Defenders... assemble! As you may recall, back in February we shared news that Marvel Studios were exploring a potential MCU comeback for the Defenders — namely Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones, a trio of street-level heroes last seen on screen in Marvel television's pre-Disney+ Netflix era. Now, with Daredevil Born Again having successfully brought Charlie Cox's Man With No Fear back into the MCU fold (and Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin and Jon Bernthal's Punisher, too), Disney has confirmed at its Upfront presentation today that Krysten Ritter will be back as Jessica Jones in the upcoming Daredevil Born Again Season 2.
Ritter took the stage with her The Defenders co-star Charlie Cox at New York's North Javits Centre to confirm the news, though the exact mechanics of her return to the role of Marvel's heavy drinking, hard hitting superhero-turned-private eye remain under lock and key for now. What we do know however is that it's been a long six years since we saw Jessica Jones, still haunted by David Tennant's Killgrave, flirt with the idea of quitting the hero business and heading out to El Paso before ultimately deciding to stay in the Big Apple at the end of Season 3. And, while the Marvel-Netflix project certainly had its ups and downs across its 13 seasons and 160-plus hours, the sense that Ritter simply is Jessica Jones still remains among fans — and clearly among Marvel's top brass, too.
Whether Jessica Jones' fellow Defenders will eventually re-enter the MCU or not remains to be seen at this point, but you have to imagine that with Cox and Ritter locked in for a reunion, it surely is only a matter of time before Mike Colter's Luke Cage and/or Finn Jones' Danny Rand/Iron Fist rock up in Hell's Kitchen, too. Until that day comes though, the combination of that gamechanging Daredevil Born Again finale with Season 2's casting of Ritter and character actor extraordinaire Matthew Lillard has us chomping at the bit to see what show runners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are cooking. Matt Murdock did say he needed an army to take down Wilson Fisk though, didn't he? Just sayin'...