By Put on your shocked faces: The Punisher and Jessica Jones have had their time on Netflix. A story on Deadline, confirmed by Marvel TV, reports that the last remaining shows of the Defenders MCU branch are no more. The Punisher streamed its second season last month, with Jessica Jones putting out its third (and now final) season sometime this month.
The cracks began to show after The Defenders crossover miniseries failed to make a splash, fading away from existence. After additional seasons of the related shows, the dominos fell one by one—Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and even the first and most popular of these shows, Daredevil. As Disney is planning their own streaming service called Disney+, with the separate film branch Marvel Studios making their own shows, MCU fans have suspected that internal politics have led to Netflix jettisoning these programs.
Marvel Television president, executive producer of all of these Marvel shows, and awkward father figure Jeph Loeb wrote a letter to fans on the official Marvel website. Loeb congratulated and complimented all those involved with the shows, reveling in what the studio considers a massive achievement. Loeb ends the letter with a spark of hope:
On behalf of everyone at Marvel Television, we couldn’t be more proud or more grateful to our audience.
Our Network partner may have decided they no longer want to continue telling the tales of these great characters… but you know Marvel better than that.
As Matthew Murdock’s Dad once said, “The measure of a man is not how he gets knocked to the mat, it’s how he gets back up.”
To be continued…!
Unfortunately, other networks can’t really do jack for the next two years due to contractual reasons. For now, we’ll have to do from Marvel Television’s animated shows on Hulu, which will have characters like Howard the Duck and M.O.D.O.K. team up for an event series seriously called The Offenders. It all feels like an attempt to laugh at themselves before anyone laughs at them, doesn’t it?
‘The Punisher’ & ‘Jessica Jones’ Canceled By Netflix; Latter’s 3rd Season Still To Air [Deadline]