MY THOUGHTS ON DEFENDERS & HOW TO FIX THE MCU NETFLIX UNIVERSE

Overall I'm pretty positive with my feelings towards Defenders & the MCU Netflix TV Universe. The strongest part of the universe is clearly Daredevil with Luke Cage & Jessica Jones tied in 2nd place. The weakest part is clearly Iron Fist. Iron Fist was a bad show, it had a few good parts to it, but overall its a bad show. Biggest problem I see moving forward is how to continually make their non Daredevil shows interesting.

Step One: Cancel Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, & Luke Cage

All of these shows have been green-lite for 2nd seasons so this wouldn't happen just yet, but I think they should cancel all of these shows and just toss them all into a Heroes For Hire show. Iron Fist would benefit the most from this. They need more material to work with so things don't feel as if they are being dragged out.

Step Two: Green-Light Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, and Blade

I think these characters would help add a very interesting dynamic towards the Netflixverse and all of these characters are very different as far as what we've seen from Superhero TV thus far. Oh and honestly they mine as well stick with Latino Ghostrider since he's already established and the audience is invested. Somewhere down the line they can work in the other riders.

Step Three: Up the Budget

I don't expect these shows to have a massive production level, but because of the amount of money I assume they had to spend on showcasing all of the superpowers on Defenders the production quality was shaky at times IMO. If you go back and watch you notice there are a shit ton of scenes where characters are just sitting down and talking(zzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Also a lot of the scenes take place in big empty buildings instead of more interesting locations.

What are your thoughts on the Netflixverse??? How can they improve?

@lukehero I like the idea but since MCU is owned by the Mouse, canceling those shows might cuz an uproar due to feminist, black, and Asian groups not being voiced, while the blind white guy keeps his own show???

I'd cancel Jessica Jones too, but I'd merge Iron Fist and Luke Cage into Heroes for Hire.

Hell yes to Moon Knight, Blade and Ghost Rider.

Sadly, there may not be any more new Netflix MCU shows announced now that Disney is being greedy mofos and launching its own streaming service.

I doubt that would happen, you could even spin the show into Luke & Jessica teach Danny about his white privilege.

I Agree with everything minus the first one. Jessica Jones is the best show after Daredevil, Luke Cage with all its flaws was enjoyable. Don't Cancel Iron Fist, just merge him with Luke Cage.

Sorry, I still think Moon Knight would still not be too tonally different than Daredevil, though I do think they should merge Luke Cage and Iron Fist into Heroes For Hire.

I can see Ghostrider working if they can do the right things with the budget.

Blade should work well. The budget wouldn't be THAT big a deal for the most part and should keep the SJW's from having too much of an uproar over canceling Luke Cage (I think).

• They should've kept Cottonmouth alive to start with, and instead of him being invested/interested in Judas Bullets, they should've shown him becoming so obsessed with trying to kill Cage that he injects himself with a back-alley version of the Super Soldier Serum that grants him similar abilities to Cage but also comes with the side effect of deforming him via large teeth.

• Introduce Diamondback and the concept of Judas Bullets in Season 2. He could've been a more fleshed out and interesting villain if they didn't shoehorn him in.

• Have DD's suit so that it has his two signature D's.

• Have Claire so that she's actually a vulnerable human being and relatable again. Not fighting off Hand Ninjas, without a single finger being layed on her.

• I feel like they should give Danny's Iron Fist an amp, even if it's a little. Scott Buck depowered him wayyy to much in my opinion.

• Since they did decide to kill off Cottonmouth, they should've had Black Mariah have a down spiral of depression and stress dealing with killing her cousin and taking up his crime lord mantle, and deal with the depression by eating (lol) so that way she's obese like she is in the comics.

• Shades should've been a metahuman, he would've posed more of a threat alongside Cottonmouth.

@ready_4_madness: I second that.

@ready_4_madness: They should cancel Jessica Jones only after she's pregnant, has her future baby and then merge her in a Heroes For Hire show, but it'll be a while before that happens.

@boschepg: @heroup2112:

Blade should work well. The budget wouldn't be THAT big a deal for the most part and should keep the SJW's from having too much of an uproar over canceling Luke Cage (I think).

Honestly the SJW wouldn't have much to say you would be greenlighting a new Black show and Latino Ghostrider could get his own show. Moon Knight is doesn't have much in common with Daredevil outside of them both being superheroes. He's dealing with a different set of motives, beliefs, and problems. Also if he eventually ran into the other major Netflix characters I think it would be cool if they made them the voices in his head.

