The Defenders

The Defenders.

Built as it is to binge, I thought it as apt to do a single, whole-series review of The Defenders as to do a blow-by-blow, especially considering my current rate of writing.

The Defenders, for the sake of internet historians of the far future, was Netflix’s answer to the Avengers, bringing together their corner of the MCU and uniting the four superpowered Defenders of New York who aren’t Spider-Man(1). Mind you, it takes its sweet time doing it, being a couple of episodes in before anyone actually meets up.

Danny Rand and Coleen Wing are chasing the Hand around the world when they get a tip off from a dying man that the real fight is in New York. They track down a weapons shop in New York and find a whole mess of dead martial artists. They confront the team sent to clean the crime scene, but they turn out to be a group of black youths offered the work by a man in a white suit. One of them is the brother of Candace, the hostess who was murdered at the end of Luke Cage, leading to the much anticipated ‘Luke Cage vs. Iron Fist’ event, in which Danny Rand bloodies his knuckles on Luke’s indestructible skin, before finally knocking him down with the Iron Fist. Then they both run from the law.

Now I have a lawyer. Ho-ho-ho.

Elsewhere, Foggy gives Matt some overflow, pro bon cases to help him kick the Daredevil habit. One of these is the case of Jessica Jones, who sort-of takes the case of a missing architect because someone calls to tell her not to. This leads her to an apartment full of explosives, and later brings the architect himself to her office with a gun(2). This particular Mexican standoff is interrupted when Elektra shows up, all Black Sky, to knock Jessica about and kill the architect. Matt shows up as her attorney, but she gives him the slip and is able to see him doing some ninja parkour shit(3).

Then there’s an earthquake.

Luke gives Danny an earful about privilege, and the four each make their way towards Midland Circle, an upscale newly built corporate headquarters full of evil and built on top of the big hole from Daredevil Season 2. Danny goes in all corporate to declare war on the Hand, only for their leader, the mysterious Alexandra, to order him captured. There follows a massive fight, with first Luke, then Matt and Jessica showing up to help, and the four of them finally being driven off by Elektra.

This restaurant scene has been a focus of the hype, and it was pretty cute.

Our totally not a superteam repair to a Chinese restaurant to regroup, with Matt and Danny explaining to Jessica and Luke who the Hand are(4) and that they will go after their loved ones. Stick then pops up to let us know that the Chaste – who were formed by the Elders of K’un-Lun, incidentally – have, other than him, been wiped out, give some deep background and name the five fingers of the Hand – Alexandra, Madame Gao, Sowande – the man in the white suit – Bakuto and angry Japanese challenge-seeker(5) Murakami. These five were booted out of K’un-Lun for trying to live forever and have been at it ever since. From scenes of the Hand, however, we learn that Alexandra blew the last of their stores of ‘the substance’ to resurrect Elektra. Jessica leaves, Alexandra catches up with them, but Jessica returns and hits the Black Sky with a car before another big brawl, in which Matt stuffs it by going after Elektra alone and trying to get through to her.

Our heroes get police protection for their friends, but play it coy with Misty for the sake of tension. Luke is able to capture Sowande, and from Alexandra’s actions and his taunting they realise that the Hand wants Danny. Stick kills Sowande after he tries to escape with Danny, and the rest of the team decide that Danny needs to be kept off the front line until they know what the Hand want with him. Danny isn’t having it, because he’s the Immortal Iron Fist, damnit, so they have to tie him to a chair. He and Luke bond a little, but then Stick uses drugged incense to incapacitate Luke and tries to kill Danny. Unfortunately, he drags it out too long, Matt and Jessica get back from finding the architect’s plans to blow up Midland Circle and bury whatever the hole leads to, and in the end Elektra clashes the party, kills her father figure and kidnaps Danny, before murdering Alexandra and declaring herself the new boss of the Hand.

Punchy punchy kick kick.

 Jessica, Luke and Matt are picked up by the cops in suspicious proximity to one stabbed guy and one decapitated corpse. They eventually break out of the precinct and go to Midland Circle, where they fight the remaining fingers of the Hand to an inconclusive result. Colleen meets them with a stack of explosives, which she and Clare go to set up while the others go down to rescue Danny, who has let himself be gulled into fighting Elektra, allowing her to redirect the Iron Fist and open the dome structure buried deep beneath the city, which turns out to be a vault covering a dragon’s skeleton. Because why the fuck not.

Gao explains that the Subtance is basically ground up dragon, and that removing the bones from beneath New York will basically fuck the city’s foundations, because never mind rock and roll, they built this city(6) on dragon’s bones. The others arrive and a battle royale ensues, while Coleen and Clare set charges and battle Bakuto and some goons. Misty shows up with the assist, and gets her arm sliced off before Coleen decapitates Bakuto, who inconsiderately falls on the detonator controls, starting an unstoppable countdown.

Matt gets the others to evacuate, while he tries once more to get through to Elektra, despite the fact that she was a dangerous, thrill-seeking egoist at her best. Murakami gets thrown off the lift, Gao gets fatalistic, Jessica catches the falling lift by its cables and Luke persuades the police to evacuate before the building comes down on top of Matt, Elektra, Murakami and Gao.

Nuns!

The police drop the matter. Jessica reopens Alias Investigations. Luke goes home to Harlem. Danny offers to pay for Misty’s treatment at a state of the art hospital (presumably doing great work with robot arms,) then crouches on a roof like he’s Daredevil. And Matt wakes up in what appears to be the Budapest convent hospital from Dracula.

