saga are making their way back into the MCU and all the series released on Disney+, how cool would it be to see What If...?-scenarios of the Defenders Saga to be played out. I didn't watch those, but for those who watched the series it would be pretty nice. And it would prove even harder that the Defenders Saga and the events in it are still canon to the MCU. I've got some ideas, but that's just based on what I know about it.
-What If...Daredevil didn't survive the Battle at Presidential Hotel?
-What If...Jessica Jones helped Peter Parker to prove his innocene?
-What If...Foggy Nelson got blinded and turned into Daredevil?
-What If...Danny Rand joined the Ten Rings and became an assasin?
-What If...Luke Cage recieved some of Hulk's gamma radiation?
-What If...the Punisher joined HYDRA to kill Captain America?
At the end of Luke Cage, Luke essentially becomes a crime boss and uses that position to direct crime out of Harlem, into other areas of the city. Then, about a month later, we see crime starting to increase throughout other parts of New York, like Chinatown, which eventually leads to the whole Triad War fiasco. Could Luke be indirectly responsible for letting the crime get to that point?
When Inhumans were popping up all around the globe during the Inhuman Outbreak, it makes me wonder if any of the Defenders got wrapped up in all the chaos.
Were Matt, Jessica, Luke, or Danny ever targeted by the Watchdogs? Did Malick/Hydra ever seek them out to build Hive’s army? Were they on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar?
Considering the fact that it would be hard to tell if they were Inhuman, it just really makes me curious what they were up to during this time period. Don’t forget that the outbreak happened around the same time as the Sokovia Accords, which could have been potentially even more drama for them to deal with.
In short, I would really like to know how the Inhuman Outbreak and the Sokovia Accords affected the Defenders.
Edit: Now that I think about it, I think Matt was still presumed dead at this time, which means he wouldn’t really be affected by all this. Additionally, I’m not so sure Danny’s powers were common knowledge, so he may have been fine. Jessica and Luke would still definitely been affected, though.
Since the movie crews are still working on how to handle TV characters, it would be better not to expect too much. Cameo is good enough. Just a small role like Stan Lee used to be, it will do a great deal of recognition. Besides, one of them already made it. So who could be the next?
My imagination
Luke Cage in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Jessica Jones in The Marvels
Iron Fist in Shang-Chi 2
The Punisher in Deadpool 3
I think Mike should reprise his role for mcu's luke cage and kevin feige did bring charlie cox to reprise his role as daredevil and he should the same to mike colter as luke cage
Today we got the big news; and while I wish there were less reports of this in the past so it would have been more surprising, it is nonetheless amazing. Charlie Cox is coming back as Daredevil, with other Netflix show-based characters (like Kingpin) possibly coming back to the MCU anytime in the next four weeks.
So how is Marvel going to honor the legacy of these shows and these characters? The first thing we were all worried about was whether they were going to bring back the actors, and it seems like Marvel is very keen on getting them all back. We now know that Charlie Cox is a 100% for any time in the future, and Vincent D'Onofrio has been hinting towards his possible role in Hawkeye for months now. Meanwhile, we've heard rumors about Krysten Ritter (who could've come back in She-Hulk) and Jon Bernthal returning, and it was revealed by Jessica Henwick that she was asked to play a role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - though she chose The Matrix 4 instead. While I am still worried about the fate of Mike Colter and Finn Jones' respective Luke Cage and Iron Fist, I have a good feeling that (at least for Colter's sake) that they will be back in due time.
So where did we leave off?
There are a lot of loose ends and storylines that the shows never was able answer or finish teling. In 2018, Netflix cancelled Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil all within weeks of each other. A few months later in February 2019 they cancelled The Punisher and Jessica Jones.
Iron Fist, which was the easiest show to cancel due to the still not-so-great response from its second season, could have been a lot better in season three as Colleen Wing would have taken a larger role as the new Iron Fist, and we would have seen Rand and Ward Meachum search for Kun' Lun. Add to that Orson Randall - in the comics a former Iron Fist - was being set up as a villain, making for an interesting conflict. Add to that the possibility of re-exploring the Hand, as it never was actually confirmed whether or not Elektra and Madame Gao had actually died.
