For years, the street-level characters who once shared the screen in Marvel’s Netflix era had no clear place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) were left in limbo after Marvel Television closed its doors, and Daredevil (Charlie Cox) resurfaced through ambiguous cameos that didn’t address his past. Daredevil: Born Again has been reinstating that old continuity piece by piece, making the Defenders officially canon in the Sacred Timeline. Season 2 even brought back Jessica and Luke, with the upcoming Season 3 adding Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung) and Danny Rand. So far, Marvel has only committed to a third season of Born Again, but it’s clear that, if the audience keeps supporting the show, there’s a place in the future of the MCU for all these characters. One Defender star, in particular, already knows where he wants to go next.
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“I’m Danny Rand until I die,” Jones told fans this past weekend at Florida Supercon, when asked if he would take on another role in the MCU. Sharing the stage with fellow returning Defenders Colter and Ritter for the first time at a convention since the original series aired, Jones was then asked which hero he would want Danny Rand to share a scene with going forward. “We’ve seen Danny a lot in the kind of street-level New York world,” he said. “I think it would be kind of cool to see him go a bit more mystical, a bit more powerful, maybe fight Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) a little bit.”
Can Iron Fist and Shang-Chi Cross Paths in the MCU?
Iron Fist and Shang-Chi frequently cross paths in Marvel Comics. Both characters emerged from the same 1970s martial arts boom that produced Marvel Premiere‘s Danny Rand and Special Marvel Edition‘s Shang-Chi within roughly a year of each other. The pair first shared a story in Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 in 1976, then teamed up repeatedly over the following decades, from the “Heroes for Hire” era through the “Immortal Weapons” storyline that directly inspired the mythology behind Netflix’s Iron Fist, to a standalone team-up in 2018’s Iron Fist ongoing series. Across those appearances, the two heroes are consistently written as close equals in hand-to-hand combat.
Translating that comic book dynamic to the screen is complicated by how differently the MCU has positioned each character so far. Shang-Chi graduated from a solo hero into cosmic-scale stakes, with official concept art placing him inside Sam Wilson’s Avengers lineup ahead of his appearance in Avengers: Doomsday. Iron Fist, meanwhile, has stayed rooted in the same street-level New York setting of the Netflix era. That gap is not necessarily disqualifying. Danny Rand’s own comic book mythology, from the mystical city of K’un-Lun to his connection to the dragon Shou-Lao, has always given the character a foothold in the kind of mystical adventures Shang-Chi lived through in his solo movie. Still, there’s more than internal coherence at stake.
Any crossover of that scale would also require Marvel Studios to trust Jones with a bigger stage than he has had since Iron Fist‘s rocky journey on Netflix. The series’s first season opened to abysmal reviews, a steep drop from the high praise Daredevil and Jessica Jonesearned. Even Luke Cage, already more divisive, was embraced by fans despite some obvious pacing issues. Iron Fist, in its turn, was criticized for its writing, the lackluster action scenes, and even Jones’s grumpy take on a character who’s widely known by comic book fans as a lovable goof. The show’s second season, aided by Black Panther fight choreographer Clayton Barber, addressed some of those criticisms, and Jones has since rebuilt goodwill to come back to the fold. Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 now offers the star a second shot at playing Danny Rand, and how he handles that spotlight will determine his MCU future.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 is currently in production for a March 2027 release.
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Every Defender Returning in Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, Ranked by Power