So, that was The Defenders, a perfectly serviceable series which takes the uniqueness of the four Netflix Marvel series and combines them into something kind of generic. The best stuff stylistically is when they’re operating apart and cutting from the visual style of one series to another between scenes – perpetual darkness for Matt Murdock, seventies sepia-toned for Luke Cage, washed out noir for Jessica Jones, entirely bland television colours for Danny Rand(7) – but that only carries the story so far, and when they unite the series proves to share Iron Fist’s lack of a distinct visual language. Sadly, it also shares the lacklustre martial arts work, although having the other three means that you get their distinctive styles, and say what you will about Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, but there’s a thesp who put the hours in on his fight training.

Name dropping historical events liek s

The story is decent enough, but suffers somewhat from being basically what the League of Shadows/Assassins is all about in Batman/Arrow – take one city, add ninjas, stir until well and truly done – but with less ruthless Utopianism and more dragons. Elodie Yung does her best with what she’s given, but Elektra is just too much of a cypher and the Black Sky prophecy too vague for the show to paint a compelling picture of the Hand’s internal power struggles. It is also unclear how using up the last of the Substance makes them vulnerable when Bakuto has come back from the dead and can still shrug off bullet wounds in the chestal area. They still seem to have little to fear save decapitation and massive organ failure, putting them just one down on Connor MacLeod.

The Fingers of the Hand are a mixed bag, with Sigourney Weaver a menacing presence, but never a physical threat because of the characters frailty. Murakami has quirks, more than character – only speaks in Japanese, seeks a challenge(8) – and while Sowande has some personality, Bakuto is as bland as everything else coming out of Iron Fist, leaving Madame Gao to do most of the heavy lifting. It was also frankly disappointing that, after Stick warns Luke that Sowande can mess with the functions of his body and kill him without physical trauma, Luke turns out to be as impervious to the old pressure point deal as he is to blades, bullets and harsh language. 

And watching Danny try to kung fu Luke is priceless.

Truth to tell, Luke Cage is a bit of a problem here all around, his power set being basically a massive fuck you to all martial artists. One on one he could have a good fight against someone agile enough to make him wear himself out, but it never happens. Occasionally he gets slapped around by Danny or Elektra, but he really just gets up again. Danny, meanwhile, once more demands the question ‘how did you become the Iron Fist?’ I know he plunged his hand into the molten heart of Shao Lao, but how was this yoyo the greatest martial artist in K’un-Lun when he gets his arse kicked so much? He’s really got nothing but the Fist going for him a lot of the time, and not even that when he’s trying to charge off despite knowing that’s what the Hand wants, or getting suckered into shattering the vault created by a former Iron Fist. Never has a character so ably converted a strength into a liability.

Despite this, some of my favourite character moments in the series are between Luke and Danny, and I confess I’m broshipping them more than a little, and that at least is something that they’ve got right. Luke Cage might have another solo series in him, but I’d definitely take a Heroes for Hire show over Iron Fist season 2.

Speaking of characters, let’s talk about journeys.

Welcome to the Jungle.

Jessica Jones begins the long walk back to humanity, and probably has the best arc of any of the leads. Now in part this is because she appears at the start of the series slightly regressed from the end of her first season, still refusing to take on the cases being thrown at her since she became famous, and by the finale is seen opening up the office again. Luke Cage has a lot to do with that, of course, giving her the chance to cauterise one old wound for reals, but working with a team, be it ever so dysfunctional, brings her out of the darkness. It’s a shame not to see Trish and Malcolm play more of a part in that, but so it goes. We’ve got a lot of characters knocking around and some of them are going to miss out. I did like that they acknowledge her turning this particular corner by greeting Malcolm with something other than an angry insistence that he stop trying to get her to act like a human being.

Luke Cage and Danny Rand do their best work playing off each other. Danny is a big picture guy, while Luke looks after his own. They help each other see things from another perspective, with Luke knocking a sliver of sense into Danny, and Danny showing Luke that he can’t always protect his own by being insular. It’s disappointing that Danny doesn’t grow more significantly during the course of the series, but he is at least forced to confront the fact that he has issues, even if he doesn’t really do anything about them.

The big problem with Elektra is that she is less a character and more Matt
Murdock's issues.

And finally, Matt Murdock, who… Well, if he had died in this series, it would have been no more than he deserved, and actually an apt ending to the arc established in Daredevil. Unfortunately, they kind of take a weird direction with him. He is pitched as the team’s natural leader, but besides his reflexive secrecy, he repeatedly prioritises saving Elektra, even after she proves herself to have utterly embraced her dark side, leaving the team to their own devices because of this. One of my friends was pondering to what degree Jessica Jones gets a pass for being a bitch because she’s pretty, but Matt at least is willing overlook frankly a lot of murder, purely because he really fancies Elektra. I get it; she’s his dark reflection, and saving her means he is not damned, but this is an arc which does not sit well with this ‘natural leader’ thing, an informed trait if ever there was one.

So anyway, that’s The Defenders, which if nothing else provides strong evidence that secret ninja magic crime cults may be over as a thing. Compared to their appearances in Daredevil, the Hand just don’t seem all that mysterious. The Five Fingers are near-immortals with thousands of years behind them, but only Madame Gao has the right sort of unearthly feel to her. Sigourney Weaver does fine work with what she has, but lacks the time to get properly established. They just come off as regular – if highly successful – criminals, and even the dragon bones that they are digging for don’t really feel as epic as they ought.