I was talking about the street level grim crime fighter aspect of Moon Knight being similar in tone to Daredevil. I honestly had forgotten about the voices in the head thing...that might be enough. Yes, about the SJW thing...though groan I can't tell you how much I can't stand that we HAVE to keep track of "Black", "White," "Gay", "Hispanic", "Sprayyourtorrentofdifferenceshere" shows. Ooohhhhhhh how I'm waiting for the day when people will just calm down and we can have interesting shows about interesting characters and people will just CALM THE HELL DOWN and stop keeping score...ahem...end of rant.

Anyway, Yeah I agree Ghostrider and Blade should do that nicely. They'd "have" to keep Jessica Jones on of course. Fine with me, I liked the first season a lot...though she wasn't doing much for me in The Defenders which makes sense, she's SO not a team person.

It would great to merge Luke and IF since they are kinda boring on their own, other than that nah don't cancel anything.

• No, I don't think Heroes for Hire would work in the Netflixverse, it would make sense of neither Luke Cage or Iron Fist. Luke Cage is way too righteous to take money for doing his job, and the people he serves couldn't afford it anyway. And Iron Fist is a billionaire; why would he be a superhero for hire? The only one who this would make sense for is Jessica, and she already has her own little Hero for Hire thing going on.
• Absolutely. All 3 should be on Netflix. I think with Ghost Rider and Blade they could have their own little sphere. In the same ways The Defenders interact with each other, maybe Ghost Rider and Blade could interact with each other from time to time. However, Moon Knight should interact with the Defenders.
• Yeah, a nicer budget could be better, but it's just a Netflix show, so I think this is pushing it.

It's the blind agenda!

@mrmonster: Iron Fist would be involved due to his business connections. Or maybe he hires Luke and Company to police the nierboorgood as his own private sercuirtty team. Placing them on the pay role would free them up to do their work of crime fighting.

Either way, I don't see why a pharmaceutical company would need to expand into the superhero market. I just don't see how it would make logical sense for Danny to start the Heroes for Hire, not while he has billions. I think in Iron Fist season 2, he and Colleen are just going to be vigilantes.

@mrmonster: Rand Enterprises is a multinational conglomerate. They buy other companies and do a lot more then just pharmaceuticals.

I agree with most of this, IF/LC/JJ should join, but only after say, 3 - 4 seasons of each show.

Iron Fist has got enough great content to go through several more seasons to be honest; Orson Randall/the Heavenly cities Tournament/Zhou Cheng/Eighth City/Living Weapon/Liu-Shi Island and whatever's gonna happen with that, they could even do him training Pei if they wanted to. They haven't really scratched at any Iron Fist material yet.

Iron Fist should be running down the sides of skyscrapers as seventy-five mercs shoot at him from Helicopters that Danny punches out while Luke tanks a grenade to the face and punches a villain through three brick walls.

$3 million an episode isn't gonna cut it To be frank it's a massive disservice to both characters, imagine doing budget Spider-Man for $3 million an episode.

Netflix put $10 million an episode into two seasons of Marco Polo which both flopped hard, surely together ABC/Netflix can go for $8 million + an episode.

Which leads into the fact that I also think every show, including Daredevil, should be cut down to 10 high quality episodes, rather than feeling compelled to do 13. Daredevil S1 and the Defenders were the only ones I felt needed 13 episodes. Heroes for Hire could be 13 episodes due to it being an ensemble.

They also need much more integration with the wider MCU, both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the films.

IF should merge with Luke. Jessica Jones can continue. I hear MoonKnight will appear in the Punisher. Ghostrider may be cool. I'm not a fan of the idea of Blade though. I love the character, but the idea that there would be quite a massive population of citizens actually being vampires sort of ruins it for me.

Oh and honestly they mine as well stick with Latino Ghostrider since he's already established and the audience is invested. Somewhere down the line they can work in the other riders.

Wouldn't there be a conflict here? It seems that Marvel wants to keep Netflix, SHIELD, and the movies relatively separate, with the exception of minor cameos.

Don't cancel JJ. I liked Jessica Jones.

I hope they don't go the baby route. I don't want that to be the direction they go with her character.

Only cancel Iron Fist and Luke Cage if they do a Heroes For Hire. They wont do HoH though because they already trashed the idea in Luke's series multiple times.

I still have hopes Iron Fill expand the martial arts section of the MCU. Also Moon Knight isn't much different that doing another Daredevil too me.

I don't really want Ghost Rider to be honest at least not what I seen from Agents of Shield.

Ugh No. I hated when they started doing that with him.

Wait I'm sensing some non sincere vibes. Please tell me I'm right.

Nope, I'm serious. This is how powerful he's been for over a decade now. I don't have any issues with it, though I am enjoying the current run where he's lost the chi of Shou-Lao.

The past ten have been a steady and progressive decline in what they've been doing with their most of their characters in Marvel Comics for me so it being a decade doesn't hold much water with me to be honest.

How long has Slott been ruining Spider-Man now?

Iron Fist material has actually gotten better though in my opinion, IIF is widely seen as having reinvigorated the character. His current run is really great, I strongly recommend it.

