While most casual audiences know the Marvel Cinematic Universe exclusively by its fourteen movie spanning film franchise, they're actually missing out. Because the MCU also offers a ton of quality television programming, the best of which is produced and aired on Netflix. The streaming service has already released three successful and connected shows, with just Iron Fist left before the four titular heroes unite in the Defenders miniseries event. Audiences know each hero's sordid past, making them especially curious to see how four isolated characters somehow unite to save New York City. Lucky for us, Luke Cage actor Mike Colter has given us a sneak peek as to what to expect from the unbreakable man.
Mike Colter plays Luke Cage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and captured audiences' attention when he stepped into the world as a supporting character in Jessica Jones. He recently spoke to the good folks at EW about his role in The Defenders- specifically how his character will have been changed by the first season of Luke Cage. He said,
It's safe to say Cage is not going to spend the entire season of The Defenders behind bars. He's been able to come clean and deal with his past... The difficulty with Cage [in the first season] is that he has this secret, he has this thing that he's been trying to run away from and deal with, and that's a big burden to bear. That weighs on you, that changes who you are as a person. Now that that's out of the way, I think we can give him a different approach to life.
Well, this is quite the change for Luke. Throughout his tenure in the MCU, Luke has had to try to keep his secret identity and rough past under wraps- as he could be arrested for escaping his prison sentence. Luke Cage ended with the truth finally coming out, although now it appears that this may have been the best thing for the Power Man.
Aside from Luke Cage's new lease on life, it should be interesting to see how the dynamic between him, Claire Temple, and Jessica Jones plays out. Jessica and Luke had a clear romantic and sexual connection in Jessica Jones, although things got spoiled when Luke learned that she killed his wife while under the control of Kilgrave. In Luke Cage we got to see his relationship with Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple slowly grow, although the two never got to really open up to each other. With all three character appearing in The Defenders (as well as Claire's past with Daredevil), things are surely going to get pretty complicated when the miniseries is released.
The next Marvel show premiering on Netflix is Iron Fist, which will be released in its entirety on March 17th, 2017. After that, we can expect The Defenders to hit the internet sometime this summer.
