The Defenders

One thing I wonder: how will they do Jessica Jones? There being two big issues with her.

1. Her backstory in the comics involves an active superhuman world, and being a part of it once. That obviously is dicey here, what with the public superheroism only really getting going big time maybe two years back or so.

2. The Purple Man. Main nemesis, huge part of backstory. . . so family unfriendly its not even funny.

As far as Marvel advertising goes: Every single movie, TV show and comic they put out should point the audience to their website, and the Infinite Comics. $10 a month for 13 000 back issues. "And while you're there, purchase digital copies of the latest issues!"

Jessica would be hard to pull off I think but I never thought her association with the Avengers was as integral as the "washed-up teen superhero" aspect. We know the Avengers were the first huge, sweeping introduction the general public had to superheroes, but that doesn't mean they were the first and only of their kind.

I would love for Jessica Jones to explore the back story of attempts of super-heroics in a pre-avengers world. I'm not sure what characters you could say where part of such a movement, but I think it would be really interesting to look at.

I'd actually love it if they imply Daredevil was around before the Avengers formed, but didn't have a lot of publicity. It'd be funny to even have him be bitter or annoyed at the sudden rash of new superheroes like "Ever since those damn Avengers showed up, every idiot with a sewing machine wants a piece of that pie".

edited 8th Nov '13 10:17:12 AM by comicwriter

I could actually see Matt having been operating for a long time. I'd find it weird to see an origin play out for him; at least in chronological order. I say this because being such a tortured sole the optimism of starting a new venture may feel out of place.

Though I would like to see his work ethic change, something I really liked about The Man Without Fear sizzle reel we saw back when was the impression that the mob were beginning to panic when they realised there was suddenly this activist who was not afraid of them, and could not be bullied

So I'm in two minds.

Of course he would have been blind since he was a child either way.

Maybe he had a previous super hero persona? The Bombastic Bagman was always a catchy name.

edited 8th Nov '13 9:19:21 AM by Whowho

Jessica Jones will be in a support group with Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew.

Well, we know there was some form of previous superheroics before Iron Man showed up, simply due to Fury basically telling him he's stepped into a larger world. He probably wasn't just talking about Cap or the Hulk either, if I'm remembering the way he phrased it correctly.

That's actually a good idea. I almost like the Batman-ish idea that perhaps the first superheroes in the MCU started off fighting gangsters and mob-types, but now after the Chitauri incident more and more supervillains are starting to show up.

edited 8th Nov '13 10:34:09 AM by comicwriter

If these guys were active before the Avengers, I wonder why Fury didn't approach any of them.

It depends on how they do it but there are outs. In the comics at least Jessica went through a huge Heroic BSoD phase after something terrible happened to her, and she ended up retiring. And for a long time Daredevil flat-out refused to join the Avengers because he felt it'd hinder his efforts to help out the common man. So that could be used here as well; maybe Fury asked Daredevil to join the Avengers Initiative and Daredevil told him to shove it.

So, what, the current comics are not likely to attract the current crop of viewers? Too expensive, too continuity laden? Did I not ask where is the comic meant to capitalize? Make one that is cheaper and not continuity bogged down to appeal to whatever the show/movie/game/action figure draws in, it does not even have to be about the same subject matter. Wii Sports: The gateway drug.

But you know, even if they did not and just pushed out their same-as-usual you can at least say DC comics tried. How much effort would it really take Marvel to request the book stores and hobby shops that have some Thor comics to put them up front when dark world comes out? Cause as far as I saw they were still in the back of the shack while the last Thor movie and the Avengers were in theaters. It would not take much effort I imagine because the places are probably getting the comics from Marvel or a middle man Marvel could tell in the first place.

