Marvel's Daredevil (Netflix)

[The Laughing Fish]

I've been wondering about this. And whether or not Shinkoda's accusations are true (I'll circle back to that in a minute), there are complications relating to Loeb that seem to go back to Day One of the Netflixverse. One obvious thing is that the MCU films have not really acknowledged the Netflix world. Why?

Well, it could very well be that there is/was some sort of conflict between Feige and Loeb. Feige was the undisputed leader of the MCU, everything he touched turned to gold and (right or wrong) he saw Loeb as an interloper or possible rival. Hollywood is full of back-stabbing weasels, as Geoff Johns amply demonstrates. Trusting the wrong person is a great way to get shivved in the back in that town. So all of this could've been a straight forward matter of Feige satisfying his own ego by not giving Loeb's work a bigger platform. It could be as simple as that.

But I've wondered if there wasn't something else going on.

It's pretty clear that Disney went into Damage Control Mode at some point, as might be expected if their crown jewel (Marvel) is experiencing internal problems. It might be that Feige didn't have the mojo to quash Loeb even tho Loeb richly deserves it, for this and for other problems he's had with other people. There are quite a lot of rumors out there about Loeb getting crosswise with somebody or another. Dude's made a lot of enemies over the years. His friends are unflinchingly loyal but I get the idea sometimes that his enemies wouldn't mind seeing him dead. Seriously, they seem to hate the guy that much.

Where does that kind of hatred come from?

To go back to Shinkoda's accusations of racism tho... look, normally I hate it when people claim this or that was racist. But what Shinkoda says seems to add up. The story additions he refers to would've improved that season. The business with Weaver was also weird. I got the impression that Gao was the leader of The Hand too so when Weaver made her big debut, it was a bit confusing. Rather than Gao being the undisputed leader, The Hand was governed by a "council". I'm willing to roll with that concept for a show but the comics have indicated that The Hand usually has a singular leader. This ain't no democracy. Or a republic. Or a committee.

The common element here is the racial element with those characters.

The theory doesn't completely add up. Colleen was a central figure in Iron Fist. Indeed, she's absolutely crucial to the final season. I might even say that season was too dependent upon her. So what's the deal? Does Loeb hate Japanese people but adore Chinese people? Does that make sense to ANYBODY?

But then, that season of Iron Fist could've been broken after Loeb had been taken out behind the wood shed. Loeb could've had virtually no say on how things played out. Indeed, that would explain a lot about that season. But who can say?

But from a 50,000 foot view, the racial thing puts goings on with the Netflixverse into a different context. Why would Feige, Marvel Studios and Disney want to "reward" Loeb by incorporating his ideas (and Loeb himself, by proxy if nothing else) into their work and risk the viability of the whole enterprise if Loeb's racial thing (A) comes to public attention and (B) can be proven as true?

In those circumstances, putting the kibosh on the entire Netflixverse and making it up to the rest of the cast and crew some other way might truly seem like the lesser evil under the circumstances. Because let's face it, nobody wants to reward or associate with someone who punishes other people because of their race. Yes yes yes, Hollyweird, things like that happen all the time. But that doesn't mean you just let it slide when you find out about it.

Sad state of affairs.

From what you're saying, Jeph Loeb is yet another talented comic book writer but a traitorous individual, who will stop at nothing to satisfy his own lofty ambitions as a producer of live action comic book properties.

It annoys me that Daredevil's second season may have been compromised because of his own alleged bigotry. And by extension, it must've had an effect on how Defenders turned out, which I thought was probably the worst out of all the Marvel Netflix shows. Sigourney Weaver was shoehorned into that show, and frankly, the Hand sub-plot across both shows should've been much better. Maybe Loeb pressured the writers to copy the shadowy crime boss template onto Weaver's character and the Hand served as some sort of mystical underworld? Problem is A) she was no D'Onofrio, and B) the Hand should've been far more impressive than we got, in my opinion. I reckon Nobu in the first season was as good as we ever got as far as anything Hand-related is concerned.

Thankfully, Daredevil still turned out brilliantly the way it did. I thought Nobu was an underwhelming follow-up Fisk as the main villain, but now I know it wasn't the writers' fault.

[The Laughing Fish]

Shinkoda tweeted this yesterday.

#WaiChingHo aka #MadameGao and I, aka #Nobu of #Daredevil weren't at the season 2 premiere...because we weren't invited. Wai was insulted...and that pissed me off A LOT. We found out about the event as it live-streamed. "They" were sorry we were "overlooked". #HellsKitchen

https://twitter.com/PeterShinkoda/status/1287490338958041088

This is pretty damning. There's no excuse why Shinkoda and Wai would be overlooked for an invitation, we're talking about actors playing recurring roles here.

