The Defenders EXPECTATIONS

Marvel and Netflix’s heroes join forces tomorrow as they become The Defenders!  The series will be available some time tomorrow.  What are our expectations?

The Future of Iron Fist

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Back in March, Iron Fist season 1 was made available on Netflix.  Since then I’ve talked about various aspects of the show and how they work out.  There are definitely some elements of this series that did not work out at all; there are definitely some other elements that work out very well.  I think all of the Marvel Netflix series have been subject to this same criticism, but Iron Fist has definitely received it much more.

But with all that behind us, it’s time to talk about what may happen moving forward with these characters!  There are some obvious plot threads which can be explored, either in an unannounced Iron Fist season 2 or in The Defenders this August.  Unfortunately, we do not know enough about The Defenders say definitively what may appear in each series.

But that’s never stopped me before!

Iron Fist REVIEW Part 5 (Netflix Connections) SPOILERS

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This is the last aspect of Iron Fist that I really want to talk about, and it is the one for which I’m the most torn.  All of the Marvel Netflix shows share characters and settings, both in the foreground and the background.  This really helps them feel like they are all taking place in the same world, just a few blocks apart.  Considering that these series are all building up to The Defenders crossover miniseries this summer, it is important for them to already feel like they inhabit the same neighborhood—even though there are tonal differences between them.  It’s similar to what Marvel Studios did in Phase 1 by having Coulson, Tony, and/or Fury show up in all the movies at some point.

Unfortunately, at a certain point the shared characters cease to be fun and start being genuine plot holes.  That is part of the problem with Iron Fist.

Weekly MCU Review for April 8

Another week, and more MCU news!  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back, we know when The Defenders will be released, and there’s all kinds of other news from Marvel TV!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Iron Fist TL;DW

I have written these “Too Long; Didn’t Watch” articles before for upcoming movies, but this is the first time I’ve felt the need to write one for a television series.  However, with the TV corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuing to expand, I feel like it’s only faith that I put together a “Too Long; Didn’t Watch” article to anticipate the Netflix release of Iron Fist later this week.  The “TL;DW” articles for the movies have offered viewing suggestions, but I don’t think I can really do that here.  For one thing, it’s only 3 days until Iron Fist comes out; for another, there is so much TV to wade through, and it’s pretty much impossible to pick and choose which episode to watch, at least with the Netflix series.

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For the sake of brevity, this “TL;DW” will ignore everything happening in the movies (apart from acknowledging Doctor Strange), as well as Agent Carter, which takes place in 1946-47 and probably won’t be much of a factor on Iron Fist.  Of course, just because I said that, Peggy Carter will find a way to appear on Iron Fist, just to make me look stupid.  I will deal with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. first, and then take the Netflix seasons in order of release.  At the end I will note the other upcoming TV series, though I doubt there will be much connection to Iron Fist.

Note:  Here is your (inevitable) SPOILER warning:  from here on out, this article contains major spoilers for everything having to do with Marvel TV!  You have been warned…

Weekly MCU Review for January 14

Another week, and more MCU news!  Someone turned on the spigot; there's a ton of new information on Marvel movies, network, and Netflix!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Follow-Up to Luke Cage

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No review today (busy weekend), so instead, you get my thoughts on the follow-up to Luke Cage.  Obviously there are spoilers for the whole season.

Now that Luke Cage has been released and we’ve had some time to digest it, there is a lot to unpack as far as where these characters will go from here.  Luke Cage was unique when compared to the other Netflix shows in that this one ended with the least definite resolution.  Daredevil season 1 ended with Matt in a very good place in both his personal and superhero lives.  Jessica Jones season 1 ended with Jess still about as broken as ever, but in a position to begin healing and helping.  Daredevil season 2 ended with a bit of unresolved tension, as Matt revealed himself to Karen and the Hand began the process of resurrecting Elektra, but the primary conflict did end with the Hand defeated and Frank Castle walking around wearing a skull on his chest.  Compare that to Luke Cage, and Daredevil season 2 practically wraps it all up with a bow!

In other words, we’ve got a lot to talk about as far as where things will go from here!

Obviously there will be spoilers for Luke Cage ahead, and obviously there will be a ton of wild speculation as far as Iron Fist and The Defenders are concerned.

Rumor Has It... White Tiger on Netflix

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Just a couple days ago, Bleeding Cool broke a rumor suggesting that Marvel and Netflix have shot pilot shorts for four different potential series.  Presumably these series would not enter active development until after The Defenders has been finished.  This is not the first rumor to this effect to come out—the last one suggested Punisher, Deathlok, Spider-Woman, and Moon Knight as the four series to follow The Defenders.  Of course, thus far the only thing to come from that previous rumor was the announcement of The Punisher following Jon Bernthal’s turn in the role during Daredevil season 2.

