DEFENDERS REVIEW ( SPOILERS ALERT)

BY COREY FLOYD

Marvel’s Defenders came out Friday and of course, I entered BINGE MODE!!!!. If you have not watched the other Netflix Marvel series and attempt to Jump into this one you will be lost So do yourself a favor and watch those first. For everyone else let’s break this down.

The Hand is the main Bad Guys of this series. If you followed Daredevil and Iron Fist you should know about the underground group of ninjas dedicated to world domination. And can be resurrected from the dead. The leaders of the Hand are visually the most diverse group  Madam Gao who you have seen in Daredevil & Iron Fist, Bakudo from Iron Fist. Sci Fi royalty Sigourney Weaver plays what appears to be the Leader of the hand Alexandria.  

As well as guerilla style member Sowende and their hunter Murakami. When All else fails they have their ace on the hole “The Black Sky” and all powerful assassin which is a resurrected Elektra who died at the end of DD season 2.  

It’s like an evil version of the Captain Planet and the  Planeteers.    LOL. Seriously I’m not gonna go through everything but I there are a few things on my radar that we gotta talk about. I will attempt to not spoil everything but……… I said I’d try.

Jessica Jones and Luke Cage don’t contribute much to the story. For the most part, their commentary is what I enjoyed. They didn’t provide much to the progression of the story. In some scenes, it felt like they could have been replaced with furniture. Also   Luke spends most of this series getting his ass whopped!!!. I understood when he went against Iron Fist but when a member of the hand just kicked him to the ground its just seemed so weird. Even Elektra kicked him unconscious. Luckily they wrote in 2 parts where he was useful like breaking a door so the cops couldn’t follow them. Even Jessica only had a few contributions to the series other than being a Jerk. Holding an elevator by its Cables so Iron Fist and Luke could escape and when Iron Fist went rogue and she knocked him out other than that.

 

Misty, Claire, Colleen.  Colleen’s and Claire were pretty essential to the team. Colleen being a former member of the hand feels she has to help put an end to them. Claire is the voice of reason as well as the field medic cause every team needs a healer (Gamer Joke!!) Then we have Misty Knight the street wise detective with a hero's heart. I say that because she wants to be more than a cop but she cannot abandon her sworn duty. She dances a line between wanting to help the gang and locking them up. Eventually, she joins them but the inevitable happens in the process loses her arm. Maybe next time we will get what I know I’ve been waiting for.

Well, guess it’s time to talk about our main characters. Despite this supposing to be an ensemble piece. The series has Matt (Daredevil) retiring after season 2. But as the story unfolds around him he is conflicted about putting the suit back on. Until he sees Elektra. His love her made him suit up. His character arc was very simple and sweet and a boring cliche. Don't wanna give away too much so I will leave it at that. Now it’s time for the weakest link. Iron Fist sucks. Finn Jones needs to be replaced as well as his writers. His character arc had him doubling down on his white savior mentality which I already found perturbing and now he’s rich & Naive on top of that. His character sets the team up for more failure than Daredevil. Finn Jones went from a D to a D+ when it comes to fighting choreography. It’s actually quite insulting. Several scenes had a scenario where he was wearing a hoodie during the fight and when the fight was over than he would take it off. Is he locked into his contract? I hope not cause this was a bad move. Overall the show was meh. Grade C-  You know what spoiler alert PUNISHER is not in this so D+. But he has a sweet trailer that you can check out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFfBd-Oyhug which will be coming out later this year. Next time you hear from me I should be talking about Deathnote.