I can be your (super)hero baby!
As most people will know, Marvel have spent the last few years meeting critical and financial success with their ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’.
It began in 2008 with Iron Man, followed by huge releases such as Avengers Assemble, Iron Man 3, and Thor: The Dark World. Few can deny that Marvel Studios has become a juggernaut of the film industry, and now they have begun their take-over of the TV world.
The comic book giants recently debuted a television series titled Agents Of SHIELD, to complement their ventures on the big screen. Marvel now plans on expanding their offerings on the small screen – an offer that is nothing short of both brilliant and risky.
Teaming with Netflix and beginning in 2015, they will debut four one-season series that will culminate in a team-up mini-series, in true Avengers style, called Defenders. Each preceding season will profile a specific hero of the Marvel universe
Leading the charge is Daredevil; followed in turn by Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and lastly Luke Cage.
The series will be set in Hell’s Kitchen, the grim and gritty crime-infested neighbourhood of New York.
Marvel now plans on expanding their offerings on the small screen – an offer that is nothing short of both brilliant and risky
Of course, considering that the quartet of heroes live in the same neighbourhood of Manhattan and will eventually team up, it can be assumed that the four series will be fairly interconnected – Iron Fist and Luke Cage are known for being best-buds in the comic books, appearing under a comic called Heroes for Hire, whilst Jessica Jones is Cage’s girlfriend.
Daredevil is of particular interest to comic-book aficionados.
He is one of a handful of characters that has had the incredible luck of having had several fantastic creator runs in the comics. Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and currently Mark Waid have written the Man Without Fear at one point or another, each feeding off of the last run and building a new tapestry.
Jessica Jones is also an intriguing choice for a television show and highlights Marvel’s commitment to quality story as opposed to popularity. Not many people know who she is – fair play to do you if you are one of the minority. She was created by Brian Michael Bendis in the pages of Alias, a highly adult series set in the Marvel Universe. A former superhero, she runs a private investigation company. It makes for a truly great comic and well worth a read.
These precedents in the comics should hopefully lead to four television series that are directly related, something that the Marvel films fail to emphasise. If you think about the films that lead into The Avengers, only Thor and Captain America have that much impact on the film plot-wise – concerning Loki and the Tesseract – and Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World have since followed as stand-alone adventures.
Perhaps most astonishing, however, is that within each run, there are not many small but good stories. Instead, each run is composed as one giant, elaborate narrative. This fact alone makes much of these runs instantly ready for a television series.
It’s wonderful that Marvel is packaging these heroes together as The Defenders considering how closely they are tied already in the comics, but I would question the use of the Defenders moniker. In the comic books, none of these characters were in the Defenders, nor were they ever treated as street-level heroes.
The original members of the Defenders were Hulk, Doctor Strange, Namor, and Silver Surfer. However, with the original characters’ film and television rights belonging to Fox and Universal Pictures, it makes sense to reconsider the branding and intention of the series.
Whichever way you look at it, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is bright
It is also understandable that Marvel is keeping these characters separate from the Avengers characters.
Tonally these stories are completely different, and the difference in media can make the rift between these stories and the films that less apparent. It’s a sneaky trick, but one that will satisfy fans. All of the chosen heroes, particularly Daredevil, fit a television series incredibly well.
Even beyond these four characters, there is so much more that Marvel could do with this new direction. They possess the television rights to Spider-Man, so could possibly debut the MCU version of the Web-Slinger, considering he is a more street-level character. It also gives Marvel another lot of characters for what will be the inevitable showdown with Thanos in Avengers 3.
Whichever way you look at it, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is bright. This kind of move with Netflix is exactly why Marvel has become such a respected brand name; it may be risky, but it shows how much faith they have in their characters and storytelling.
Just as the Avengers was an unprecedented superhero movie event, this will be a ground-breaking moment in television history.
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