Heh. Just imagine splitting the difference: so, yeah, he’d be in every episode with Misty and Colleen doing their whole private-eye schtick – which means that every episode involves the two of them patiently explaining stuff to Danny, because, uh, detective work isn’t his strong suit, is the thing; he’s just here to get pointed in the right direction when there’s something to hit.
So much, this.
I know Marvel wants to more or less keep the tv shows and movies separate but it’s the little places where they overlap that make it fun. Even that has apparently been scrapped. Agents of Shield spent a season fighting over an evil, mystical book and nary a mention of Dr. Strange? Did the Hand and Hydra interact? Did Tony Stark try to recruit Daredevil and the other Defenders for Civil War? All of these questions could be handled with a line or two but we get nothing. Boo.
And it would have been cool to have one of the five Hand bosses turn out to be Fu Manchu (or whatever they’d call him due to rights issues) so we could get some Shang-Chi action!
I am weirdly conflicted about this. On one hand, in terms of the characters, and as a fan of both the comics and the Jessica Jones Netflix series, I totally ship Luke/Jessica over Luke/Claire. On the other hand, in terms of the actors, I would push Krysten Ritter in front of a speeding bus for a chance with Rosario Dawson so, as far as the show is concerned, Luke/Claire works for me, too.
You know the Marvel Netflix series are full of babes when I think Simone Missick, Rachael Taylor and Deborah Ann Woll are hotter than those two according to my taste. And I think Krysten Ritter and Rosario Dawson are very attractive women. I haven’t even mentioned Jessica Henwick or Elodie Yung yet. Damn.
How would any of the characters in this show contact a member of the Avengers?
We can agree on Simone. Mileage varies on the other two. Cheers! 
Claire’s run into them I am sure …
Stark is a famous CEO; and supers still seem rare enough that I figure anyone who shows up at a Stark office building, and politely says they need to speak with the big guy, can get a message up the chain by then performing a showy superstrength feat: why say “no,” if you can phone your boss? And why would your boss say “no,” if this can be a decision for the next layer of management?
I had the diametrically opposite reaction – Madame Gao (and other associated mysterious magical horseshit) was my least favourite part of the shows so far and I was relieved that she wasn’t some kind of mega-powerful villain.
My problem with Madame Gao is that her powers were so vaguely defined in every other show that she made a lousy antagonist. So I was glad they finally landed on martial arts + telekinesis instead of making her a cross between Dr. Strange and Galactus (say).
On a side note, I was indifferent to Sigourney Weaver’s performance. Although I suppose the material she had to work with was kind of hokey (lots of pseudo-portentous references to “the Black Sky” and “the Substance ™”).
My favourite part of the whole series was the fight with the ninja board of directors; I found that pretty amusing.
Elodie Yung does absolutely nothing for me. And Elektra’s accent kept disappearing and reappearing.
But Krysten Ritter is my first choice, followed by Rosario Dawson, with Jessica Henwick and Deborah Ann Woll tied for 3rd.
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I watched the first two episodes last night. Iron Fist is the weak link here. As long as they don’t focus on him too much, I’ll keep watching.
I did like how they color coded each character’s scenes. That was a nice touch.
Again, while I get why it was unworkable here, there was another TV-verse type I’d figure would’ve been a fine ‘antagonist’ – with powers that aren’t vague or cosmic, but that can move the plot along instead of just doing ‘personal combat’ stuff – as a character who, even in exposition mode, isn’t given to dull portentousness.
And, after all: what did they want to do, here? Well, they clearly wanted a scene where Danny slugs it out with Luke; and they clearly wanted a scene where Daredevil pits his kung-fu skills against Iron Fist; and so they contrived stuff so that’d happen, and threw in a reason for Jessica Jones to give a crap after she pointedly didn’t; and they wanted to have Madame Gao play second banana as someone’s super-powered flunky, which left some folks scratching their heads when Sigourney Weaver never actually did anything to make you think Gao couldn’t impale her at will.