Luke Cage had a lot of loose ends too. Bushmaster was still out and walking at the end of Season Two, and Luke Cage was becoming sort of a bad guy - and taking him down might take a force of heroes (something he was hinting towards in Jessica Jones' final episode). We also could have seen Claire Temple again and while I think in the end if (when) Jones or Cage returns, they'll have a long-lasting relationship like in the comics, but she would have been nice to see again; though I'm pretty sure Rosario Dawson is booked with Ahsoka for now.
Daredevil was the best of every single MCU Netflix show by a mile (Jessica Jones was pretty good too though). Out of all of the endings these shows gave us; however, this was definitely the most satisfying and fitting with how the MCU can move forward - I'll explain that later. However, if it would have considered we likely would have seen two more seasons (something revealed by former cast member Amy Rutburg). In the fourth season we would have seen a new villain, and in the fifth season Fisk and Daredevil would have had their final showdown. Meanwhile, Bullseye was certainly being set up as a villain (and hopefully can still be one today; though it might be hard with continuity and everything.
The Punisher ended on a decent note - most of the loose ends from season one (like Billy Barnes as Jigsaw and his character arc) had been tied up, and while it might be interesting to see somebody like Dr. Dumont return as an antagonist of some sort and Dinah Madani, Curtis Hoyle, and Frank Castle's characters develop a bit more, I didn't really like the 13 episode format for The Punisher as I felt that it was a bit too much - give this man a break people!!! I didn't really see them having more then three seasons of the show anyway, but I would have given him another chance.
Jessica Jones was an absolutely spectacular show that certainly deserved another season or two. Almost all of the character arcs in season three were still unfinished, especially Malcolm Ducasse (and his girlfriend Zaya, who I bet could have had an even bigger and different role in season four), Jeri Hogarth (who either could've turned more evil or more heroic later on before succumbing to ALS), Erik Gelden (a superhero in his own right now), and Jessica Jones herself. In the end her story closed off on an okay note in a sense - as her and Trish's relationship had kind of wrapped up, but there could've been more to explore with that. All and all, this could have run for five seasons just like Daredevil and is more of a dissapointment looking back.
So was the cancellation actually a blessing in disguise?
For the timeline's sake, yes, yes it was. What our geniuses at the wiki have come to conclusion with is the fact that The Punisher S2 and Jessica Jones S3 ended days before Infinity War in May 2018. Sure, there is a Punisher scene set after the blip that I imagine would have been a bit darker in a recently decimated world; but that's why I'm actually kind of grateful everything got cancelled because we can assume that everything going for these characters got messed up after the snap. If any of them got snapped that would mess up certain things about their character/arcs that they still needed to continue - for Matt Murdock it would have taken him away from protecting New York City (and leave it without somebody to protect them from the wrath of Kingpin), Jessica Jones pretty pissed that she missed all that time though that's all, for Jeri Hogarth it would have left her with more time in the world before becoming paralyzed for life, Luke Cage without his newly found status as the King of Harlem, and Danny Rand's mission to find Kun' Lun stuck in the trash can (I'm assuming that The Punisher and Kingpin survived due to 1) The Punisher's ending scene and 2) what Hawkeye has been inferring about Kingpin during the decimation.
So where does that leave us now?
I think that the snap leaves the Netflix shows on a clean slate - for a bunch of characters they either had five years of time to move on to new things or five years of time lost where they're now forced to move on to new things. While I'm not yet sure what to say about the future of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Colleen Wing (I'm betting they'd let her survive the snap just to put that out there), and Frank Castle yet, I think that Daredevil and Kingpin are going to be really important in the future. The storyline I see them going with to connect it back is that Matt Murdock snapped away leaving New York defenseless against Wilson Fisk. That left Fisk (who survived) time to get out of jail build back an empire of crime before it got crippled by Ronin. That's where we're left off now - with Clint Barton and Kate Bishop stuck in the middle of this conflict and Matt Murdock just re-entering it as a major player. The set up is perfect - its as if Daredevil S3 was made just for Hawkeye (keep an eye on the Presidential Hotel in Hawkeye E1, a main location in Daredevil S3), and it makes sense that we are seeing all this big news now as it has been two years; with some extra time thanks to COVID, since these shows were cancelled and not long since Marvel Studios has been able to use these characters again (so why not cancel them so you can use them again in two years? IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!!). It seems like there are going to be different levels of the MCU going forward, one of them being on the street, and that the Marvel Netflix characters are going to be key to it.