And no, comics destined to a slow death yet, American ones north of Mexico maybe but not all. They may never again get as big as Marvel once was but they will endure. That trade expo I talked about earlier in Japan, it is actually called Comic Market and comics are the focus of it the way they once were at Comic con. CMLL, which is not a comic company, does a better job promoting comics than Marvel does. The death throws were not brought about by outside forces beyond control but were self created. From the self censorship code, to the holographic covers on Grimdark issues restarting at #1 with false claims of increased returns, to the refusal to move on from what started fifty years ago.

edit:we have no gateway drug trope? Well, that will be on my todo list.

edited 8th Nov '13 11:07:48 AM by Cider

Because regardless of the movies comic shops historically do not see a big surge of new customers interested in the books. That's the way it's been for years. Superhero comics are just a nice at this point and it's not going to change anytime soon. Again, this is why Comic-Con is dominated by movies, TV and anime and not the actual comics. There's simply not enough mainstream interest.

But I've said my piece on this and the thread has been derailed long enough. Long story short, they're free to call this team the Defenders because most of the audience has no familiarity with the Defenders to begin with.

Do the Spider Man movies count as an official part of the MMU? If so there's been at least one superhero around for awhile. Plus, they may or may not want to include the first movie as part of the universe.

edited 8th Nov '13 2:39:17 PM by tricksterson

Spider-man doesn't count because Marvel doesn't own the movie rights Sony does; Fox owns the Fantastic Four and X-Men movie rights.

If Sony didn't make Amazing Spider-man the rights would've returned to Marvel like how Marvel recently got the rights back for Daredevil the other studio that made the movie hadn't used it in a while.

edited 8th Nov '13 2:51:11 PM by Halberdier17

I think things are genuinely up in the air regarding ASM because they wanted to include the Oscorp building is Avengers. Given the fact that Disney completely owns the merchandising rights to the character, after a new deal with Sony, and the profits everyone saw Marvel/Disney make with Avengers, Sony is probably the company most likely to make a deal to include Spider-Man. Hell, in my mind ASM takes place after Avengers because why else would you have that many cranes down Broadway if they weren't repairing the Chitauri Invasion damage?

Sony at first liked the idea of The Amazing Spider-Man co-existing, but not interacting, with the MCU, but I think they said that once the script got refined and they realised they wanted to tell stories really focused on Peter Parker and what his life is they didn't want this larger world to distract from that story.

Then of course Avengers made one point five beeleeown dollars and now they're gunning towards creating spin offs and their own larger setting. Meh.

Personally the thing I liked most about The Amazing Spider-Man was the extreme focus on Peter Parker; like wise the strongest parts of Man Of Steel and The Dark Knight Saga are the strong focus on the leader character and what it means to be that character.

It's actually the reason I don't like the idea of DC-Cinematic Universe, because I feel Man Of Steel would be a brilliant first act of a three act story about Kal-El. (Of course if they introduce the Justice League in the context of what that means for Kal-El, I'm all for it)

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, getting people into comics; well I'm very happy to see when I went to the local cinema to see Iron Man 3 and Thor The Dark World this year they were selling relivent comics in the cinema foyer; like wise my local video store for a short period of time sold Extremis comics when Iron Man 3's blu-ray hit the shelves.

For the person who asked about the time the Defenders was whoever Dr. Strange thought would be best suited to a particular mission was Secret Defenders. (For whatever reason, he wanted to be on the down low for a while.)

Mind you, Strange could easily be a guest star on one or more of these series; just make it clear he's not available 95% of the time because he's on the astral plane "or some jive like that, Wong tried to explain it, but I still ain't got my GED, let alone a degree in metafizzmiks."

Ahhh, thank you. It's a series I've always thought sounded interesting, simply for having a Party Tailored For The Plot, rather than Plot Tailored For The Party.

edited 10th Nov '13 6:15:30 AM by Whowho

Since Defenders is a mini-series what I think might happen is that after the characters Are established in their own series they'll be called together by an outside party, possibly Strange, possibly someone else, I'm thinking maybe Stick to fight a greater danger than any of them are used to facing.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/11/07/marvel-netflix-iron-fist-luke-cage/ Does the company have any interest in exploring mature content? What does it look like when a Disney subsidiary tries to be “gritty”?

Oh well, it was too much to hope for really.

Yes, I too am making final decisions on the quality of these shows that haven't entered production yet.

It looks like Touchstone.

This is the internet. Where would we be without people complaining about stuff that isn't out or has no info available yet?

Anyone who says Disney can't tackle mature topics is ignoring several notable works they've produced.