The Defenders

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/11/07/netflix-disney-marvel-daredevil-luke-cage/

Here's hoping for the Purple Man plot!

Perhaps, although I think it might be better to have that in her Dark and Troubled Past and have her starting off as an ex-superhero private detective.

So how do they get off calling it defenders without Namor, Hulk, Silver Surfer or Doctor Strange?

Avengers was taken :P

And maybe Heroes For Hire didn't fit the concept.

Must have: She has an extended erotic nightmare about her captivity every episode and frequently wakes up in Brunnhilde's strong arms.

I've got my fingers crossed for stilt-man as the villain.

Not Lady Stilt-man?

edited 7th Nov '13 3:47:39 PM by TheLastEveryMan

Because most of the audience has no fucking idea who the Defenders are, nor do they likely care?

Love to see the Kingpin and/or the Hand involved in this. Something akin to Shadowland.

The main villain will be Amora.

The Defenders used to be a team of people ridiculously powerful, who's only reason to hang out was to keep tabs on the three other ridiculously powerful people active in the universe. But honestly, how much of the Defenders run has it been the iconic team of Strange, Hulk, Surfer and Namor? Most of the runs it's a weird hotpot of different tiered characters. I would love to see that team, but Surfer and Namor are not going to be returning to MARVEL for some time, Hulk in the MCU seems to be far more affiliated with the Avengers, and the name kind of works.

Personally I would have gone for Marvel Knights, or a variation of that name in universe which didn't lean on the fourth wall.

In other news, to repeat what I said in the MCU thread in Live Action Film, I think this is a really good team of characters, all who could provide a different perspective on crime fighting. I could see them aligning to the Four-Philosophy Ensemble.

Considering that the Defenders were officially a non-team pretty much anyone could join. In fact, there was one arc where virtually everyone did for a day, including a bunch of C-grade villains.

Was that the one where Steven Strange would encounter a problem, asked himself 'Who is actually suited for solving this problem?' and then turn up at their house saying they're now a Defender?

Because I'd be really disappointed if it turns out I made that up.

And? It has always involved at least one of them, usually Dr. Strange. But beyond the core four, the team never worked on any practical level without someone like Nighthawk managing its finances, which is all the more obvious when they chose the perpetually broke Luke Cage for the project. I wonder, what if Marvel spent as much time as it is now on silly tv efforts doing something like using televised media to promote its print media over the last two decades, maybe then people would actually know who the defenders were and care enough to tune in to see them.

I also wonder what inspired this pairing. It is a lot less obvious than Luke Cage-daughters of the dragon or, I don't know, Luke Cage and Iron fist. I can see wanting to do something different but thinking of reasons to put these two together leaves me with an empty head. Maybe if Luke Cage was not a G-rated mercenary, I could see Murdock's lawyer life conflicting with this but as Cage is a G-rated mercenary I do not even see there routines having any overlap unless Daredevil is having a really slow day.

Y'all realize that Defenders will be a miniseries that the Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones series lead into, right?

Hopefully, people will tune in to watch the Defenders because they enjoyed the previous shows.

None of that matters. If it looks interesting and is promoted well, people will watch it.

And you say "silly TV efforts" but the movies and TV shows generally crush the comics in terms of numbers. There isn't much of a reason for them to spend time promoting them. The comics basically exist to generate IP at this point. And the lack of sales has nothing to do with advertising; comics don't sell because they're overpriced and impossible to get into without an encyclopedia.

edited 7th Nov '13 8:23:32 PM by comicwriter

The characters chosen make a lot of sense when you consider the possibility this is an expanded interpretation of the work put into AKA Jessica Jones.

Matt, Daniel and Luke are all major recurring characters in Jessica Jones' stories.

If we're really bugged about the name; it's obviously not set in stone yet.

To be honest my opinion is that no one in the Marvel Universe cares about the Defender's name; like the Avengers the name, in universe, stuck because it sounded cool. If the characters of the shows can bring meaning to it then they have far more right to it than Stephen Strange of any universe.

(I will say I love how MCU Tony and Nick Fury state that the Avengers are a response team, not necessarily a solution; they're not a precaution, they are a promise. If all else fails they will exist to do what their name says they will. Bad-Ass)

Plus it fits if they are defenders of the people. We're discussing the dichotomy in the MCU thread but basically the Avengers only come together for big epic events and then go their separate ways. There hasn't been a team that looks out for the little guy and tries to defend the public from less-than-global threats. So in that manner I do see the name as fitting.