In fact, ‘not as epic as they ought’ is pretty much the watchword of the series. Like the Avengers movies, it has a lot to fit in, and in doing so doesn’t reliably do any of it much beyond ‘quite good.’

(1) The fact that Spider-Man is a thing in the MCU does sting The Defenders’ cred a little. I mean, even if Iron Man has moved upstate, the friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler is only in Queens. Does spider sense not work on ninjas? Does MCU Spidey even have spider sense?

(2) The second of many times I thought Malcolm was going to get fridged.

(3) Not sure how she manages this, since she’s a good PI but he’s supposed to be able to track a heartbeat at half a mile.

(4) A spiel which goes down like a cockroach sandwich.

(5) That is literally his character: He’s angry, he’s Japanese, and he seeks for something to challenge him.

(6) And by implication, given how much time they spend talking about this being ‘just a city’ and that Elektra can expect to see many cities fall, many, if not all cities.

(7) Seriously, the sin of Iron Fist – well, one of them – is not really having a style to back up its lack of substance. It’s almost unique in being a series that needed its foreign language scenes to be dubbed instead of subtitled.

(8) And yet is not determined to pit himself one on one against the Iron Fist (which would probably be disappointing) or even the Black Sky.

Luke Cage - 'Now You're Mine', 'Soliloquy of Chaos' and 'You Know My Steez'

Trouble in Paradise.

Okay, time to finish this.

'Now You're Mine' begins where we left off, with Luke shielding Misty in a club full of bullets. While Diamondback is convinced that they can come out as heroes, Shades is beginning to realise that the new boss is just as self-destructively obsessed with Luke Cage as the old boss; or even more so. Luke manages to get Misty into a prohibition-era hidey-hole, while Diamondback plays out a pantomime of Luke Cage's hostage drama, including murdering Mariah Dillard's council rival with his budget Iron Man gauntlets.

Boom!

Claire is part of the hostage crowd, where she runs into Candace, the waitress who helped to frame Luke and who comes clean now. Claire manages to slip away and incapacitate a guard, because she's awesome, She locates the back wall of the shelter and Luke punches through, letting her get to the injured Misty. "Me, medical shit. You, bulletproof shit." As part of this, she has to close up one of Misty's arteries, with the possible risk that she might lose the arm (hinting at her comic book counterpart's bionic arm.)

Politics.

Luke takes out the hostage takers and gets everyone out alive, apart from council rival, who has already been robot punched to death to encourage the police to shoot first and ask questions in the wrongful death inquest(1). The Inspector struggles not to let the ESU of the chain with Judas 2.0, knowing that whatever the police, the crooks will have soon, and not really trusting Mariah. In the end, Luke doesn't resist arrest.

Misty and Claire take down Shades when he finds the shelter - because they're awesome, yeah - but Diamondback gets away and Misty hints to Luke that he ought to bring him down, before he can go to ground and rebuild his forces.

"So... we don't have to hate each other and cat fight and shit?"

Moving on to 'Soliloquy of Chaos' then, Luke escapes with the collusion of the transport driver and goes after Diamondback. Shades is bailed out, but Diamondback sends his new number two guy to off him for questioning his leadership. Shades takes out three would-be killers and escapes, and both he and Diamondback aim to suborn Mariah to their cause. She leans towards Shades, since Stryker is so clearly incredibly cray-cray. Aided by Mariah's devoted and morally flexible council PA, they set out to get clear of the cops and rope Luke Cage in to fight Diamondback for them.

Method Man.

Tracking down leads, Luke is distracted by a bodega robbery, where by pure chance he runs into none other than Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan, who swaps his hoodie for Luke's bullet-holed one. Later, he freestyles a tribute to Luke on the radio(2) ('Bulletproof Love') and the storekeeper starts selling hoodies with holes in, providing cover for Luke as the cops find their perp's distinguishing feature has become a fashion statement.

On Bobby Fish's advice, Luke uses Turk Barrett as a way to get to Diamondback, who is in need of new distributors. He goes to his half-brother's warehouse lair, but the Puerto Ricans have beaten him there and been slaughtered by Stryker using something new; something unlike anything they have seen before.

Harlem standoff.

Shades and Mariah look for parlay at the barbershop, offering proof of Carl Lucas' innocence as a sweetener, but Diamondback breaks up the party with a grenade, before entering in a utilitarian-looking supersuit(3).

'You Know my Steez' kicks off as Luke and Stryker face off. Stryker's suit is bulletproof and extends the strength-boosting power of the gloves, but Luke realises that either Diamondback or the suit itself are drawing power from the fight. He lets Diamondback whale on him until the power gives out, then smacks him down. Mariah is taken into custody and it's all good! Yay for the heroes!

Oh, wait; we're only fifteen minutes in.

Actually not the main event.

Luke gives a statement and the NYPD drop the charges. Misty brings Mariah up for murdering Cottonmouth, with Candy as a witness, but unfortunately Shades stole Misty's phone in all the grenade confusion and lures Candy into an ambush, killing her with Cottonmouth's pistol. Without her word, Mariah walks and sets up as the new Queen of Harlem, while Luke's plans to get coffee with Claire are interrupted when Mariah outs him as Carl Lucas in a TV interview and the US Marshall service turns up on account of how he escaped from that prison that one time. Misty is in the shit for going behind the Inspector's back and maybe getting her witness killed. Bobby Fish does find the evidence file, but all in all it's a bit of a downer.

