Television

New 'The Defenders' Poster Serves Some '90s Network TV Style

the defenders poster
By Hoai-Tran Bui

"There's no us in team," the caption for the new motion teasers for Marvel's Netflix series The Defenders claims. But Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist all look pretty cozy — and fierce — in the just-released poster for the series.

The four superheroes who fight on the streets of New York glare at no one in particular in the new poster and key art, looking like they came straight out of promotional material for a '90s network TV drama. And I mean that in the best way, because those early 2000s promos on The WB were nothing short of amazing.

Check out The Defenders poster after the jump.

Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, and Finn Jones strike a pose in the stark black and white poster for The Defenders — perhaps harkening back to the Gen X indie movie posters (I don't know, I get a badass Clerks vibe) that all inexplicably take place in New York.defenders

The motion images of the four Defenders also strike me as looking a lot like the cover art to Rent another iconic piece of '90s pop culture. Seriously, look at it and tell me they don't give you those vibes.

I'm not sure what the point of this '90s-esque marketing is other than to tie the series to New York, which is a setting so intrinsic to all the characters' stories — well, except maybe Danny's. Marvel has consistently pushed The Defenders, and the four solo TV series leading up to it, as the streetwise foil to the sprawling, cosmic superheroes in the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy that populate the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Although many of the shows, like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, were critically lauded, sparking fans call for the Defenders to cross over with the Avengers, they remain pretty separate from the rest of the MCU — which is in keeping with the show's disgruntled taglines, "Not here to make friends," and now "There's no 'us' in team."

Indeed, we last saw the four of them clashing in the first trailer for The Defenders, in which the presence of a looming war and Sigourney Weaver's imposing Big Bad forces them together.

Here's the official synopsis for The Defenders below:

Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Danny Rand/Iron Fist (Finn Jones), a quartet of singular heroes with one common goal – to save New York City. This is the story of four solitary figures, burdened with their own personal challenges, who realize they just might be stronger when teamed together.

The cast of The Defenders is rounded out by Sigourney Weaver (Alexandra), Elodie Yung (Elektra), Scott Glenn (Stick), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Elden Henson (Foggy Nelson), Carrie-Anne Moss (Jeri Hogarth), Rachael Taylor (Trish Walker), Eka Darville (Malcolm Ducasse), Simone Missick (Misty Knight), and Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing).

Marvel's The Defenders will be available for streaming on Netflix August 18, 2017.

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