The Defenders

Keep in mind that Danny's strategy of "let's just hit them" led to him almost getting captured/killed by the Hand. It isn't exactly a bad idea to approach the Hand with some caution.

Thing is, the story essentially concludes with the Defenders solving the situation by punching it away. Danny only encounters problems at first (mind you, after directly following Luke's advice of trying to solve the issue peacefully) because the other Defenders aren't fighting alongside him. The Defenders spend half the show on the defensive because they consistently refuse to just gather around, figure out a gameplan, and then face the Hand head-on with it. Every character who's not Danny and occasionally Stick keeps insisting on procrastinating.

Danny is actually the most right during the Defenders. Hell, if the others had listened to him, the Hand would have never captured him.

The Defenders didn't just run at the Hand and hit them. They figured out what the Hand was after and created a plan to eliminate them once and for all.

And Danny's idea of peace was to walk into the proverbial lion's den and issue threats. Neither smart nor going the peaceful route.

To be fair, you usually wouldn't expect to get attacked during a freaking board meeting.

When the attendees of said meeting a known members of a criminal organisation, you should.

I would totally expect to be attacked during a board meeting at Magic Murder Ninjas Inc.

I’ve said the same thing myself. Yes Danny was walking into the Lion’s Den, but he thought he was just talking to a bunch of Pencil pushers; people who were either part of the hand but more it’s public face with no fighting ability, or who didn’t know what they were really part of. He assumed he was just sending a message to the real threat through them.

He didn’t know that even the freaking suits were Ninjas. He couldn’t know because who makes the Suits Ninjas?

Edited by HandsomeRob on Oct 4th 2018 at 9:47:50 AM

Some research may have been warranted given that the Hand are the ancient enemies of the Iron Fist and all

He did research. He found out that Midland Circle was a front for the Hand and likely just assumed they were controlling them from behind the scenes.

Once again, he did not expect the company to actually be the hand, pencil pushers in suits included. Just that they were one part of it that he could strike at the Hand through.

Yeah, remember the guys in the Daredevil episode? The one Electra had to deal with? They are the hand, too, and you would hardly expect them to suddenly jump her in the scene.

If Midland circle hadn't been the f... headquarter of the Hand but one of its various fronts, like Danny thought, he would have encountered only pencil pushers. Plus, if you complain about him, what about Luke? He was just walking into the lion's den, too. And Jessica was about to do the same thing. The only one who didn't was Matt because he was the only one who knew how important the building was for the Hand specifically.

Luke can just walk into pretty much any lion's den, to be fair. What are they gonna do, shoot him?

Well as the Hand, Diamondback and Bushmaster showed, he is not invincible.

And while the Judas Bullet isn't working anymore, I'm sure somebody will work out a new Cage-breaking weapon at some time.

Also, I agree, many people gave Danny shit for his actions in Defenders. But I personally was much more angry at these 3 idiots chaining him up. That caused far more harm than anything else, including Stick dying.

That is something I above all blame on Matt. He knows Stick. I freaking knew that Stick would decide to kill Danny at the first opportunity. Matt should have realized this, too.

Eh. Matt doesn't really know Stick. He knew Stick would kick an orphan kid to the curb after giving him a reason to hope again, and that Stick would kill a kid if he thought that kid was a force of pure evil, or his brainwashed daughter for the same reason. But they really didn't spend that much time together, all told. I don't really blame Matt for thinking that Chosen One Danny couldn't be safer than with his fanatical cult leader grandpa. You found your messiah! Maybe now you can stop being such a dick! Oh. You've brought some poison gas. Of course you did.

Edited by Unsung on Oct 4th 2018 at 3:26:06 AM

Stick was always pretty clear about the fight being more important than anything else.

Sure, but now that fight now has its secret weapon, and the Chaste are pretty hurting for guys. The suicide play means there's no one to keep the fight going when Stick and Danny are gone, and the Hand still exist, so... I get Stick's logic, but that logic is insane, and exactly how insane Stick is is something I can believe Matt still didn't really know/want to believe.

Defenders never really answered the question of why any of these people are a threat to Luke. He had to be given a Drama-Preserving Handicap to let Elektra beat him. Sowande, meanwhile, at least put up a fight before we later find out that Luke totally crushed him offscreen.

Luke Cage is the Superman of the Defenders. No one else really needed to be here because The Hand had nothing that could match his invulnerability. He could have walked into Midland Circle alone and the only thing that would change is that Matt wouldn't be presumed dead right now.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 4th 2018 at 3:59:02 AM

Well, I mean. Poison gas. If Stick had some just in his pocket or whatever, I assume the Hand could have gotten some. And if they'd used it, because we know they don't care about sacrificing their own guys, we'd have really been in trouble. But they didn't, and they didn't show the Sowande fight or Murakami hunting them through the city either. The wasted opportunities of this show...

Madame Gao's Chi Punch was enough to hurt him.

It was enough to send him flying. There's no indication it hurt him.

Luke it seems was just something they weren't particularly prepared for.

I'm just picturing Luke sauntering into Midland Circle. Because that is what he does. He saunters through violence. People shoot him, they stab him, they throw grenades at him, and he just keeps on walking at a casual pace like he's enjoying a peaceful Friday.

I'm picturing Luke sauntering into Midland Circle, setting up bombs while ninjas keep breaking swords on his face, and then being like, "WHOOPS no timers" and everything explodes. And then he saunters home to Harlem like, "Was that so hard?"

Guy is way too OP to be hanging out in this weight class.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 4th 2018 at 4:21:55 AM

And Luke is a Street Level Hero too.

I'm really surprised the narrative didn't acknowledge that they needed a way to deal with Luke.

You'd think ancient immortal ninjas would have tricks even for someone who's body is supposedly invulnerable.

Sowande did seem like he was able to fight Luke, but we all saw how that went down.

There was no indication that Bakuto or the other dude could do much to him, though I get the feeling Gao would have had better luck considering her uncanny ability to send people flying like punks with her little old lady PAAAAAUNNNNCHHH.

It's rather odd. Maybe only the top members really had the power to deal with him. We never actually see how he beats Sowande. Perhaps he just got lucky and they were kinda stalemated until then.

It doesn't help that a lot of the big stuff the street level heroes face is nowhere to be seen due to a mix of budget and the seasons slowly building up to them. Plus the Hand themselves, at least as portrayed in the Netflix series, not being the best place to start.

Even in the other shows, it's rather clear that the only advantage the Hand has against the heroes is that there are an awful lot of them. They control a lot of administration due to their wide berth, but since they're like the only crime family in Marvel New York that doesn't control the cops it doesn't matter in the end. They still have the law down on them.

Since Marvel had two seasons of Daredevil and a season of Iron Fist to build up the Hand and the extent of their power, yet only really started to do so in Defenders themselves, they kind of brought that on themselves. They should've gone Maggia style and made the Defenders' first villains some kind of traders in supertech, like what Spidey later faced but on a much wider scale.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 4th 2018 at 3:55:36 AM