Rayborg publicly showed his support.

Our industry will not advance unless we are willing to speak the names of those preventing it from doing so!

Thank you for standing up and speaking out
@PeterShinkoda

I stand with you.

Big fan here. Loved your very nuanced performance in #JusticeLeague - definitely my favorite character!!! I sincerely appreciate your support Ray. You have my lifelong allyship. I bow deeply to you

And I to you. You are an inspiration.

Accountability>Entertainment

https://twitter.com/ray8fisher/status/1287473864113520644

[thecolorsblend]

I really feel bad for Wai Ching Ho. Roles in big Hollywood productions are hard to come by no matter what but even more at her age. Gao is probably the biggest thing she'd ever done in the western world and I thought she did a great job. And to then get skipped over for the premiere... man, that's LOW.

And don't kid yourself, a LOT of networking goes on at premieres. There's a very strong argument that Wai and Shinkoda both could've missed out on new opportunities from being ignored.

But good on Fisher for joining in. One voice can be ignored. But how many voices does it take to create a chorus?

[Silver Nemesis]

To go back to Shinkoda's accusations of racism tho... look, normally I hate it when people claim this or that was racist. But what Shinkoda says seems to add up. The story additions he refers to would've improved that season. The business with Weaver was also weird. I got the impression that Gao was the leader of The Hand too so when Weaver made her big debut, it was a bit confusing. Rather than Gao being the undisputed leader, The Hand was governed by a "council". I'm willing to roll with that concept for a show but the comics have indicated that The Hand usually has a singular leader. This ain't no democracy. Or a republic. Or a committee.

I've seen numerous comments on recent news articles criticising the Netflix version of the Hand for being underwritten or two dimensional. Thing is, that's exactly what they're like in the comics. The Hand have never been portrayed as having rich private lives, complex relationships or compelling back stories like most other super villains. They're not meant to be sympathetic or particularly layered. Miller wrote them as taciturn undead devil-worshipping zombie ninjas, and as far as I'm concerned they nailed this in Daredevil season 2.

DDs2 portrayed them as a clan of undead ninjas originating in Feudal Japan, just like in the comics. They were reanimated corpses who dressed in comic-accurate red and black outfits, manoeuvred around New York using underground tunnels, and wielded poisoned blades, just like in the comics. They were at war with the Chaste, tried recruiting Elektra as a host for their demonic idol, and could mask their presence from Daredevil's senses, just like in the comics. They performed blood rites that involved slitting their own wrists, stole Elektra's corpse to resurrect her, and purchased real estate in Hell's Kitchen in order to build themselves a new base, just like in the comics. Their upper ranks included Kagenobu Yoshioka and Lord Hiroshi, both of whom are characters from the comics. I could go on, but I think I've already overstated this point – the depiction of the Hand in DDs2 was spot on with the source material.

Iron Fist season 1 is where things went sour. That's where they began deviating from the comics, and in doing so not only ruined the Hand but also derailed the entire Netflix project. Suddenly the Hand was no longer a clan of medieval Japanese ninjas, but an international organisation of which the Japanese branch was only a small division. Suddenly the comic-accurate origin story told by Stick in DDs2 was retconned so that their new origins connected them with K'un-Lun. Suddenly Madame Gao and her Steel Serpent dealers, who had always been depicted as separate from the Hand in DDs1 and 2, were now merely an extension of its multifaceted organisation. Suddenly the Chaste were unceremoniously removed from the equation. Suddenly the Hand's agents no longer wore their classic red and black costumes, were no longer reanimated corpses, and most of them weren't even Japanese. They became generic gun-toting terrorists, many of whom were recruited from the streets of New York like the Foot Clan in TMNT 1990. Suddenly the conjuring of Black Sky was no longer their main objective, as had been implied in DDs1 and 2, but merely a stepping stone towards their real master plan – exhuming dragon bones...

None of these developments were faithful to the source material, and they all undermined the gothic occult vibe that was so eerily evoked in DDs2. I get that a lot of people – especially those not familiar with the comics – were confused by the Hand in DDs2. But in the writers' defence, I think that confusion was intentionally cultivated to serve a purpose. I hate to use the term 'magic box' (ugh), but the elliptical nature of the Hand's storyline in DDs2 was deliberately esoteric in order to establish a sense of mystery that would reel audiences in for The Defenders. If they'd successfully followed through on this in The Defenders, then I think the lack of clarity in the second half of DDs2 would have been justified. Unfortunately they screwed up the payoff, which for many people retroactively invalidated the setup.

