Nerdy hearts everywhere were shattered when Netflix started giving its Marvel properties the axe. This heartbreak, though, turned out to only be temporary, as it appeared the cancelations were only to prepare for the MCU’s move to Disney+ and that the grittier, more down-to-earth counterparts to the Avengers would be making that move as well.
Jump a couple years ahead, and Marvel has the rights to all of its heroes once again. Yet, when it comes to the handful who began on Netflix, fans have gotten essentially nothing, save for a vague assurance from Kevin Feige.
With a daunting slate of upcoming projects, it’s clear the former Netflix properties won’t be getting solo outings any time soon, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that Marvel instead has an incredible opportunity to include them anywhere it likes. These shows were more than successful enough to be brought back into the fold. Now, it’s just a matter of where.
For instance, there have been countless rumors swirling around that Charlie Cox’s Daredevil will be making his big screen debut in the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home. As probably the most beloved portrayal from Netflix, Matt Murdock transitioning over first makes complete sense. Not to mention, a Daredevil and Spider-Man dynamic played out on screen sounds like yet another comic book fan’s dream come true.
If these rumors don’t pan out, though, another alternative fit for the lawyer side of the Murdock character could easily be in the slated She-Hulk series. Even past that, the fact that the MCU is headed into multiverse territory post-WandaVision opens up the door for countless possibilities and shifts in approaches to who exactly gets to don the mask of certain treasured heroes.
Storylines can be tweaked and reworked, of course, from the different style of the Netflix shows, but there’s opportunity here to even right some of the bumps in the road these shows faced along the way. Finn Jones’ Iron Fist, for example, could be an instance where maybe not all of the actors and exact portrayals of these characters need to make the jump over.
As the least successful of the Netflix bunch, Iron Fist could be a character easily included in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings film but, perhaps, with a fresh start. With an opportunistic restart, fans would most likely be willing to turn a blind eye to a recast of Iron Fist if it means he meets the quality of the other Defenders.
In fact, in order to get these exact characters all back, a certain amount of leeway will have to be given to the continuity of their storylines. Clearly, actors like Mahershala Ali can’t be both Cottonmouth and eventually Blade. But the higher-ups at Marvel could simply go ahead and move on from Cottonmouth and maybe even make a cheeky reference to Ali’s former role if Luke Cage and Blade were ever to run into each other down the line in the MCU.
Speaking of Cage, a team-up with Jessica Jones is perhaps the one future project that would be worth the wait for their own show. Mike Colter and Krysten Ritter had such an amazing chemistry with each other that they could definitely hold their own if a show were ever to be dedicated solely to them.
As said before, though, Kevin Feige has built up enough trust with the ever-expanding MCU that he could drop them in just about anywhere he pleases, and it would probably work. So, go ahead and give us some random Luke Cage in the next Ant-Man film or a meetup with Jessica Jones in the Ms. Marvel series.
While the Netflix MCU era certainly wasn’t completely perfect, they were and still are beloved characters with a lot of fan-favorite actors. While change is inevitable with the harsher style of these shows, it’d be an absolute shame to put it all completely to waste and start from square one (not to mention, the entire catalogue of equally loved side characters — with some heavy emphasis especially on the other half of Nelson and Murdock).
Marvel has shown it’s not afraid to get a little weird with WandaVision, and the gritty nature of these series shouldn’t be a problem, as there have already been plans to move forward with another R-rated Deadpool outing. So it only makes sense the Netflix heroes shouldn’t and hopefully won’t be completely tossed aside as the MCU moves forward into its upcoming phases.
And come on, it’s hard to deny that a chaotically hilarious, gory match-up between Deadpool and The Punisher would be at least a little fun.
Jackson Horvat is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Tell Jackson by tweeting him at @horvatjackson.
