Before the MCU was making waves with new series on Disney+, it was lighting up a completely different streaming service. From 2015 to 2019, Marvel's Netflix series told stories about Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Punisher, as well as a group of secondary characters circling around them. Excluding Iron Fist and The Defenders, the rest of the series was exceptionally good.
While they were technically part of the MCU, there was very little mention of the movies in the Netflix series. And the movies never really acknowledged the Netflix series at all. This disconnect caused a lot of incongruities and questions as the series continued to multiply.
10 Seemed To Be Largely Unimpacted By The MCU
Marvel's Netflix series encompassed 13 seasons and 161 episodes of television for fans to enjoy. And somehow very little of it was remotely impacted by what was going on in the larger MCU at that point.
In the first season of Daredevil, Kingpin took advantage of the chaos that was left in the aftermath of the Battle of New York in The Avengers to establish his power base. Outside of that, the lack of continuity between the MCU and Netflix led to a lot of confusion.
9 The Avengers Were Completely MIA
In the MCU, the most prominent superhero team is the Avengers but it wasn't the only one. Obviously, there's the Guardians of the Galaxy but Marvel's Netflix also produced a team called the Defenders.
How and why they never crossed paths led to a lot of conversations between fans online. It actually would have been easier to explain that the two teams did work together at some point rather than trying to justify why they didn't.
8 Confusing Fans With A Disconnected Narrative
Within Marvel's Netflix, there were a total of six series. That includes the single season of The Defenders which was not exactly a popular release. Having Kingpin be the main villain and including Jon Bernthal's Punisher would have helped dramatically.
But lining all of these series up on a coherent timeline became increasingly difficult, especially when three seasons of different series dropped in one year. Trying to figure out what happened when became somewhat of a brain teaser.
7 No Avengers Were Concerned About A Ninja Army In Their Backyard
Rather than putting the Kingpin to good use, the main villain of The Defenders was The Hand. It was an organization of evil ninja that Daredevil and Elektra had both been trained to fight.
When all-out war that pitted Daredevil, Elektra, and Punisher against The Hand finally broke out prior to the release of The Defenders, the Avengers did nothing to deal with this. One would have thought that superpowered beings fighting on their front doorstep might have caught their attention.
6 Claire Temple Just Kind Of Vanished
At the core of Marvel's Netflix was Claire Temple, a nurse who got dragged into this strange world of street-level heroes. She appeared in most of the Netflix series as a consistent character connecting them all.
She made appearances on almost all of the series at least once, except for The Punisher, but not all of the seasons. Eventually, Claire Temple was gone, leaving a hole in Marvel's Netflix that was never filled. Her diminished role led to a lot of narrative confusion.
5 SHIELD Should Have Been Involved In Some Capacity
While it has always been quite perplexing why the Avengers were never part of any of the Defenders' New York shenanigans, it was even more confusing that SHIELD had nothing to say about it either.
A huge part of this organizations' mandate was to monitor superhero activities. And there was apparently a lot of them running around unsupervised in New York. Even Hydra, who was hiding at the core of SHIELD, didn't seem to notice or care.
4 The Sudden End To The Stories
Possibly the most confusing aspect of Marvel's Netflix was how it all came to an end. As the launch of Disney+ got closer and closer, it became quite apparent that Marvel's association with Netflix was going to come to an end long before it was officially announced.
Most, if not all, of Marvel's Netflix series were left in somewhat of an incomplete state. While each season came to a relatively complete ending, there were several plot lines that were never fully resolved because of the rather abrupt ending.
3 Canon Or Non-Canon?
Since Episode 1 of Daredevil, fans were asking if Marvel's Netflix series was part of the MCU continuity. While Marvel had always said that it was, the lack of connection between them certainly told a much different story.
Now that those series have come to an end and the rights to the characters are reverting to Marvel, it appears that the Netflix series are no longer considered canon. That's unfortunate, unnecessary, and impressively confusing all at the same time.
2 How Did Spider-Man Not Notice Any Of This?
While it might be odd that the Avengers didn't notice the Defenders, they could be forgiven as they had bigger intergalactic fish to fry. At the same time, SHIELD could also be forgiven for not looking into the Defenders as they were busy being corrupted from the inside by Hydra.
But the one person who should not be forgiven is Spider-Man. He was a street-level hero in New York long before he joined the Avengers, and certainly should have had some awareness of what was happening. It just doesn't make sense that he has never, ever mentioned it.
1 Fans Constantly Asking When The Marvel Knights Are Returning
Without question, the most confusing aspect of Marvel's Netflix has been wondering when those characters are coming back. A big reason they haven't been used again is that Marvel was waiting to get the rights back for them.
Now, Marvel has many of those rights back and rumors have started swirling about when those characters will join the MCU officially. Marvel loves to be secretive about what's going on but they have to make some sort of announcement at some point.
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