Iron Fist CRAM! – Everything You Need To Know For The Defenders

Iron Fist, the fourth series of the Marvel Studios / Netflix partnership, saw the Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of Danny Rand (Finn Jones), a billionaire orphan returned to his native New York after being raised and transformed into a kung-fu master by a clan of kick-ass monks. Endowed with the power of the Iron Fist — allowing Danny to channel his chi into a powerful, glowing fist — Danny is tasked with defending the mystical city K’un-L’un from the Hand, the shadowy group of (sometimes undead) ninjas that have been giving Matt Murdock hell in two seasons of Daredevil.

Danny Rand will next be seen as one quarter of The Defenders, the street-level supergroup that brings Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Danny together to oppose a plot concocted by adversary Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver). And when The Defenders drops next Friday, the team up series will complete young Danny’s origin story.

“At the end of Iron Fist, [Danny] doesn’t even know what a superhero is. So then to suddenly be interacting with these three… [They] really make him kind of wise up and come to terms with his responsibilities a lot more,” Jones said of Danny’s evolution. “From the beginning where we see Danny in Iron Fist to where he ends up in The Defenders, he has made that complete origin arc. He has shed his immature self. The idea is, in The Defenders, he has in a sense become the Iron Fist.”

Iron Fist is the lowest rated series of the Marvel Netflix family, its rating settled at an abysmal 17% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Whether you made it through the series or if the largely negative reviews from critics and fans alike means you bypassed Iron Fist entirely, check out our recap video above to get a quick rundown on Danny Rand before you see him next in The Defenders, hitting Netflix this Friday.