Finally brought together in “Worst Behavior,” the four heroes spend most of “Royal Dragon” together. The title refers to a Chinese restaurant they hide out in, despite the workers’ various protests. The four of them storming in ignoring the poor workers is a good bit of the beginning of the episode, and makes for some good comic relief.
The Defenders finally work on actually getting together in episode 3, “Worst Behavior.” Unlike last episode, I don’t see a direct tie in for the title, aside from the fact that many of them are not exactly doing everything they should be. But there were some great scenes that made a comic book geek’s heart…
After the set up and surprise earthquake in episode 1, the Defenders leap into their second episode, “Mean Right Hook.” After seeing as many trailers as I had, I was pretty sure I knew what the title referred to, and it looks like I was right. They’re continuing their slow build as the characters’ stories are being drawn together.
Netflix and Marvel Studios have been collaborating for a while now, giving us some great shows. We’ve seen two seasons of Daredevil, and one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Now, just as the solo heroes came together to form the Avengers in the Marvel movies, the Netflix characters are uniting as the Defenders. Also along for the ride are much of the supporting cast from the individual shows, and the enigmatic Madame Gao, as well as Claire Temple, the only character to appear in all four series so far. I’m presuming that if you’re watching/interested in Defenders, you’ve seen the shows that came before it, so I’m not explaining every reference.
The Secret Empire “event” has been hard on just about everyone. I haven’t followed the main story, because I honestly don’t care about it, but I’ve seen a lot of the edges of it as it spills into the various titles that I regularly get. And things get ugly for the young heroes of the Champions this month.
It’s a great time to be a hero-geek. There are more and more shows, and most of them are pretty damn good. I keep hearing a few people fretting about “hero fatigue,” but I certainly don’t have it, and, judging from the box office for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, a lot of other people don’t, either. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is fantastic, with Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok coming this year. I’m a lot less impressed with the DC Expanded Universe (although I’m one of the few that apparently enjoyed Suicide Squad), but I was pleasantly surprised by Wonder Woman.
I’m a huge hero fan, and have been reading comics for decades. Yes, decades. So I like to think I’m at least a decent judge of hero movies. I’ll sum this up quickly and then go in to detail later. Spider-Man: Homecoming is fantastic. It’s a great addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I’d say the best Spider-Man movie I’ve ever seen. And I liked the Tobey Maguire ones. At least the first one.
Iron Fist reaches the conclusion of season one (with sadly no confirmed word on season two as yet) with “Dragon Plays With Fire.” There are a lot of dangling threads they manage to (mostly) resolve, and they leave enough hanging if the show does return. And I’m relieved that a troubling rumor I heard about the show is proven false.
Iron Fist is close to wrapping things up with “Bar The Big Boss,” episode 12 out of 13. Matters are coming to a head, and the various plotlines are starting to close in on themselves. Lines are being drawn, and Danny Rand has to deal with forces pulling him in several directions at once.
Everything the Agents of SHIELD have been dealing with this season is finally coming together in the finale, “World’s End.” A very familiar muscle car fires up its engine and rolls out of a garage. The Zephyr is programmed to rapid random course changes in both direction and altitude in hopes of foiling Aida’s teleportation…
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