@rogueshadow: If it's anything like his last run where that event you described actually happened then no thank you. Ignoring the change in physical capabilities it wasn't a good story and broke down the Iron Fist world foundation.

I don't care what the pack goes for. Just look at Harley Quin since N52 and her book. It can be argued the it revitalized her character but to me it's tarnished the character. Making her a Joker hating, girl power, semi good guy. Ugh

Well, if you don't like it fair enough. But his current run has him disconnected from the chi of Shou-Lao.

Are they still saying K'un-Lun has a tech based power source?

Yeah... I never liked that whole alien thing they did. K'un-L'un is still gone at the moment, its origins haven't been mentioned in this run, unless I'm forgetting.

@lukehero: I agree the budget needs to a big boost. I agree blade, moon knight and ghost rider should get their own series. I don't agree about cancelling luke cage because I watch that series more than I do daredevil. Jessica Jones I suppose should get one last run then do heroes for hire with colleen wing and misty knight. Iron fist should have gotten his own movie franchise.

Hows the art? I hope it's not like the last time I saw the Iron Fist/Luke Cage series. Looking at that made me want to weep for comics.

The new Power Man and Iron Fist looked and read like a Saturday morning cartoon. Not a very good read.

Here's a a drunk Danny fighting a master martial artist in #1:

@rogueshadow: At least is looks like comic book art which is more than I can say about this new trend in Marvel.

Another series is out now called "The Immortal Iron Fists". Can't stand the art in that.

Here is some of my Ideas.......

1. Cut the number of episodes per season. They don't need 13 episode, it feels like they are dragging out the show just to fill air time. Use that extra money they are saving for a better production for 8 or 10 episodes.....
2. Do the Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, and David Aja's run on Iron Fist... How bad ass it would be to have Iron Fist in a season long kung-fu contest..... Plus you get Fat Cobra!
3. Do one shot movies. They can put out a Daughters of the Dragon, or an Elektra film. That way you can tell stories with other characters with out cramming it into a subplot of another character's season.

Whilst I can see how you arrived to your suggestions/conclusions, and think they are reasonable, I would be skeptical of it playing out this way in reality, for a few other (good) reasons. Building on brand names, has benefits, I mean sure Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist are still relatively new, but they are somewhat established now. Rolling the dice again by axing them, and introducing a whole new line up could be more risk than Disney is willing to take, especially since Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were somewhat popular/well received. Iron Fist could also be given a second chance because of the circumstance of the first (rushed to fit into Defenders) and the possibility that people may be willing to give it a chance after Defenders. Plus they probably already have a rough idea for future story lines they were heading towards.

All this tends to be fluid though, because lets say that Punisher over performs and is really popular and Daredevil and Jess Jones next seasons underperform, then they may find it worthwhile to go with newer, fresher characters and integrate older characters into them/save them for teamups. Similar to what you proposed. I don't think anything failed so badly that there needs to be a huge shakeup yet. My small hope, is that they just give each series more time to breathe as far as scheduling/cut down season lengths a little bit, to give each more oompft.

I don't see three cancelling JJ, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist, and I don't want them to. They just need to not get rid of he good villains early on (Luke Cage) and have more focus on fighting than drama (Iron Fist).

Ghost Rider is already part of AoS, so he's not going to get his own Netflix show. Blade and Moon Knight would be dope though.

I want them to both have a bigger budget but also be smart with it.

@judasnixon: Ya if they cut rh number of episodes that would save a ton of money to have better production quality.

When I said this everyone hated it :p

Nope

@rogueshadow: Did you read the Iron Fist vs Shang Chi fight yet?

cant fix whats not broken

@morpheus_: Damn that was mind blowing :P

Yep. What did you think of it?

They need to amp up Punisher and then have him kill the MCU. Ya know, since they don't have rights to Deadpool to do it.

@rogueshadow: It gave credit to both of them, and I enjoyed that Shang's skills were intact, it was a decent change to the entire "possession" motif. Danny cracking wise about how Captain America can talk people out of such situations while he gets a kick to the face was also a nice touch. I'd have liked it if Danny won, but it was clear he held back to avoid hurting Shang, so all things considered it was well written and illustrated. And having a truck thrown on his head only for him to shrug it off was pretty incredible. Then again, he has done things like that before.

It was nicely executed, for sure.

I was pleased with the way it went, with the recent Iron Fist white-washing stuff, I was honestly worried they'd have him lose. It was a good fight, looking forward to Sabretooth. The line about Cap definitely made me chuckle.

Ironfist ruined everything man.

Beata

It was not good. MCU netflix shows get weaker and weaker each time a new one comes out

All I want is Punisher.

I'm also looking forward to that "mystery" character that will make his/her debut in The Punisher series.