And so Luke Cage wraps up, not with a bang, but with a warrant. The really interesting thing about it is that it essentially takes the entire series to establish its actual villain. We begin with Cottonmouth, replace him with Diamondback - a greater physical and emotional threat to Luke - halfway through, but in the end the villain of this series is Mariah Dillard, the one person Luke's powers are useless against, because she would never come at him physically. Like Luke, however, she is unbreakable. For all her crimes, she walks away Scott free, her political connections protecting her from the consequences of her actions, while better men and women are eaten up by the system.

The series doesn't end quite as strongly as it began, and the high risk gambit of cycling through villains becomes a little frustrating before it finally pays off, but it's a solid entry into the MCU and recognised as one of the best and most aware black superhero stories ever.

(1) I kid of course; they don't have those when the police shoot a black man in a hoodie.
(2) During the interview, the show also gets as on the nose as it is possible to be about the aptness of a bulletproof black man to the era.
(3) It looks kind of goofy, but is probably kind of what a military-issue, non-flying, budget Iron Man suit woudl look like.

Luke Cage - 'Take it Personal'

"He's alive! He's alive!"

I caught another episode of Luke Cage this morning to try to lift my funk over the election results. It was about a slick, corrupt, populist politician making hay of tragedy and fear.

'Take it Personal' is about the final transition of Carl Lucas into Luke Cage. We begin, as he began, in the acid bath, with Claire's quick thinking saving Luke's life as she lobs a toaster into the acid bath as an impromptu defibrillator, and works with Burstein to adapt the treatment to soften his skin. With some effort they are able to remove the shrapnel from his gut and he heals in hours. He even recovers his sense of humour, waking to ask Claire 'who are you?' before breaking into a huge grin.

Burstein tries to convince them that, although his work began in supersoldiery, Luke is the key to a treatment that will eliminate cancer and disease, and effectively make people immortal(1). He appeals to Carl to work with him, but, spurred on by discovering Reva's video logs which prove her knowledge of the experiments and fight ring, and her part in selecting Carl Lucas for the programme, Luke rejects his old identity and asserts the new: He is Luke Cage, and no-one should ever have to be like him. He trashes the lab, Claire takes the flash drive and they book.

Diamondback is an interesting look at the global response to superheroes.

Back in Harlem, Diamondback calls Mariah in and tells her it's time to push his weapons on the police, starting with a less powerful, mass-produced version of the Judas. To create demand, he dons a hoodie and some sort of Iron Man knock-off glove, with which he murders a popular community beat cop while yelling 'I'm Luke Cage!' Subtle. This provokes a witch hunt from the NYPD, who round up all the black men in hoodies they can find.

They eventually pick up Lonnie, the kid from the barber shop massacre, and here the show reminds us that it is not just street smart, but film savvy. Lonnie's mother was initially just there to indicate that Luke was avoiding healthy hookups, and the fact that she is an almost-qualified lawyer seemed a throwaway, but Hey-oh! Lonnie knows his rights; he knows that 'if you're innocent there's no harm in talking' is bullshit and he knows that they can't hold him without probably cause for walking home from chess club while black. Cut back from the Inspector reminding Misty that Luke Cage is their focus until he's off the streets, and the (black) officer questioning Lonnie has beaten the snot out of the kid. Outrage naturally follows, and Mariah uses this moment to direct the tides of fear and anger towards the man who supposedly kicked the hornet's nest: Luke Cage.

Being down Georgia way, Luke and Claire do a road trip to Savannah. There they visit the church where Lucas Snr. preached, and Luke recalls scenes from his childhood which, meaningless at the time, add up to confirm that Willis Stryker is his half-brother, and the whole thing has a serious Jacob and Esau vibe. Misty, meanwhile, finds Stryker, connects him to Carl Lucas and recognises Luke in courtroom photos. Luke gets philosophical about the lies in his life, before he and Claire, still friendly-flirty, head home, where they get a tip off about a meeting at Harlem's Paradise to discuss the Luke Cage menace.

"But let's not lose focus of what this is really about: Me."

Mariah is holding a rally, using Lonnie's injuries to whip up anger and then direct it towards the 'superfreak' Cage. She also makes reference to Jessica Jones, clearly discounting Kilgrave's powers and painting the super-strong woman as the villain. She works this all around to arming the police against people like Cage, so that they don't need to victimise the innocent, which honestly comes off as a bit of a leap for the crowd's mood. Then again, I suspect that the crowd might be fairly selectively formed. Mariah confronts her council rival while a reverend speaks, but then Luke - so far undercover - spots Misty heading for the stairs and follows. This puts him in the right place to shield Misty after Stryker gets the drop on her, covering her with his body as Stryker's crew open up on them and assuring her 'I got you.'

'Take it Personal' completes the journey begun in 'DWYCK', as Luke regains his centre and his sense of self and is freed from the deceits of the past. His view of Reva and his father is shattered, but this allows him to see the world without the filter of lies. It makes it hard to trust, but it signals a sea change and now he's finding his own way instead of living up to someone's memory. And what is that path? Who is Luke Cage? Well, one thing we know: He's got you.

