Spoilers below for Netflix's The Defenders, right through the season finale, so unless you're caught up or fine with spoiling things, it might not be a good time to read.
With the release of The Defenders, Netflix and Marvel officially came full circle on their combined and interconnected efforts, but we're thankfully not going to see these characters go away for quite a while. In fact, it felt like The Defenders finale was giving fans an on-the-nose tease for a potential second comic-inspired spinoff series (to follow The Punisher), in the form of either Misty Knight and Colleen Wing's Daughters of the Dragon or the larger ensemble piece Heroes for Hire.
Throughout all eight episodes of The Defenders, viewers got to watch as the non-titular players from each of the vigilante series were introduced to one another in a variety of different ways, with many of the heroes' respective friends and coworkers coming together for the safety-minded sequestering at the police station. This led to some key interactions between Misty, who initially had no clue what the hell was happening in her city, and Colleen, who remained permanently worried about Danny, as his ties to immortality made him a key factor in The Hand's motivations. But Misty's opinions of Colleen's katana didn't exactly set the stage for any paired futures. (Though the Dragons title had already been namechecked in Iron Fist for Colleen's cage fighting.)
That definitely changed in the finale, though, when Misty lost her right arm, which almost definitely sounded off alarms in comic fans' heads. As just about all of the action-friendly protagonists were embroiled in the mega-battle against The Hand, Colleen and Claire were facing off against Bakuto and some random goons above the surface. Misty showed up, intent to assist the Defenders in saving her city, even if it meant going against the better wishes of her PD superiors. But soon after arriving, she found herself on the wrong end of a long blade, which went clean through her upper right arm, severing it completely. Misty survived the ordeal, thankfully, and one of the episode's final scenes is what really sealed the spinoff deal for us.
Colleen visited the hospitalized Misty, who didn't seem to be on nearly as many painkillers as one would imagine after that kind of injury. It was noted that Danny Rand owns the hospital, which is quite the "state of the art" facility. Which would be just the place where doctors would be working on advanced medical tech involving bionic limbs. In the comics, Misty's new arm was provided to her by Tony Stark, though we won't likely see any big screen crossovers making that happen. We might very well get a casual reference about "that metalhead billionaire" or something similar, but probably no face time.
In the source material, Misty leaves the police department after getting her new arm, and the TV character's exit definitely wouldn't be out of the question in the current state of The Defenders. While the comics' Misty and Colleen obviously dealt with many characters outside of Netflix's Marvel-verse, the two worked together as part of the private detective agency Knightwing Restorations, and they often worked with Iron Fist and Luke Cage (as Power Man), later becoming official members of the Heroes for Hire organization, along with several other characters we'd love to see show up on the streaming service. Technically, it took until 2006 for the Daughters of the Dragon pair to get their own comic miniseries, despite taking the moniker decades earlier, but Netflix could bring that name greater prominence with a spinoff series.
Now, to be clear, The Defenders is just setting the stepping stones in place, as any full-blown spinoff centered on Misty and Colleen, or the entire Heroes for Hire squad, definitely wouldn't be next in line, as we still have yet to see the second seasons of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, not to mention The Punisher. But The Defenders gave Luke and Danny ample time to bounce quips off each other (when they weren't trying to beat each other down, that is), and their respective shows will almost definitely be pushing things in spinoff-friendly directions. So don't be surprised if Luke and Danny have to sacrifice third seasons of their solo series in order to get the Heroes off the ground.
I almost feel like Misty's last words on the show were meant to be a stand-in answer for everyone involved in the show who will get asked about the possibility of a Daughters of the Dragon or Heroes for Hire series down the line. "Maybe so. We'll see."
The Defenders Season 1 is available to stream in full right now on Netflix, and we'll hopefully be hearing something soon about the possibility of the Daughters of the Dragon getting their own standalone series in one form or another. In the meantime, check out all of the season's best fight scenes, and then head to our summer premiere schedule and our fall TV schedule to see what other new and returning shows are hitting the small screen soon.
