Marvel's The Defenders: 10 Reasons To Be Excited

Jul 26, 2017 July 26th, 2017

1. It's Just The Beginning

If you'd been told in 2012 that, in five years time, Marvel would have integrated some of their most mature and violent properties into the MCU through Netflix - spearheaded by Daredevil no less - to critical and commercial acclaim, you'd have laughed. Ugly laughed.

And yet here we are; Matthew Murdock has shaken the memory of his underwhelming 2003 comic book misfire with ease, Iron Fist and Luke Cage - both victims of Hollywood purgatory - are now sharing the screen together and Jessica Jones, a cult-favourite character known for her early 2000s comic book series, is one of the most popular Marvel heroes out there. Things are - for the most part - pretty great.

To compound the revitalising qualities of Marvel's Netflix deal even further, The Punisher - a victim of successive blockbuster failures for decades - is now receiving the most faithful portrayal the character has ever seen, and he's doing it all surrounded by Marvel's other street-level characters. It's totally surreal, but no less fantastic, and only reminds us that the best is yet to come when it comes to the MCU's TV spin-offs.

As for now, well, we've got The Defenders to look forward to of course! And while it does of course look spectacular, it's promising bigger things than Marvel's other Netflix shows. We're entering a whole new phase of the street level project, and as Matt, Danny, Luke and Jessica gear up to take down The Hand once and for all, it's clear that they're all (hopefully) going on to bigger and better things. Indeed, don't be surprised if The Defenders plants some pretty hefty seeds for all four heroes to follow; in Daredevil's case, we could even be witnessing the start of a Born Again-style event. Which is terrifying, to say the least.

Adding to that, there are a wealth of characters out there that are just begging for the Netflix treatment, and it wouldn't be surprising to see more of them on the way in the coming months and weeks ahead - especially if these shows continue to hold the critical and commercial reverence so many other comic book adaptations fail to find.

Are you hyped for The Defenders? Or are you firmly tempering your expectations? Let us know in the comments below!

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Ewan Paterson

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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