The big question is what are some directions that they were thinking about taking these characters in the past that you still want them to continue with? For me that would be fulfilling the Bullseye tease at the end of Daredevil S3, diving deeper into Luke Cage's Harlem empire, expanding on Colleen Wing's role as Iron Fist, and completing the arcs of Jessica Jones' side characters (idk that just really left me annoyed when I finished watching it).
So, what do you think? Looking at it with the new light of the snap playing into everything, was it the cancellation of all these shows a blessing in disguise? How will they continue on with these characters in the mainstream MCU? What storylines will they continue, which ones will they leave out? And how fast will it take for all of these characters to come back (if they ever do), and in what projects will we see them? Leave your thoughts and questions in the comments below!
Is the Hashtag Show really that reliable with upcoming things in the MCU? Because they said they'll recast Luke Cage in an upcoming Heroes For Hire series on Disney+. That doesn't really sound right.
I have an idea we should try to play.
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By the end of LCs2, Luke becames the head of the crime in Harlem, takes the Harlem's Paradise. Misty is worried, and telling Colleen (who is the only Iron Fist in town now) that maybe she will ask her to help against Luke Cage. Some time later Luke shows up at Jessica Jones' office, and telling her that sometimes you can choose only the less worse. he also tells Jess that he hopes if he cross that specific line, Jess will be there to take the necessary actions.
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Then the Snap happens!
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Here is the question: what happened since then to Luke Cage? Did he snapped away (too simple), or there is a story can be told?
Let's try to create that story.
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I have some ideas that could've, or could've not happened with LC:
Harlem's Paradise broke because both the legal and illegal incomes decreased drastically cause by half the clients snapped.
Some heroes and side-characters also snapped. Daredevil maybe? or Colleen, the strongest of the ladies? Or none of them, so a new Defenders-lineup could've happened?
I read once that maybe a "Shadowland"-based thing was planned with Luke Cage (instead of Matt). If so, this could connect the gang with anyone who is in the NW Sanctum?
Luke's skin is unbreakable, but maybe Colleen's chi-powered katana can harm him, and that's could lead to his bracelets (made by vibranium or even adamantium)?
A story about Luke Cage lured into the dark side could lead not only to Heroes for Hire but into Daughters of Dragon as well, having Misty, Colleen and Jessica teaming up.
What are your ideas? Did LC turned to the dark side, or did he managed to use Harlem's underground to do good?
Of course it can't be taken as a fact. We could never say these factually happened in the MCU.
It's only for fun.
So let's play that what could've happened?
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(And if it works and you like it, we could do that about other characters)
There are tons of characters in the MCU who can be more or less classified as super soldiers- Patriot, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage etc.
So why just go after Flag Smashers ?
If The Defenders had gotten a second season (releasing after Jessica Jones Season 3), what kind of plot line would you be interested in seeing for the heroes of New York?
Personally, I would have loved to see a “Defenders Civil War” with Matt, Jessica, and Danny having to take down the crime boss Luke
How would you rank the Defenders as far as their power level? My list would be:
Luke Cage
Iron Fist
Jessica Jones
Daredevil
Who would you say is the worst defender?
I personally think its Luke Cage, I think he is better than the defenders team. He is way to powerful for the defenders and he wasn't used effectively in the siege of New York. I personally also think daredevil Jessica Jones and iron fist were right where they should be. If ironman called up anyone other than spiderman in civil war it should of been Luke Cage. Although defenders won't be the same without Luke.
Is it right that both Hammer and Cage were in the Seagate? Is there a chance that these two met in there?