I love when news breaks like this- nice and clean and definitive, no ambiguity or half-information that’s then denied and turns out to be true but outdated and on and on and on.
Nope, it’s much more fun when Marvel itself comes out of nowhere and announces parent-company Disney has inked a historic deal with Netflix to produce not one, not two, not three, but FOUR 13+ episode mini-series based on Marvel heroes, all of which will culminate in a team-up miniseries.
The heroes lined up for said series include Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage. The aforementioned team-up will be a Defenders mini-series that, presumably, brings them all together Avengers-style.
There’s a lot to unpack here! This is a big story in terms of Disney’s continuing relationship with Netflix, Disney’s commitment to exploiting every inch of the Marvel catalogue, bigger and more ambitious content production from Netflix, and even the relatively progressive collection of heroes they’ve chosen- a blind superhero, a black dude, a woman, and what will probably be a white dude futzing with Marvel’s amalgamation of lots of Asian culture. Okay, so it’s not all necessarily ideal, but it’s a start.
Obviously Daredevil is the marquee character, but Jessica Jones could be the center of a fun series- though super-strong, she has at points been a private eye struggling to stay out of the costumed superhero world. Iron Fist has a ton of mythology to explore and the kind of ambiguous powers that TV loves. Important for the crossover, there’s also a web of loose history between these characters- Luke Cage and Jessica Jones have been romantically involved, and Iron Fist has posed as Daredevil before. The key is they’re all operating in New York, so all the series will likely sport similar vibes and locales.
So… which of the series are you most excited about seeing? They’ll start appearing in 2015 and unfold across several years before the team-up. Marvel marches on.