All of that’d get solved if Tennant could’ve reprised as Kilgrave, right?
Is it just me or is Jessica Jones pretty lame through most of this? I don’t mean as acted but how her power is portrayed. She’s not invulnerable. She isn’t a particularly good fighter. Her strength is portrayed as pretty normal until a few times when they needed it to be more. She hit people and they usually reacted like being hit by a reasonablly strong person not a superhero.
As often happens Hollywood greatly overestimates how powerful explosives are. A duffel bag full? Maybe 30 lbs of C4? That isn’t nearly as impressive people think. No way it’s taking down a building.
That’s that old aggravating trope of inconsistent superpowers that dogs both comics and TV/film( also other media ). Technically I believe Jessica Jones is supposed to be the strongest of the group. Luke Cage is much, much more resilient and almost as strong, which makes him rather more powerful overall. But really Jessica Jones should be reducing people to literal pulp if she used her full strength.
The fanwank( and probable screenwriters out )is that she is almost always pulling her punches. Part of her trauma after Kilgrave made her kill an innocent. Which sorta works, but is still kinda awkward looking at times as you noted. Still I sorta liked how her fighting was choreographed on her own show. She fought exactly like someone who is super-strong but has no idea how to fight would ;).
The power level inconsistencies were one of my gripes with the show. Luke isn’t fazed by Danny’s (non-iron fisty) punches at all, but several times seems to take a hard hit from random mooks in a group fight. Elektra sometimes struggles against individual members of the team, at other times takes on all four.
And a lot of the time, character’s actions seemed to be purely (and poorly) motivated by plot needs. It was pretty awkward having Danny tied up, yet engaging in witty bro-banter with Luke, just because they apparently have to end up as buddies somewhere down the line. The conflict between the main characters often appeared manufactured to show how they are ‘not a team’. Likewise for the inevitable reunions.
And I still haven’t quite figured out what ‘the Black Sky’ is, and how it was supposed to figure in the Hand’s plans. So it’s just somebody who can fight really well? ‘Black Sky’ seems to conjure up something more, I don’t know, apocalyptic. Seems like something that started out as a MacGuffin, and then was somewhat lamely fleshed out. I also didn’t quite understand what her motivation was to kill a couple of thousand New Yorkers in order to gain immortality. I can sorta see killing/controlling those who tried to control her, but even that I thought could have been portrayed better.
Anyway. Despite all this, it still had its moments, and was, overall, fun to watch. I think the best Marvel shows thrived on a strong focus on their main characters; this obviously wasn’t possible in such an ensemble, and the show doesn’t quite find its footing as a result. But it’s still mostly solid entertainment.
It’s actually worse - at least Black Sky, there only being one (at a time) seems to be part of the point. Whatever they were planning with Meachum needs to be really wide spread to work.
But, the whole plot of Defenders suggests looking at the Fingers’ behaviour logically doesn’t work - Gao, Bakuto, and Murakami seem more intent on screwing Alexandra (and Sowande, who seemed loyal to her) over than on forwarding the Hand’s goals, whatever those may be (what they are, primarily, is vague). They may well have been actively trying to use up the existing Substance to force her to turn away from the Black Sky idea, at least until they got the bones under the building.
Alexandra wanted to keep living. That was her only goal. At some point it was stated that the others only wanted to get home. So despite what they said they don’t really care about The Hand they all have their own goals. Finding the dragon bones seemed to further Alexandra’s goal but it’s unclear how it helps the others.
I stopped reading comics in 1985 so I didn’t know if this was something people were supposed to know. At the very end the nun told someone to get Maggie. I had to look it up.
Maggie Murdoch, Matt’s mother who is a nun.
I think everyone would support this idea. We can but hope.
She does throw a car through a window so there’s that at least…
I’m pretty sure in both the comics and on Netflix, Luke Cage is stronger and far more invulnerable than Jessica Jones.
And I agree, inconsistent power levels always annoy me, sometimes to the point of ruining my immersion, even after so, so many decades of reading comics.