Superhero Media: The Defenders

Much like Iron Fist before it, I really struggle to understand the vitriol aimed at The Defenders; there are countless videos on YouTube decrying the series and dissecting why it "doesn't work". What the hell were those people watching? The Defenders is pretty great, hitting all the right notes and the flaws are down to the usual Netflix restrictions like budget and contracts. Starting on their own independent investigations, Iron Fist, Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones soon encounter each other and learn of the threat that the Hand pose to New York. Cleverly, much of the story happens in the span of a few days, circumventing the typical pacing problems that plague the Marvel Netflix programmes; even Jessica pointing this out in one episode only highlights the benefits of such an approach. As much as The Defenders follows on directly from Iron Fist, elements do factor in from every series that has come before; Matt is chasing Elektra, Luke is looking for missing Harlem youth and Jessica is following a case. 

The star of The Defenders is Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, the leader of the Hand, getting a brilliant introduction bossing Madame Gau around and revealing that the leaders of the Hand are hundreds of years old. Alexandra uses the last of the Hand's resurrection powder to bring Elektra back as the Black Sky so that the organisation can take the temple hidden under New York and become truly immortal. As New York will be destroyed in the process, our heroes have to band together to save the day, not only the 'big four', but Coleen Wing, Claire Temple and Misty Knight are along for the ride, helping out along the way and in the final battle. The best part of The Defenders, much like in The Avengers, is the friction and eventual camaraderie between the characters, especially Jessica's resistance to the ideas of ninjas, magic and Iron Fist. The first fight, where the four team up to fight goons in a hallway, is extremely well executed, with each of the characters having their own unique style of fighting, the stunt team really did a brilliant job.

As of the time of initially writing this review (July 2018), the next series of The Defenders is on hiatus, as is Daredevil, and Iron Fist seems to have been canceled. I'm hoping that this is more indicative that the Netflix stuff will be brought into the main MCU continuity, but I doubt it. Somehow, despite the quality of production, writing and casting, the Marvel Netflix series have not caught on in a way that Marvel Studios wants to keep producing. If I were a betting man, I'd say that we're likely to see Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter and Mike Colter in their roles again, but probably with a recast Punisher and Iron Fist, perhaps even a Heroes for Hire film in a few years' time. These are great characters, with plenty to draw on from their comics, stories like New Avengers (Luke Cage), The Immortal Iron Fist, The Pulse (Jessica Jones) and Guardian Devil (Daredevil) deserve the broader audience that the MCU is attracting. Here's hoping for another Defenders outing at some point.