By Phil de Semlyen | Posted 31 Oct 2016

Netflix’s arm of the MCU is building towards its own Avengers-style team-up, The Defenders, in 2017. In a departure from the norm, the season will run to only eight episodes rather than than the 13-strong runs of Jessica Jones, Daredevil and Luke Cage.

The first two episodes of The Defenders also have a director in place. S.J. Clarkson, veteran of two Jessica Jones episodes (Crush Syndrome and Ladies Night), will be behind the camera on Episodes 1 and 2 as Cage, Jones, Daredevil and Iron Fist team up to keep the Big Apple evil-free.

"It's not who's the big bad or how are their powers going to work or what's the action sequence that we're going to figure out,” explains Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb of the assembled superheroes. "It’s these are four people who have very different ways of looking at their lives. Now let's put them together and see what happens."

Before we see what happens as a quartet in 2017, there’s the small matter of Iron Fist’s solo run. That’s scheduled to launch on 17 March, 2017. Head here to see Finn Jones in action as Danny Rand in the first teaser trailer.