(1) Marvel taking a leaf from Wolverine's book and applying it to Luke's enhanced healing factor, although with the tank and all he comes off more as a more successful version of Deadpool.

Luke Cage - 'DWYCK'

There's irony in the fact that when the cops stop a guy for being big, black and
in a hoodie, he actually is the one they're after.

Just a single episode of Luke Cage for this review, but damned if it an't a big one. Seriously, 'DWYCK'(1) clocks in at 65 minutes, and struggles a little as it works through some necessary transitional material.

Cornell Stokes was dead, to begin with, and that death is still having repercussions. Shades is sliding into Stokes' old role at Harlem's Paradise, while angling Mariah to be the face of the Stokes organisation, but it turns out that Diamondback is less than sanguine at the thought that his number two might have manoeuevred Mariah into murdering her cousin, a man whom he trusted regardless of some bad decisions. Speaking of Diamondback, there's a man who embraces his ophidian moniker, bobbing and swaying like a cobra trying to work out what to do with these arm things. He decimates the Harlem underground with Joker-like savagery, leaving only Domingo and Mariah, and refusing to let the latter leave the game when she comes up with ideas like selling his product - especially the Judas - to the police.

Meanwhile, Luke escapes from the garbage truck, but is still in a bad way. He gets stopped by a couple of patrol cops and is filmed fighting them by their dash-cam. It's an interesting fight, because even hurt he takes a full clip to the back rather than expose one of the officers to his partner's panicked fire. Still, it does not fill the cops with joy. Misty Knight goes through her psych evaluation over her encounter with Diamondback and the impact of her loss of control, before being assigned to find Luke Cage and not worry about Mariah or anything else.

This is a malpractice suit waiting to happen.

Luke gets back to Claire, who has had a chance to look over Reva's flash drive. They track Noah Burstein, perhaps the only person who can help. Burstein explains that Carl Lucas was tapped for his programme even before his beating; Reva was keeping a lot of secrets. He has the equipment to maybe help Luke, with the added information from the flash drive, but it will involve boiling Luke in acid to soften his skin so they can remove the shrapnel. They do this, but Luke's heart gives out.

'DWYCK' is frankly a slightly soggy episode. With a lot to get done and no particular framework on which to hang it it lacks the tightness of previous episodes, despite a lot of excellent moments. Misty's psych evaluation is as revealing as a flashback episode, and we learn a lot about what kind of man Burstein is from his refusal to accept anything that Claire says as relevant until he's tested it himself. It just doesn't hang together like other episodes, and I think it's telling that this is the one that runs long.

(1) The internet suggests that the title - like all of the episode titles, taken from a Gang Starr song - might mean 'do what you can, kid', or might mean nothing.

Luke Cage - 'Suckas Need Bodyguards', 'Manifest' and 'Blowin' Up the Spot'

"Blackmail is an ugly word. Let's call it fishpaste."

Luke Cage has been going strong the last few episodes, putting Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes hard on the back foot. With half the season still to go, I guess it's time for things to go south.

'Suckas Need Bodyguard' opens strong, laying out the pubic response to Luke Cage through some voxpops on none other than Trish Talk, a timely reminder of Jessica Jones to lead into a reunion between Luke and Claire. Before that, however, a less cordial meeting. Resentful of his position in Stokes' pocket, Detective Scarfe tries to muscle a little extra cash and ends up getting shot with his own gun. It's a bush league move on Scarfe's part, but Stokes' response shows that's he's losing his cool. Even in the MCU, cop killing isn't a small thing.

"Talking across a table; it's like I never left Hell's Kitchen."

Claire catches Luke at her mom's diner, causing Bobby Fish to make a discrete exit. Clearly they're giving off vibes, because when Luke insists he just wants to get done and get out and leaves the diner, the look Claire's mom shoots her also seems to be telling her to give chase and hit that. It's lucky that she does, as they proceed to find Scarfe bleeding out in the barber shop, and after a moment when it seems Luke might kill him for murdering Chico, Claire gets him roughly stable and calls her mother for a discreet pickup to get him to the precinct to give evidence (after Luke breaks into Scarfe's apartment to retrieve his blackmail book, escaping Misty and temporary partner Perez with a window flit and superhero landing.)

Mariah is doing press interviews, but like Cornell her calm is fraying as Luke Cage sets his sites on her. When the interviewer starts asking about 'Fort Knox' and Mama Mabel, she loses it completely. Cornell sends all he has left after Scarfe, and although they do get him where they're going, he dies moments after they run into Misty. Still, the blackmail book has the dirt they need to collar Cottonmouth and the day keeps getting worse for Mariah.

"I'm not sleeping with you."
"Can't coffee just be coffee?"

Unfortunately, 'Manifest' more or less opens with the case against Stokes falling apart in the face of the police being unwilling to air their dirty laundry so publicly. Scarfe's name is mud and Misty nabbed equally dirty Perez with a slick phone trick last episode, but Stokes is out with a clean record and an apology, and the Captain - who was pretty cool - is being replaced by a political player well-known to Misty. While Misty struggles to retain traction with the Inspector pushing for investigation into Luke Cage, Luke is hanging with Claire and opening up about his past, and his father's determination not to raise a criminal son. When Stokes reveals his knowledge of Luke's past as Carl Lucas, it is Claire who convinces him not to run.

