In a new Daredevil trailer released this morning, Netflix shows of some new characters only teased so far: including Daredevil’s new flame, Elektra (played by Elodie Yung), and a mysterious enemy called The Hand. Also, Daredevil and Elektra team up to fight ninjas.
Fans of the comics will immediately recognize the direction the new season is taking by introducing The Hand and Elektra alongside The Punisher and the threat of an empowered Yakuza. Featured in the action-packed trailer, we see some familiar faces facing down unfamiliar enemies: Foggy Nelson returns as Matt Murdock’s friend, who isn’t so impressed by his business partner’s alter ego, and we get a brief glimpse of Daredevil’s former mentor, Stick — played by veteran actor Scott Glenn. It’s Stick who names the new threat — the new big bad — that Daredevil and friends will face in the new season, reports Rolling Stone .
Marvel Comics’ Daredevil shares a complicated relationship with Elektra, the new entrant into the series, and the trailer released this morning hints that the two have shared a relationship in the past. Elektra is often cast as a foil to Daredevil’s moral code against killing his victims, which will no doubt serve as a point of contention in the new season with the introduction of the Punisher (played expertly by The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal).
Here comes part 2 of the ‘Daredevil’ trailer … and it’s full of Elektra https://t.co/UNSGCPugTn pic.twitter.com/eTZxaerfZd
— UPROXX Movies (@UPROXXMovies) February 25, 2016
The trailer doesn’t tease so much as it informs, showing us just what kind of season we’re likely to see from Daredevil . If the first season established the hero and his moral code, the second season will challenge his rules and introduce characters who are — in one way or another — inspired by or affected by the choices Daredevil made in the first season, reports Vox .
Elektra warns that the Yakuza never truly left New York City or Daredevil’s home turf, Hell’s Kitchen, but rather they’ve just sat back and watched the red-masked vigilante take out their enemies one by one, leaving the underworld of the city largely open for the taking. Also important to note, the trailer features ninjas scaling an apartment building — presumably the elevator is out of commission.
The ninjas featured throughout the trailer are members of The Hand, a villainous group of ninjas not unlike Batman’s League of Shadows, and as such, they feature prominently as a recurring threat for Daredevil — just as big and bad as The Kingpin (played expertly by Vincent D’Onofrio in Season 1).
The Marvel comics universe version of The Hand is a group of supernaturally empowered ninjas founded in 1588 as a society of Japanese nationalist samurai and have survived through the ages as assassins for hire, honing their martial arts and mystical powers in the shadows of the Marvel Universe. The appearance of The Hand offers a whole mess of crossover opportunities, as the group is known throughout the Marvel Comics Universe and frequently shows up in other series like Spider-Man , Captain America , and even the X-Men .
Watch Elektra Team up with Matt in New Daredevil Trailer https://t.co/xmKXxpx93V pic.twitter.com/1evrEK68JR
— GameSpot Universe (@GSUniverse) February 25, 2016
The addition of The Hand, a mainstay of Daredevil comics, might also pave the way for the next in Marvel’s Netflix series: The Iron Fist .
In the comics, Iron Fist – aka Danny Rand, the as-yet-uncast protagonist of the Netflix series – plays a kung-fu expert who protects an embattled Chinatown in Marvel’s New York City. Iron Fist is slated to appear beside Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage (and potentially the Punisher) in the cross-over miniseries The Defenders sometime in the future. The introduction of The Hand and a resurgent Yakuza (also the introduction of Elektra who is very plugged into the underworld of the Marvel comics universe) may signal an increased emphasis on the “mystical” side of the Marvel universe, ahead of the Doctor Strange film starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Daredevil Season 2 premieres on March 18 on Netflix.
[Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Netflix]
