The Defenders: all the trailers, updates, and commentary about Netflix’s Marvel team-up show

Iron Fist is the weakest hero of Marvel’s Netflix run. He’s a cartoonish character with no real depth, one who wields power through nonsensical actions. But though the Iron Fist viewers met in the eponymous show was a failure of imagination, The Defenders series itself improves upon Danny Rand in a real way. Or at the very least, depicts him as somewhat less of a train wreck.

As a serious superhero venture, Iron Fist was destined to walk a rockier path than its sister shows. Jessica Jones focuses on sexual assault, abuse, and overcoming the trauma associated with those experiences. Luke Cage elevates a bulletproof black superhero, fighting for justice and the common man in Harlem. Even Daredevil, despite essentially starring a blind ninja, is grounded by the ordinary elements of Matt Murdock’s lawyer life. Iron Fist has neither the thematic nor character foundations to justify the same kind of ultra-serious take. Instead, it leans into its ridiculous premise — and its idiot of a hero.

Marvel’s The Defenders begins streaming tomorrow on Netflix, but a new trailer has just hit the web, showing off plenty of new footage of the team in action, teasing the nature of the threat that they face.

The first trailer for the show introduced the team trying to find their dynamic together, while the second showed off Sigourney Weaver’s villain Alexandra. This new preview really shows just how much of a threat Weaver’s character is for the team and the city that they protect. More than that, she says that getting involved not only threatens their lives, but those of their friends and loved ones as well. “If I might give you some advice,” she tells them, “the more connections you have, the easier it will be to break you.”

The latest trailer for Netflix’s Defenders series is a startling change of tone for the MCU. The new superteam strips to skimpy speedos and battles giant gnomes in the name of feminism. Extradimensional robots play chess for the future of the Earth. Friendly Neanderthal apes transform into evil aliens. Also, perhaps worst of all, the heroes are attacked by perfidious porpoises.

Except none of that is true. Obviously, Netflix did not actually create a trailer featuring gnomes or porpoises, perfidious or otherwise. The Defenders show features a street-level team, tackling crime on a relatively mundane level, at least compared to their god-fighting cinematic counterparts in the Avengers. A new generation of television superhero fans are going to associate “Defenders” with low-key, gritty superheroics and a superteam that spends its downtime chatting and hanging out in neighborhood restaurants. 

It’s hard to pinpoint what, exactly, The Defenders stand for. Good and justice in the world, obviously, since they’re superheroes. And then… what else? If past Marvel shows like Jessica Jones are an instrument, delicately tuned for individual stories about the complications of vigilantism, the new Netflix crossover series The Defenders is a blunt object swinging into a car window.

The Defenders unites the protagonists of Netflix’s Marvel shows Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil, and Iron Fist. It picks up after the end of the latter series, with Danny Rand still hunting down members of the deadly organization known as the Hand. His findings lead him to believe the Hand is preoccupied with New York City, also home to the rest of the would-be Defenders. Jessica Jones is tracking a case, Matt Murdock is brought in as her lawyer, and Luke Cage is trying to help a local kid who’s gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. Their individual pursuits eventually lead them all to the same place at the same time, and chaos ensues. The group grudgingly has to unite to take down the Hand.

Marvel’s The Defenders will arrive ready to binge in just a few weeks, and Comic-Con can always be counted on to whet fans’ appetite for what’s to come. In the miniseries’ latest trailer, Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) intones that she and aren’t that different, and that they’re just on opposing sides in a war. But that war will decide the future of New York City.

The Defenders is Netflix’s major crossover event for its Marvel series up until this point, starring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. The four heroes will be facing off against Alexandra and the Hand, the undead ninja group that has been working behind the scenes since Daredevil’s first season.

It’s largely accepted by now that Iron Fist is Marvel’s weakest Netflix series, given the widespread critical opinion that it’s a boring, often offensive mess. But with The Defenders on its way, the show is still an integral piece of the superhero crossover puzzle. Danny Rand and his glowing fist aren’t going away anytime soon, and Marvel can’t sweep either of them under the rug. So what’s the best way to charge through this mess? Have some fun with it.

In a tweet sent by Netflix’s official account for Jessica Jones, the snarky super-detective ribs Iron Fist for looking mildly ridiculous in the Defenders trailer:

Would The Defenders still be Netflix-branded Marvel show without a hallway fight? Fortunately, we won’t have to answer this riddle. In the first full trailer, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand finally united for their ultimate goal: punching dudes in a long, white walkway.

This impressive bit of choreography escalates from a moody march to a flurry of limbs and drywall. But each individual component is interesting on its own: the wide shot showing full bodies in fisticuffs, the dance of each character moving within the small space, Elektra sauntering in the background like the girl from The Ring.

It certainly took long enough, but the first full trailer for Marvel’s The Defenders has finally arrived. Everything that Netflix’s superhero series have been promising since 2015 — immortal enemies, street-level fisticuffs, and plenty of explosions — is finally coming to fruit, as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage team up to save New York City from the Hand, a resurrected Elektra, and a brand-new enemy in Sigourney Weaver.

The Defenders, starring Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, and Finn Jones in their respective superhero roles, is Marvel’s massive event series, tying together all the threads involving superheroes and ninjas in New York that Daredevil established in its first season. It’ll run for eight episodes, so it’s easy to imagine it being packed from start to finish with action and quipping. It premieres on Netflix on August 18th.

Netflix’s Iron Fist may have landed to lackluster reviews, but the streaming service is already looking toward its next big superhero show with a new teaser video for Marvel’s The Defenders, according to our friends at Polygon. The drama will have Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand — each of whom have standalone Netflix shows — band together to battle an unknown foe played by Sigourney Weaver.

The brief clips see the four Defenders together in an elevator (Daredevil looking particularly fetching in a business suit / burlap sack combo), before Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones notices the camera and punches it into oblivion. As a preview of the show, it’s thin; as a chance to see the heroes together, it does its job.

Iron Fist, the latest in Netflix’s string of Marvel superhero shows, arrives on Netflix March 17th. It should serve just fine as the standalone story of Danny Rand, a superhero trained in mystical martial arts. But the show’s story is richer if you know its elaborate setup. Iron Fist is the fourth and final Netflix series leading up to team-up show The Defenders.

The Defenders are the Netflix equivalent of The Avengers, and like Marvel’s films, they are a massive media investment: the three other superhero shows span four seasons with 13 episodes each. That’s 52 hours of binge watching. Even if you’ve watched everything, you may need a refresher.