Incidentally, the dragon bones storyline was not what they had in mind when they wrote the first two seasons of Daredevil. Back then they didn't know exactly what the storyline of The Defenders would be, but it certainly wasn't about dragons. The Japanese writing on the Midland Circle map in DDs1 reads 'Black Sky', implying that the pit the Hand was digging was intended to be connected to the summoning of Black Sky. What most fans were expecting was a Shadowland-style scenario where the evil spirit of Black Sky would be conjured from the depths of the pit to possess Elektra and cast its evil influence over New York, similar to Gozer's arrival at the end of Ghostbusters (1984). DDs2 was a perfect setup for something like this, and if they'd done that then I reckon fans would have been satisfied. Instead we got dragon bones.

But again, I blame Iron Fist for this rather than DDs2. Speaking as a comic fan, I adore DDs2. It is the weakest season, and yet it's the one that most accurately reflects the visual identity of the comics and is still superior to 99.9% of other comic book adaptations, including most of the Batman films (yeah, I said it). It's a solid 8.5/10 for me. One of my favourite sequences in the entire series is where Daredevil's tracking the Hand through the tunnels beneath New York. There's practically no dialogue. Instead the direction, editing, music, cinematography and fight choreography tell the story. It's like a Miller/Janson comic brought to life. Beautiful.

I've got a comics-to-screen analysis of The Defenders that I finished back in 2018. I might try and post it in the next week or so if anyone's interested.

As for Weaver, she should have played Rosalind Sharpe. That would have been a meatier role for her to sink her teeth into and would have allowed her to return in the Daredevil solo series. She's pretty much identical to the Rosalind in the comics anyway, so this seems like a no-brainer.

I'd have made it so Sharpe was the lawyer representing the Hand's real estate interests, but was only partly privy to their true agenda. I'd have ignored the twist about her being Foggy's birth mother, as I don't think that would work very well in the context of the TV series. This way Sharpe could have been the public face of the Hand throughout most of The Defenders before eventually turning against them when she realises the full scope of their evil intent. Elektra could still have killed her, or alternatively they could have had her survive to return as a disgraced lawyer in DDs3 or Jessica Jones s2. I've always been a fan of Weaver and I was thrilled to have her involved in The Defenders. I think she did a great job with what she was given, but they could have made better use of her.

Apropos of the racial thing, I persuaded my Japanese sister-in-law to watch Daredevil when it first came out, and when I asked her and my brother how accurate the Japanese dialogue was they said that most of the Japanese-speaking roles were not played by Japanese actors, but Koreans. I'm not sure how they could tell. Maybe the accents. But apparently Marvel didn't actually use many real Japanese actors. I'm not saying this is due to racism or anything; just making a semi-relevant and not particularly interesting observation.

While I've heard bad things about Loeb in the past, I find it very hard to believe he'd say something as blunt as "nobody cares about Asian people". I'll wait to hear his side of the story before passing judgement, but I suspect there's been an error in communication between Shinkoda and whichever member of the writing staff related this story to him. At least I hope there has.

I really feel bad for Wai Ching Ho. Roles in big Hollywood productions are hard to come by no matter what but even more at her age. Gao is probably the biggest thing she'd ever done in the western world and I thought she did a great job. And to then get skipped over for the premiere... man, that's LOW.

And don't kid yourself, a LOT of networking goes on at premieres. There's a very strong argument that Wai and Shinkoda both could've missed out on new opportunities from being ignored.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and suggest that perhaps Wai Ching Ho and Peter Shinkoda weren't invited to the season 2 premiere for the same reason Vincent D'Onofrio wasn't – because their characters' return in the second half of the season was meant to be a surprise. Just a thought.

Shinkoda's comments came to light during the recent SaveDaredevilCon. I haven't had a chance to watch all of the videos yet (I will do), but here they are:

I'd also just like to point out that there are only about another three months to go before that damnable Netflix contract finally expires and Marvel can announce their plans for Daredevil.

[thecolorsblend]

Apropos of the racial thing, I persuaded my Japanese sister-in-law to watch Daredevil when it first came out, and when I asked her and my brother how accurate the Japanese dialogue was they said that most of the Japanese-speaking roles were not played by Japanese actors, but Koreans. I'm not sure how they could tell. Maybe the accents. But apparently Marvel didn't actually use many real Japanese actors. I'm not saying this is due to racism or anything; just making a semi-relevant and not particularly interesting observation.

I'm pretty sure I know how but explaining that is cancellation waiting to happen.

Suffice it to say, people from that continent (nationals or not) are very good at recognizing who's who. There's truly no politically correct elaboration I can offer for that, unfortunately.