This time around the rumor is a little lighter on the details as far as the characters involved, but it does suggest that development has progressed at least a little further than the last rumor suggested.  In fact, the only character specified in the rumor is Angela del Toro, a.k.a. White Tiger.  There are plenty of possibilities for the other characters involved, and I will give my ideas at the end, but for now let’s focus on the single character we “know” from the rumor.

Potential New Magic Users in the MCU

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DrStrange

With Doctor Strange ushering a New Magical Age into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, suddenly a whole world of new possibilities opens up for our favorite movies and TV shows.  Now, it’s not as though we haven’t seen magic before in the MCU; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has introduced (and promptly killed off) two separate Darkforce users (manipulators of extra-dimensional energy), and Agent Carter season 2 was all about the MCU’s first encounter with the Darkforce Dimension.  Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, is (properly speaking) a magic user, though her powers have thus far been limited (for the most part) to mental manipulation and telekinesis.  However, all of these examples have been given scientific explanations (less so in the case of Scarlet Witch):  extra-dimensional energy and Mind Stone experimentation, respectively.

What Doctor Strange brings to the table is a form of magic we have not seen before, which will defy most scientific explanation.  I expect that characters will attempt to give it a scientific explanation (Strange is a doctor, after all!), but at some point they will just have to acknowledge that there are some things they will never fully comprehend.

Once Doctor Strange introduces magic in a big way, I expect that we will start to see a lot of magic users appear in various MCU offerings, a theory to which I alluded last week while talking about Tie-In possibilities between Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Doctor Strange.  This week I will expand on that by talking about magical characters who could appear in as many upcoming announced MCU offerings as I can.

Daredevil Season 2 Follow-Up: Foggy Nelson

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Continuing my series on Daredevil season 2, here are my thoughts on Foggy’s role moving forward.  I would have put this under last week’s article on “Team Daredevil,” but I really wanted to be able to go into as much detail as necessary on this one.  Considering where his arc left off, there are a number of exciting possibilities for him moving forward!

Daredevil Season 2 Follow-Up: Heroes and Supporting Characters

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This Monday I finished up my review series on Daredevil season 2.  Conveniently, I also finished up my series of Captain America: Civil War follow-up articles last week.  I’m already planning out articles for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. looking ahead to season 4, as well as at least a couple of articles about the upcoming Cloak and Dagger series, but before getting into those Marvel TV shows, let’s talk a little more about this Marvel TV show!

We’re going to start off this week with the possibilities for some of the Daredevil characters moving forward.  Like I did with the Captain America: Civil War series that just concluded, I am breaking this up into three articles.  This week we will talk about the heroes and supporting characters.  Next week I’m going to single out Foggy because I think he needs a little more than just a passing mention with several others.  Finally the week after will be all the villains.

Obviously this will have spoilers for Daredevil season 2.

Weekly MCU Review for 4/23

Another week, and more MCU news!  Not quite as much happened this week as last, but we did find a few things out on the TV front, along with a little bit on Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

The Civil War Conflict Has Been Built into the MCU All Along

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Here we are, 4 weeks away from the wide release of Captain America: Civil War.  This movie has been hotly anticipated ever since Disney announced last year that the third Captain America movie would not have the subtitle “Serpent Society,” but instead would be titled Captain America: Civil War.  However, to think that the MCU Civil War has only been building for a couple of years would be to ignore the facts.  It’s not like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers just decided one day that they wanted to disagree about something, picked the Sokovia Accords, and duked it out.  No, this conflict over accountability vs. freedom has actually been built into the very DNA of the Marvel Cinematic Universe virtually since its inception.  You might say that these heroes were always destined to come into conflict, either with each other or with the government; the time and place was the only question left to be answered.

Frankly, this Civil War has been a long time coming.

Top Ten Episodes/Moments from MCU TV's First Hundred Episodes

Oh, how far we've come!
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Sorry about the late update.  I wanted this ready to go up early in the day, but I kind of got sidetracked by Daredevil season 2!

Let’s do some quick math here:

56+18+13+13=100

You know what that means?  56 episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (22 episodes * 2 seasons + 12 of season 3) + 18 episodes of Agent Carter + 13 episodes of Daredevil+ 13 episodes of Jessica Jones = 100 episodes of MCU TV.  Wow!

