Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders take over Comic-Con
Unveiled tonight in San Diego: Production has begun on the solo "Punisher" series; a third season of "Daredevil" is coming (soon?); and the teasers for two anticipated Marvel shows on Netflix.
Marvel's "Luke Cage" panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con was pretty eventful -- more like a Marvel-Netflix panel, it included new show announcements, surprise guests and teaser trailers galore.
The panel, moderated by Marvel TV head honcho Jeph Loeb, started with a compilation of various clips of the Marvel shows on Netflix and some audience participation which meant shouting the names of the shows -- I was in the "Jessica Jones" cheering section, thank you very much.
Jon Bernthal, who plays the Punisher on "Daredevil" and in the impending "Punisher" show, popped out for a quick appearance and talked about the responsibility of playing the character, knowing what he means to fans.
On the ground at San Diego Comic-Con
A little later, Loeb introduced the show's creator, Cheo Hodari Coker, and then welcomed the show's primary cast: Frank Whaley, Theo Ross, Simone Missick, Mahershala Ali, Alfre Woodard and then Luke Cage himself, Mike Colter. Rosario Dawson reprises her role as nurse Claire Temple on the show, but wasn't here in San Diego.
The audience was treated to a number of clips. Above is the official teaser trailer.
In another one we saw, Harlem's Hero takes out a bunch of tough guys and makes it look effortless; in another, there's a moody nighttime scene between Cage and Misty Knight (Missick); and along with a few others we were treated to a sizzle reel at the convention center.
A running gag throughout the panel involved Marvel Comics Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada, who appeared to have something important to say, only to be sent away by Loeb.
As it turned out, Quesada did have news to share: There will be a third season of "Daredevil." That's right, everyone's favorite vigilante is returning for a another run at keeping his 'hood safe.
Right after that, we saw the first teaser for the upcoming "Iron Fist," starring Finn Jones as Danny Rand/Iron Fist. Turns out, we're more excited for this than we thought.
After that, there was yet another teaser -- this time for the presumedly-way-far-off-in-the-future "The Defenders," which will see the main characters in the existing Netflix-Marvel shows teaming up to fight a big bad.
The teaser featured a seemingly random array of news articles with a Stick (!!) voiceover, saying, "You think the four of you can save New York? You can't even save yourselves," as "Come As You Are" by Nirvana plays in the background. Turns out Stick is way more important (and hardcore?) than we originally gave him credit for.
No word on how long we'll need to wait for "Iron Fist" and "Defenders ," though -- that'd be too easy, huh?
"Luke Cage" debuts on Netflix on September 30. "Iron Fist" and "The Defenders" have no official release date yet; stay tuned to this page and this Marvel page for more info.