[Silver Nemesis]

I think I spotted a Daredevil comic reference in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Bad Girls'. There's a scene where Buffy and Faith are handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car. They escape by kicking the grating in front of their seat and causing the vehicle to crash, knocking out the two cops in the process. This is exactly how Matt escapes from the back of a police car in The Man Without Fear.

Coincidence? Well this particular episode was written by Doug Petrie, who was also a writer on Daredevil seasons 1 and 2 as well as The Defenders. He was also showrunner on DDs2 and The Defenders. DDs1 was largely based on The Man Without Fear, and the scene where Matt escapes from the police after being handcuffed was loosely adapted in the episode 'Condemned', only there the scene took place in a street instead of inside a car.

Petrie didn't write the script for 'Condemned', but he did write the following episode, 'Stick', which also adapted elements from The Man Without Fear. Anyway, I just thought it was a cool Buffy-Daredevil connection worth mentioning.

On an unrelated note, here's a nice fan poster by an artist named John Black.

[The Laughing Fish]

I found another rumour about Charlie Cox returning in a Daredevil revival on Hulu, with the intention of integrating him with some MCU characters such as Nick Fury.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/boundingintocomics.com/2020/08/21/rumor-marvel-studios-wants-charlie-cox-to-return-as-daredevil-hints-at-planned-future-for-the-man-without-fear/amp/

But there is one possible condition, and it's off-putting:

While Kevin Feige liked the original series, he's not so keen on continuing what Netflix did and instead incorporate his own vision.

If that were to ever happen then count me out. Daredevil should pick up and continue where it left off and have Poindexter return as a fully fledged Bullseye, as it was hinting in the final scene of the third season. I'm not interested in Feige taking any creative control and watering it down to suit the typical MCU formula.

[thecolorsblend]

I found another rumour about Charlie Cox returning in a Daredevil revival on Hulu, with the intention of integrating him with some MCU characters such as Nick Fury.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/boundingintocomics.com/2020/08/21/rumor-marvel-studios-wants-charlie-cox-to-return-as-daredevil-hints-at-planned-future-for-the-man-without-fear/amp/

But there is one possible condition, and it's off-putting:

While Kevin Feige liked the original series, he's not so keen on continuing what Netflix did and instead incorporate his own vision.

If that were to ever happen then count me out. Daredevil should pick up and continue where it left off and have Poindexter return as a fully fledged Bullseye, as it was hinting in the final scene of the third season. I'm not interested in Feige taking any creative control and watering it down to suit the typical MCU formula.

I guess two months to go until the contract expires?

It might not be possible to integrate the full Netflixverse into the MCU. I'm no expert but there could be legal barriers preventing it. They can bring Cox back, perhaps, as the MCU Daredevil but he might necessarily HAVE be different from the Netflix Daredevil.

As you know, I have no particular investment in the MCU. But there are simply too many rumors about at least Cox coming back that I have to think there's a real intention for Marvel/Feige to woo him back to the role if possible.

As before, my problem here is that I don't really see what's left for that take on the character. The Miller thing has been done pretty well. Personally, I don't need to watch yet another rehash of it. I suppose there's always the chance of going in a more Lee/Everett direction. That approach might even be best overall for incorporating Daredevil into the MCU. But is that sustainable over the long haul? Maybe. But maybe not.

Either way, it's a fresh angle for the character in live action. So that has certain obvious advantages. But the question remains as to whether Cox is interested not only in something unrelated to his previous work but specifically something so far removed from his work.

If I'm Cox and somebody says they want to bring me back in a Not Really kind of way, I might not be interested in participating.

[Silver Nemesis]

Introducing Batdevil.

Billionaire attorney Bruce Murdock was blinded by a radioactive silver spoon that fell into his crib when he was an infant. Following the deaths of his parents, he was raised under the auspices of faithful retainer Foggy Pennyworth and a kindly nun named Maggie Thompkins. As the Devil of Crime Alley, he joins forces with chain-smoking Commissioner Jim Urich and porn star-turned-vigilante Karen Kyle to battle a succession of evil villains that includes Wilson Thorne, the Assassin's Hand, led by Elektra al Ghul, and the dreaded Deadeye (aka Bullshot).

Here's Charlie as Batman.

And here's Battinson as Daredevil.

If DC and Marvel ever produce another Amalgam series, they should do something like this instead of Dark Claw. Matt's radar sense would be a more logical fit for the bat-motif than Wolverine's claws.

[Silver Nemesis]

Less than a month to go until the two-year anniversary of season 3, which is when the Netflix contract is supposed to expire. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we hear something concrete about Marvel's plans for DD.