The interesting thing about the idea of the Defenders being made up of Dr. Strange, Namor, Hulk and Silver Surfer is that that wasn't actually the line-up for a long, long, long time. Silver Surfer had little to do with the team in general - he was in a couple arcs here and there, but he was even less a real member than the others. The other three took frequent leaves of absence. Honestly, you want to know the character who best represents the Defenders? Valkyrie. She had more appearances in the first series than any other character. That includes Dr. Strange.

Why would they use the Defenders name for this line-up? Because why the fuck not? It's a name.

And as for why this line-up: Because they're all characters who will be fairly easy to do. None of them will have particularly special effects-heavy shows of their own. But they all have things in common that will make it reasonable for their shows to eventually converge as Defenders.

And, could they possibly be crushing them in numbers at least partially due to superior marketing, particularly across media, which Marvel has not done since Civil War?

Up to the point it was discontinued Nintendo made sure to remind people it had a magazine running and why the buyer of a seemingly unrelated product might be interested. Marvel still makes comics so where is the book made to capitalize off of agents of Shield and why is the show not pointing me towards it? WWE has its "year" in photos and shamelessly plugs its kid magazine alongside all its other merchandise. When one of their publication has a "big event" they practically write it in the sky. Why put an ad spot for a poll in a "sports" magazine during a show about cars. Why not when it worked?

Vogue felt free to interrupt a murder thriller to let us know successful actresses care about whatever their most current issue has written in it. Marvel not only did nothing like this, but could not be bothered to say "hey, secret invasion's going on" in their own works. Any aspiring actor will jump at the chance to speak about how great their book is on any remotely popular talk show they can get on, even famous celebrities like George Wallace know a radio appearance is more likely to help than harm but I have yet to see Marvel even try to get on, say, the E network or one of Syfy's reality contest to talk about why people should be buying whatever they are publishing on the ___imprint this month.

But a show about Shield agents comes along and suddenly it seems like they understand how to promote. I am not saying their silly tv shows are necessarily any sillier than their comics were before them, just that if they had marketed their comics similarly maybe more people would actually read them.

So, you're saying that you want Marvel to be a Shameless Self-Promoter? Because that seems to be what's coming across here...

edited 8th Nov '13 5:49:39 AM by kkhohoho

They already are, minus the shameless part because it is their job to get viewers, so they can make money. Agents of Shield promos crop up between my weather updates. Why they could not do that when they were mainly a comic company, why they still cannot do that for their comics is my question.

Even the church, most of which did not even try make any private profits, were out in force during the Passion Of The Christ movie. Between neon billboards reading "The book's better" and guys standing outside my school door I got three free Bibles.

Comic con has that name for a reason. Dragon con was supposed to be the nerd entertainment convention, comic con was to promote comics. Yet I see more Buzz coming out of them for the Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider movies, which, are by and large inferior to everything Marvel's comics have done with the character along side them. Does anything non electronic ever overshadow the electronics at the Electronic Entertainment Expo? Does agriculture ever take a backseat at Agquip or motor vehicles at Bologna's Motor show. The Japanese companies still put comics first at their comic market trade fair.

No, because at this point there's nothing that can be done to really raise sales to an acceptable level. The death knell for comics happened a long time ago and it's not cost effective to spend money advertising your ware when at max you'll sell what, 300,000 copies? DC tried "kewl" TV ads for the New 52 and SHOCKER, the sales aren't that much better than pre-reboot levels. As I mentioned above, it has nothing to do with advertising and everything to do with the fact that comics are now 3-4 dollars for 20 pages of content (which is fucking insane and you will see in other publication), are mired in ridiculous levels of Continuity Porn, and are only sold in specialty shops most people don't go into.

As for Comic-Con, that's because as I said before, comics as a medium fell by the wayside a long time ago. If you were just focusing on comic books you would not get that huge turn out. Bringing in video games, superhero movies, anime, and sci-fi TV shows are what pay the bills and get people to come.

edited 8th Nov '13 6:53:02 AM by comicwriter

So shouldn't Doctor Strange make a fine framing device as he uses his magic balls to spy on everybody?

No? It doesn't sound like he has anything to do with this.

My one wish is that they cast people with actual martial arts knowledge in the roles of Daredevil and Iron Fist. It's an affordable way to put in real spectacle, and means we can have a fight scene without a ton of rapid cuts where they've edited out the fight-choreographer coming on set to tell them what the next punch should look like.