The premiere of Marvel’s The Defenders looms closer, and Netflix has unveiled a bevy of new high-resolution images in anticipation. This is the culmination of an idea that began with Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel Television’s first foray into live-action streaming series. That show offered a more hard-edge and darker superhero series than Marvel’s network series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, and the idea was to craft a series of new Netflix shows based on different superheroes that would then lead into a team-up miniseries called The Defenders. Basically it’s Phase One of the MCU building to The Avengers, only on a much smaller scale.

That end result is nigh, but it definitely doesn’t mean the end. Daredevil Season 3 is on the horizon, Jessica Jones Season 2 is currently in production, and Marvel is even now filming its first spinoff series The Punisher with Jon Bernthal reprising his role from Daredevil Season 2. So while the Marvel TV Universe may very well never cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (they exist in the same world, but the TV characters won’t be in the movies and vice versa), they’re doing a pretty fine job of building out their own series of Netflix shows and characters.

Marco Ramirez and Douglas Petrie, who serve as showrunners on Daredevil, are the showrunners and executive producers of The Defenders alongside Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. Jessica Jones director S.J. Clarkson helmed the first two episodes of the eight-episode miniseries and helped set the visual tone and style of The Defenders.

The images below offer yet another preview of what’s to come, and Collider’s own Allison Keene has seen the first few episodes of the show. You can read her full review right here. The Defenders premieres on Netflix on August 18th.

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