One Of The MCU's Most Controversial Releases Is Finally Getting A Sequel

2 weeks ago 15

Published Aug 25, 2026, 2:15 PM EDT

Sean is a senior writer for ScreenRant and has been writing about new TV releases since December 2023. He has received multiple advance screenings of popular shows and ideated his own coverage read by hundreds of thousands of readers.

Sean is a self-published author of a Western novel. Sean has also written award-winning opinion pieces related to local politics while getting his Bachelor's degree in journalism.

One of the most controversial projects in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is finally getting a sequel nearly a decade later. Over the years, the MCU has had some real highs and lows. There are nearly as many MCU movies that made billions at the box office, like Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as there are films that bombed hard and lost money, like The Marvels. The many MCU TV shows are just as inconsistent, from the highs of Loki to the lows of Secret Invasion.

For a media juggernaut like the MCU, however, even controversial releases rarely stay dead. Ant-Man, for example, will return in the cast of Avengers: Doomsday despite the failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. In rare cases, however, a MCU project is so controversial that its heroes are shelved for years on end. Perhaps the most famous example is Netflix's Defenders, a show that was criticized upon release and mostly forgotten about for nearly a decade now.

There are some behind-the-scenes reasons the cast of The Defenders have had minimal involvement in the MCU to date, like the licensing agreement between Marvel Studios and Netflix, but it's also partly due to the show's divisive reception. The Defenders was a moderate success at first, but it paled in comparison to shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones. Now, however, Marvel is giving the Defenders a second chance in Daredevil: Born Again season 3.

Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 Is A Follow-Up To The Defenders

The Daredevil revival series Born Again has been building up to reintroducing the Defenders as a superhero team for some time now. Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones and Mike Colter's Luke Cage both appeared in Born Again season 2, for example, though they only had small roles. Now, Born Again season 3 is set to bring all the Defenders back, including Finn Jones' Iron Fist, for the first time since 2017.

It's not currently clear why the Defenders are reuniting for Born Again season 3, as they last got together to combine their forces against The Hand, but something will bring them together again. Based on the ending of Born Again season 2, they'll likely have to get Matt Murdock out of prison to face a new villain, as Wilson Fisk fled New York. Regardless of how it plays out, it's now clear that Born Again season 3 is the most direct follow-up to The Defenders that Marvel has ever done.

It's also a bit ironic that the Defenders are currently the main selling point of Daredevil: Born Again season 3. Though it received fairly good reviews, The Defenders was one of the worst Netflix Marvel shows when it was first released. The show's story was rushed and underdeveloped, and it just felt like an overall letdown for a crossover series years in the making at that point. Despite its troubled history, The Defenders is now being redeemed through Born Again season 3.

Born Again Season 3 Can Rehabilitate The Defenders' Image

The impending return of the Defenders in Daredevil: Born Again season 3 also gives the MCU a chance to rehabilitate the Netflix superhero team. As previously mentioned, The Defenders was a bit of a controversial release for Marvel. It was alright but not great, and it heavily focused on the very divisive Iron Fist, whose solo show had an abysmal first season.

Born Again season 3, however, can change the way fans view the Defenders. Instead of associating the team with the underwhelming Netflix show, Born Again can give them a story worthy of the team's members. The revival series already proved that it can rehabilitate Daredevil, as the first season didn't handle him well only for the second season to be much closer in tone to Netflix's original series. Daredevil: Born Again could do the same for Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist.