‘Daredevil’ Season 3, ‘Jessica Jones’ Season 2, ‘Luke Cage’, ‘Iron Fist’, ‘The Defenders’ Season 1 Release Dates; 'The Defenders' is Finally Gaining Ground

By Mark Rollins
The Defenders
Marvel's The Defenders. Entertainment Fuse/Marvel/Netflix

When Marvel went to television on Netflix, they went all in.  Daredevil, which was a huge hit for the streaming service, has already received its second season.  Jessica Jones has also been a hit, and it was always in the plan that these two heroes would bring two more shows with Luke Cage and Iron Fist.  Unlike DC, Marvel has a darker universe set for these four characters, and they will all unite in The Defenders.  For the first time, there is finally some word on when The Defenders Release Date is happening. 

According to The Independent, Netflix has been hosting a two-day event in Paris, Charlie Cox, the actor that plays Matt Murdock/Daredevil, took the stage to talk about the possibility of Daredevil Season 3.  He did announce that The Defenders is going to be filming by the end of the year, he addressed that he had no idea what the storyline would be, but he is "very excited to see how those worlds combine...and interested to see tonally how those shows become one". 

It is interesting to see The Defenders being mentioned as something that is going to be done with filming deadlines.  Considering how a new season of a Marvel show is beginning to arrive on Netflix every six months, it wasn't certain how The Defenders fits within this schedule.  Daredevil season 1 arrived in Spring of last year, with Jessica Jones arriving in November 2015.  Daredevil Season 2 arrived last month, and Season 1 of Luke Cage begins on September 30, 2016.  Iron Fist will presumably arrive after that, possibly in January 2017 unless Netflix/Marvel can somehow fast-track it to arrive before the holiday season.  It is not known when Jessica Jones Season 2 will fit in this schedule.  

As mentioned before in previous reviews, so far there has been very little to tie Daredevil and Jessica Jones together other than a few characters that have made appearances on both shows.  In fact, Jessica Jones and Daredevil haven't really mentioned big events that have occurred in Avengers: Age of Ultron, even though these shows take place within the same universe. 

Since Captain America: Civil War is coming up, the film promises a shift in the Marvel Universe with conflict within superhero groups.  The film Ant Man was able to subtly show that the general public is beginning to distrust superheroes, and events shown in Avengers: Age of Ultron (where Ultron was created by Hulk and Iron Man) and Captain America: Civil War is really going to seal the public's fear of superheroes. 

Assuming that The Defenders universe follows the Avengers Cinematic Universe, it is possible that Luke Cage (Mike Colter) is going to be an outcast because of his abilities.  When that happens, Luke Cage might not be able to fight crime like a regular superhero as he might be an outlaw just by being who he is. 

In other words, by the time The Defenders rolls around, the public could actually hate superheroes.   Still, as far as what big supervillain that The Defenders could face, there was a lot of weird mysticism in Daredevil Season 2 that was never resolved, not to mention the Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) still running his crime empire from jail.