A few years ago, realising the success of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and how it could cover some of Marvel's huge catalogue of characters that would probably never get full blown movies of their own...combined with getting a whole bunch of licenses back from Fox (Daredevil, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, Blade amongst others) the creative team decided to look through that catalogue.
Yeah, AoS is a solid series...but there's some characters who are just too...dark to fit in with AoS. They don't match its archetype of storyline. And they're not really ones who mesh well with Marvel's planned movies. Street level characters. Characters like Daredevil, the Defenders, the Punisher....
Characters that have a lot of very, very painful backstory to them. Backstory that involves domestic abuse, rape, drugs, alcoholism...stuff you really can't put in movies (not with Marvel's intended audiences) or indeed on TV as it would fall past the watershed.
And there we have Netflix. No ratings. No watershed. Complete freedom to create a series at a time, to give these street level characters the love they deserve. I'm not going to review and sing praise of Daredevil...because it was already incredible. It did a better job at getting the story down and true, we did not see the iconic costume until the last episode...but you know what? That worked. The character fit into the cinematic universe like a charm and the series played very heavily on the fact that a lot of the ghetto and slum districts of major cities would not fall under government surveilance. It also broached the idea that metahumans could come about from different sources- Daredevil gave us the traditional science origin...but also gave us the first hints of mystical influences.
Now, on to Jessica Jones. No spoilers. Just commentary on the storyline, the acting and how wonderfully this series portrayed the darker aspects of the comics it was based off of. Sure, I can comment that it's a huge leap forward for the 'gender issues' that have always surrounded comics. DC's over there fussing about Wonder Woman and still being reluctant to give her a solo movie of her own and Supergirl unfortunately seems...very light and fluffy.
And then Marvel drop this on us. It's equally as dark as Daredevil, it's clever, it has wit and you know what? The fact that the lead is a woman doesn't dampen or hamper the superhero staple one bit. It helps that Marvel chose a sensible character to test this approach with...Ms. Jones dresses sensibly, she's street-smart and here's the catch. No fancy origin. No alien history. Indeed, half the time she does what she does with her wits.
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to sing praise for Krysten Ritter's delightful portrayal of a character who has some tragically dark roots, as well as her wit, her down to earth style and her honest nature...
The show was stolen...by a certain...Purple Man.
What? No. No. Not that purple man...thing...whatever the Grimace actually is...
This one. Holy Christ...Tennant's range is displayed beautifully throughout this series. For someone whose rise to fame came from playing such a lighthearted character (or that's how everyone sees the Doctor) you have to also realise...that character was very, very dark in his nature. Some of the Doctor's lines are brutal...
And it's no different with Tennant's Kilgrave. His performance is genuinely disturbing and reaches a level that's only truly obtainable through Netflix with its lack of ratings or watershed. And so it should. The character in the comics also went down a very...very dark path. I will warn you now.
Those panels alone...yeah. Squickworthy. To see this series respect this sort of perturbing darkness is huge. To see Tennant portral the Purple Man's emotions so vividly...from the creepy to the controlling to the outraged tantrums...yeaaaaaah.
Not to say that he was the only star of the show. In fact, it's hard to focus on just one person. Every character had life. Admittedly some were more loathsome than others but you sort of connected with every face you came across. The fact that Luke Cage became a prominent figure...well, not only is that a pleasant nod to the relationship in the comics..but it's also good for setting up his own series.
I've seen some other reviews complain about some...fairly inane points to be honest. So let's address those here.
Why hasn't SHIELD, Hydra or some other organisation picked up on X's activities? Because the big organisations don't care so much about what happens in a run down district of a major city. There are no significantly big events to warrant their attention and the characters involved are not actively seeking attention.
Why don't the characters mention, comment on or care about what happened from Daredevil? Again, because these shows are street level. There is mention of Daredevil at the very end but I'll be honest here. Neither side sought publicity. The events of a corrupt crimelord being brought down...not really significant since it's always implied this sort of thing is practically commonplace about Hell's Kitchen.
Why are there no cameos from the big names? Again, these are not the events to warrant their attention. At the time of these shows they were off dicking about after Hydra or whatever. I doubt you're going to send the big guns in for a report that a car was lifted up.
What I do hope this leads to....?
Going from this and assuming that the other Netflix shows are well done...and that Daredevil Season 2 is also relatively smooth (and bless it for giving us The Punisher)? I hope we'll see a 'New Avengers' story arc. This is possible with Marvel having partially gotten the rights back for Spider-Man and one could hope that Fox relinquish their death grip on the X-franchise so we can get a Wolverine...although at this point it would have to be a 'new' Wolverine since Jackman's contract is up and I doubt he'd step back in.
Unfortunately, Marvel confirming that Spider-Man is still going to be a teenage kid in Civil War means that should we ever see a New Avengers arc...well...we're going to miss out on one gem of interaction.
Yeah. That interaction. Where Luke Cage felt threatened by Peter Parker's past history with Jessica.
As always folks...
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and feel free to donate as well...FNM this week is Standard so £6 would be a gem to rustle up for an article on Saturday...but if not, well, not to be.
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