The bulk of this episode, however, is about Cornell Stokes' past. We learn that he was a musical prodigy, but that Mama Mabel pushed him towards the family business, that being crime but not drugs. Like Vito Corleone, Mama Mabel was not cool with the drug's trade. You can run numbers, protection and sex, but no drugs. Because you have to have standards. She clashes with her late husband's brother Phil over Mariah and Cornell's education, feeling that if Mariah is getting to train as a lawyer, Cornell should have musical teaching, but ultimately he falls down when he tries to get in on the Puerto Rican drug trade.
Mama Mabel has the young Cornell execute his own uncle, egged on by Mariah, whom it is also revealed was abused by Phil. It's hard to feel any sympathy for Uncle Phil, but Cornell is another matter, and like 'Rabbit in a Snowstorm' or 'Penny and Dime', 'Manifest' brings us a dramatic new angle from which to view our villain.

The family that slays together...

Back in the here and now, however, things are moving more around Cornell than because of him. While he believes he has neutralised Cage, he is losing the support of his criminal allies. Luke goes after the Puerto Ricans and takes their guns away, while Shades pays a call on Mariah to encourage her to take back control of her life and her name. This provokes a confrontation with Cornell in which he lets loose his resentment of her education and accuses her of giving Uncle Phil the come on.

So she kills him. Straight up, knocks him through the club window in his office and beats him to death with a mic stand, which I genuinely did not see coming; any more than Luke sees the Judas coming as a mysterious man blows a hole in his abdomen.

In 'Blowin' Up the Spot' then, we open with death. Claire gets a friendly EMT to rush Luke off in an ambulance, while Shades appears out of nowhere (seriously, his superpower appears to be entering rooms at the opportune moment) to help Mariah frame Luke for the murder of Cornell Stokes.

In their favour, they really try to make the snake names make sense in the
absence of the actual Serpent Society.

The ambulance is blown up and Claire gets Luke to a women's clinic to try to remove the bullet. Unfortunately, the Judas exploded inside him, and his own super-tough body tissues are forcing the shrapnel deeper. Misty tracks them down and comes to arrest Luke, but they are ambushed by the would-be assassin: Willis Stryker, aka Diamondback. He knocks out Misty and engages in a running battle with Luke, who is weakened enough by his injury that things get brutal.

Claire meanwhile faces off with Misty in the interrogation room. Misty isn't buying the official line provided by Stokes' executive hostess and supposed lover, especially having seen for herself that said hostess was afraid to go up to Stokes' booth without Luke, but the evidence is damning, the new boss is demanding results, and Luke is in the wind.

Claire appears to just home in on injured or soon to be injured superheroes.

Well, actually Luke is in the trash, a shoulder shot from Stryker - if I counted correctly the fourth of the priceless, kill-anything Judas rounds fired in this assassination attempt - knocking him into a garbage truck which drives off (presumably to escape the lunatic firing anti-armour weapons within city limits.) While not an ideal situation, this does at least provide a relative lull in which I can close out this binge session and pause to reflect.

Killing off Cottonmouth at the half-way mark was a work of genius. He was built up as the series' Kingpin, lost control hard and looked to be on the verge of regaining it when his death came from an utterly unexpected - yet completely consistent - quarter, and the mystery man who has been backing him stepped up and, just as the icing on the cake, announced that 'Luke; I am your brother.' So that was a thing. I'm interested to see if they can make Diamondback as interesting as his immediate predecessor, but they've missed very few beats so far.

As expected, these episodes knocked Luke off his game and towards bottom. I'm guessing he'll be leveling out next episode - maybe with some flashbacks - before the climb back up towards the finale. I'll be there to see what happens, every step of the way (if a little behind the true bingers.)

Luke Cage - 'Step in the Arena' and 'Just to Get a Rep'

"I'm concerned about the beard."

We open in the wreck of Genghis Connie's, with firefighters trying to clear the rubble from above and Luke doing the same from below. As he explains to Connie, he's kinda strong. Still, these things take time, so let's have a flashback while we're about it.

As a new intake enters Seagate Penitentiary - later to be the home of Justin Hammer and Trevor Slattery - and HOLY SHIT! BEARD!

Yeah, just to get this out of the way, Mike Colter turns in a storming performance as framed ex-cop Carl Lucas, but the real star is his amazing prison beard. It comes in huge and gets huger, its wildness signifying his isolation, self-imposed or otherwise, finally being scraped away... But we'll get to that.

At first refusing to get involved with anyone, to associate with fellow prisoners or open up to psychologist Dr Reva Connors, he is slowly drawn out. He makes a friend in fellow inmate Squabbles, and lets his guard down with Connors after he pushes a little too hard in trying to make her back off. He's in full on surly mode, but we still see his mind at work, sharp and insightful, and somewhere behind that beard a good heart that regrets hurting good people, even in self-defence. We also hear rumours of experiments at the prison, although Connors denies them, which of course convinces us that she is some sort of dupe.

Unfortunately, connections allow head guard Rackham to exploit him, threatening Squabbles and Reva to force Lucas into a prisoner fight club run by and for the guards. Lucas determines to bring down the corruption, but Rackham's prisoner goons - including Shades - get word out of Squabbles with a fatal beating and deliver same to Lucas. As he is dying, however, Reva appeals to shady physician Noah Burstein to save him by putting him into a mysterious immersion tank. When Rackham tries to stop the procedure by sabotaging the tank it explodes, and Lucas emerges with his now-familiar powers. He escapes from Seagate and finds Reva, who admits to being more than just a psychologist.