Marvel's Civil War: The Small-Screen Tie-In Possibilities

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My last article was supposed to cover all the tie-in potential in MCU Phase 3, but it started getting long, so I decided to split it up—the simple one-and-done article I started almost a month ago has grown like crazy!  Last week’s article dealt with only the Phase 3 movies and how they might tie in with Civil War.  This article will cover all of the upcoming TV shows as well as the Netflix series.

Captain America: Civil War will see the Avengers landing on opposite sides in a deeply-personal conflict which will also create a major ideological divide between Captain America—who has always stood for freedom—and Iron Man—who is (presumably) having a major crisis of conscience after creating an artificial intelligence monster that nearly caused the human race to go extinct.  The ideological side of the conflict will almost certainly—and I would argue needs to—have far-reaching implications all through Phase 3.  The conflict cannot be settled in a single movie; the aftermath will need to be felt in the future movies in which these characters appear.

However, even as the Avengers are being pulled apart by the personal side of the conflict, the rest of the world (particularly the world’s superheroes) will feel at least some of the ramifications of the conflict, as well.  In the comic book Civil War—a primarily-American conflict—the rest of the world was nevertheless drawn in on one side or the other; how much more will the rest of the world be drawn in when the “Registration Act”-equivalent (the Sokovia Accords) is enacted by the United Nations, a global legislative body?  This is not something that can be seen in-depth in a 2-hour movie, or even in multiple single-character movies.  To fully understand the scope of the conflict will require a lot more than that.  And that means tie-ins from the small-screen, as well.

Articles in this Series:

“Why the Civil War Needs to be BIG”

“Marvel’s Civil War Interconnectivity:  A Case Study from the Hydra Uprising”

“Marvel’s Civil War: The Movie Tie-In Possibilities"

Thoughts for Jessica Jones Season 2

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I remember before Jessica Jones was released back in November that there were some questions (specifically from me) as to whether or not Jessica Jones should receive a second season.  Now, in my defense there really isn’t a ton of depth to Jessica Jones’ character in the comics beyond her connection with Luke Cage (as his wife/baby momma/occasional superhero partner between retirements).  Consequently, my thinking before the season debut was that it would be better for Marvel Netflix to fold Jessica Jones into the other series (specifically Daredevil and Heroes for Hire—itself a combination of Luke Cage and Iron Fist) in order to make room on the schedule for new properties.  However, after watching Jessica Jones season 1, I now think there is more than enough story to merit a season 2—and apparently the powers that be concur, as Jessica Jones season 2 was greenlit way back in January!

And since I just finished publishing my reviews of season 1 last week, what better time than the present to start thinking about what could come next for our favorite super-powered P.I.?

Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 13, "AKA Smile" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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Here it is:  the Jessica Jones season 1 finale.  After the way the previous episode ended, this one was bound to be a doozy, as Jess still needs to defeat Kilgrave and protect everyone she cares about.  Oh, and there’s also that small issue of just what happened to Luke at the end of the previous episode!  On the bright side, that little cliffhanger ending paves the way for an awesome guest appearance!

Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 12, "AKA Take a Bloody Number" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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There are only 2 episodes of Jessica Jones season 1 left to review, but I think they are among the best.  Like I said on the last one, these last three episodes each contain a “boss fight,” with the emotional and physical stakes increasing on each one.  Last episode, Jess and Trish had to team up to take down Simpson while Jess was physically weakened.  However, this episode’s fight makes taking on a super-soldier look like a walk in the park!

Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 11, "AKA I've Got the Blues" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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Minor spoiler alert:  the last three episodes of Jessica Jones each contain one “Boss Fight.”  I won’t spoil anything by saying here whom she is fighting (though if you haven’t seen it yet, why are you reading a review, especially 2½ months after it came out?).  But let’s leave it at this:  each of these fights ups the physical and emotional stakes for Jessica, so that by the end of the season she has faced everything she could possibly be asked to face and has somehow come out on top.

Jessica Jones Season 1, Episode 10, "AKA 1000 Cuts" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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Wow.  That’s pretty much all you can say after watching “AKA 1,000 Cuts,” the tenth episode of Jessica Jones season 1.  This is pretty much the episode where everything starts going to hell and we are left wondering just who the real villain is.  Kilgrave becomes far more sympathetic in the first half of the episode—though he continues his psychopathic ways before he can really become redeemable—but he is outclassed by even more duplicitous and unsavory actions from seeming-allies of Jessica’s.  What is the right way to react to a power like Kilgrave’s?