"You look like a damned fool."

Triumphs of this episode include the beard, but also Colter's performances as Lucas, an introverted ball of rage almost unrecognisable as the same man as the more mature and confident Luke (although we saw snatches of him back in Jessica Jones.) The reveal that Reva Connors was no dupe, but in on the experiments was also a smooth move, and explained just where that so-important flash drive came from. I still strongly suspect that the Seagate experiments are related to the source of Kilgrave and Jessica's powers. Oh, and in his escape, a combination of snatched clothes and the restraints from the tank gave us a brief moment of Luke's classic Power Man garb for pure fan service.

In addition, 'Step in the Arena' provides a critical piece of punctuation in the series. One of the issues - bug or feature, YMMV - of the new-style of all-at-once bingeable TV streaming is that arc plots dominate and individual episodes become less distinctive. By shaking the formula, the flashback episode is a clear bookmark between the first three episodes and Luke's increasingly visible heroics to come, as well as an excellent story in its own right.

It's that woman again!

What follows this full stop is escalation. In its quieter moments, 'Just to Get a Rep' reintroduces us to Claire Temple, newly returned home to Harlem after being fired for not going along with the great hospital ninja coverup and pondering a future in super medicine, but the action of the piece involves Cottonmouth's declaration of open war against Luke Cage, who made a bit of a splash when he crashed out of the rubble with Connie.

We begin with Stokes sending his soldiers to shake down Harlem and refill the coffers that Luke emptied. And if the people ask why? "Tell them it's the Luke Cage stupidity tax." One of his underbosses does suggest, based on his reading about the politics of early hip hop, that it might be better to let Luke have his side of the street, and gets shot for his troubles. Shades notes that Stokes is losing control, his reaction to Cage not one of strength, but of fear.

Another triumph of the series is that we can see the common soldiery of
Cottonmouth's mob starting to fear Luke, instead of all running in convinced
that it's going to go differently this time.

As the shakedown begins, people start coming to Luke. It's the day of Pop's funeral and he's dressed to impress, thanks to Bobby Fish splashing a little cash to call in the services of hustle-chic legend Dapper Dan, but he sets out to 'do right by Pop' and make sure that Cottonmouth spells his name right. Unfortunately there's a lot to do, and for some people he's just too slow, leading one of the robbed citizens, Alicia, literally gunning for her own justice.

Luke busts several shakedown crews, then heads to beard the lion in his own den. He makes it very clear to Cottonmouth that he can't be broken, although he also reveals his identity to Shades. Shades offers two solutions to Stokes: Liquidate his assets and move on, or purchase a special bullet from Diamondback, made from Chitaurii metal and designed to take down powers. Stokes won't give up his club - "It's my rep, my blood, my legacy." - and he won't ask Diamondback to deal with Cage because that would mean giving up Harlem, so instead he promises to recover the Puerto Rican's guns and make good. To do this he calls on Detective Dirty, although swiping military hardware from lock-up is clearly more than he signed up for.

"Stop me if you've heard this one..."

We wrap up at Pop's funeral, where we learn that Pop had a son, who barely spoke to him, and Stokes gives a speech about how Pop was his mentor and he believes in protecting Harlem from outside invaders and 'interlopers with arcane powers'. Points for the use of the word 'arcane', but then Luke gets up and blows him out of the water with his own eulogy, in which he explains what Pop inspired him to become. "I don't believe in Harlem," he says. "I believe in the people who make Harlem what it is." His message is one of community, and a cry to stand up to bullies, especially ones who call themselves friends. It's a timely reminder that Luke is not a one trick pony or a blunt instrument, but the entire package; body, mind and heart of a hero.

Still, Misty warns him that he's playing a dangerous game. "Your ass may be bulletproof, but Harlem ain't."

Luke Cage continues to play on its themes of family and legacy. Pop turns out to have been a lousy father, before he became a great father figure whose family transcended blood. Stokes meanwhile is still obsessed with blood, and with his own legacy, while Luke believes in respecting the legacies of those who came before. Reva, Pop, Crispus Attucks and others. Cottonmouth wants to rise above, Luke to stand together. Stokes talks about Harlem as an entity that belongs to him, while Luke sees it as a setting for the community that he is part of. If it is true that the king and the land are one, then Luke is more of a king than Cottonmouth, not least because, regardless of Stokes' assertion that everyone does, Luke doesn't want to be the king. 

Luke Cage - 'Moment of Truth', 'Code of the Streets' and 'Who's Gonna Take the Weight?'

Smooth operator.

Hot on the heels of Daredevil's barnstorming second season, Marvel Noir continues to make Agents of SHIELD look like a ham-fisted mess with the third Defenders lead in series, Luke Cage.

We first met indestructible bartender Luke back in Jessica Jones, and here find him with a few recurring headaches from their last meeting, working cash in hand sweeping floors at Pop's barbershop and working in the kitchen of the Harlem Paradise nightclub, keeping his head down. Pop's is a cosy sanctum from the pace of modern life, where Pop himself rules over a haven for disaffected youth and Turk Barrett plays chess with resident pro Bobby 'Not Fisher' Fish. Harlem Paradise is a sweet jazz club, whose king is Cornell Stokes, one of Harlem's premier gangsters.

In 'Moment of Truth' Luke directly rejects the call when Pop prompts him to step up and be a hero. We also learn a bit more backstory - framed, subjected to experiments in prison which gave him his powers - and that Pop knew Reeva from way back. Nonetheless, Pop is all for Luke getting back on the bike, and despite being reluctant to call the local-girl-turned-lawyer who keeps leaving him her number, Luke does hook up with a lass he meets at the club while working bar, and whom we later learn - although a bit before he does - is Detective Misty Knight. Also in 'the gentleman doth protest too much theatre', our man steps up when he sees his landlady's restaurant being shaken down. He's not for hire, he tells her, but promises 'I got your back.'

Family.

Meanwhile, Stokes and his cousin, Councilwoman Mariah Dillon, are setting up an arms sale to the Puerto Ricans to cover money Dillon stole from the city to pay for the club. Three gunmen rob the exchange, but things go south and all but two of the stick-up guys are killed. These two are Pop's kids - not biologically, but among the ones he has tried to nurture - as is Misty, which draws Pop into the business.

Stokes visits Pop for a shave accompanied by Shades, an enigmatic messenger for the even more enigmatic Diamondback, Stokes' weapons supplier, and Tone, his right hand man. Stokes is arrogant, but treats Pop with the respect due a craftsman. Pop is respectful to Stokes even though he knows that he just beat one of the stick-up boys to death with his bare hands. Tone drops money at Pop's feet. When Tone learns from Turk that Chico, the last stick-up guy, is at Pop's, he ignores Pop's offer to parley with Stokes and Shades' suggestion that they wait for Chico to step outside and instead machineguns the barbershop, killing Pop and wounding Chico while Luke covers a young customer with his own body.

The thanklessness of mentoring.

Stokes gives the money to his cousin, but trouble is brewing with the Puerto Ricans, who claim to consider him inconsequential, but not so much so that they won't go to war with him over the money he's got and the guns in police lockup. Stokes is also pretty pissed about Pop, tossing Tone off a roof for being a jerk with one hand, and offering to pay for the funeral with the other. "Believe it or not, there's supposed to be rules for this shit," he notes.

Luke, meanwhile, decides to make a stand. He gets Chico to give him some details on Stokes' operation, gleaned while planning the stick-up, and goes to war. He busts into the mob's safe houses so that Stokes moves everything to the new Crispus Attucks building, which Luke then goes through like a bullet through butter. Through all this, however, he only takes enough money to make sure Pop's doesn't go under, his goal being simply to see the cash end up in evidence, out of Stokes' reach.

The Crispus Attucks attack is the first big set piece of the show and is everything that Daredevil's hall fights aren't. Luke never dodges, barely has a technique; he just ploughs in like a tank, indestructible and unstoppable. In the earlier restaurant skirmish he simply takes a punch on his chin and lets the force of the swing break his assailant's wrist. And Matt Murdock claims he knows how to take a beating.

Unbreakable.

Through all this, Misty and her partner are seeking to get Chico's testimony. Unfortunately, Misty's partner Raphael turns out to be a stinking dirty cop, and we close out episode three with Luke trying to shield his landlady as Stokes blows up her restaurant with a rocket launcher.

Luke Cage takes us away from Hell's Kitchen and quickly establishes a unique identity, but retains many of the strengths of Daredevil and Jessica Jones, including from the latter the cyclopaean presence of Mike Colter. There is something of The Wire in the complex underworld - although it is more hinted at than shown - and something of Fargo in the rambling digressive discussions of sports and black authors, and there are layers and layers of unspoken or implied communication, only some of which are Marvel Comics Easter eggs.

Even Pop's flashback features Stokes and Chico's dad. It all links.

Pretty much everyone in Luke Cage talks about family, and legacy. Luke is a man without family and, at the top of the series, without any thought of a legacy. Stokes and Dillon are all about the legacy, however, each in their own way. Stokes wants to build an empire and Dillon wants to immortalise her name. Pop grew up on the streets as a mean-as-anything banger, but wants his legacy to be the kids he saves from going that way. And family? It's telling that only Stokes and Dillon really equate that with blood. Pop's family is one he made himself, and one which - in his eyes - Luke entered when he married Reeva. Luke describes Pop as his wife's people, but again there's no suggestion of a blood tie.

Other recurring themes include respect and image. Stokes wants respect and purports to give it, but although angry at Tone's blatant disrespect was happy to walk out without paying, taking it as his due that Pop would shave him for free. Luke and Misty hide their identities from each other even as they are hooking up, and no-one really sees Luke, colossus that he is, until he starts to act. Shades is clearly something serious, you can see it in Luke and Stokes' reactions, but most people just treat him like he's some dickhead who wears sunglasses at night. Dillon is obsessed with her name, and she and Stokes each have a nickname that trips their berserk button (Cottonmouth and Black Mariah, their comic equivalents, both of which are just loaded with unfortunate implications.)

The ultimate expression of Stokes' ambition and desire for respect comes when he stands in front of his poster of a becrowned Notorious B.I.G., the crown appearing to rest on his head, and announces 'everybody wants to be king.' As far as Stokes is concerned, he is the King, but he struggles to maintain that image and besides, to paraphrase Tywin Lannister, if you have to tell people you're the king, you're not the king. It is telling that among the floral tributes to the murdered Pop is a handwritten sign that reads: 'THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING.'