Before I begin, let me say that I based my initial opinion solely off "The Defenders" series and this would be my downfall into madness.
Long before the rumors of Cox entering the MCU I had decided to delve into the Netflix MCU. With a list of half a dozen shows to watch, all with multiple seasons, I decided the best way to gain a wide picture without spending a week or longer binging every title was to see one series that gathered 4 together for a superfriends team up!
So The Defenders was my entrance point into this side universe that, at the time, was considered NOT cannon. In this series I instantly fell in love with Jessica Jones. Raw, unpredictable, best marvel character in blue jeans, she just commanded the screen. My next in line favorite was Luke Cage, tough, kind, compassionate, he felt real in a world of make believe.
But it wasn't all good feelings and sunshine. Not knowing any of the backstory on the team, Daredevil and Iron Fist fell short on 1st impressions. Iron Fist was a white rich kid that somehow attained the powers clearly meant to be passed from Chinese fighter to Chinese fighter through all recorded time?.. that felt kinda culturally apropriated. HA! And Charlie's way of acting blind was just overwhelmingly distracting. His scenes with Stick made that even worse as Stick's blind acting was far more technically apropriate.
From then on I had prequalified Charlie as a hire off his parkour skills and not his acting prowess. And let me assure you, online, I got beaten daily when I went on my anti-Cox parade.
Maybe I was jaded? This was "My" Daredevil and I am probably the only person on earth who validly enjoyed Ben's film. HA! I liked the cast, liked the way they defined Daredevils sonar sight, liked how Ben portrayed the part. For me, I could easily see how he would become Batman and knew he would be fairly good at it. Under Zack's lead, he was outstanding!
Flash forward to more rumors and leaks and I was torn, bringing Cox in made his series cannon. The multiverse Loki created offered every early series and film a path into our current MCU. But at the time.. it still meant bringing in the "parkour" guy. HA! I had to hype myself up that this would open the door for Jessica and Luke, and if seeing Iron Fist and Cox was how that happened, I was ok with the trade off. But I still held that poor impression and still got spinning kicks in the threads when I voiced that narrow viewpoint. So I needed to soul search and see if I had missed something.
So off to the Netflix I went, I set aside some time and began my journey into Hell's Kitchen. And ohh, how wrong I had been about everything came into focus almost instantly! I was immersed and engaged from episode one. By episode 3 I was a Daredevil junkie needing my fix and thinking about the story arc in my sleep.
What I thought was a parkour actor turned out to be a high flying, fast kicking, full cardio, fighting machine of a man! His 1st multi enemy fight scene was just unreal. I now believe he is in the top 10 fighting actors in all of Marvel. His entrance into the MCU will step up the game for the franchise and after seeing Black Panter, that game needed some stepping up. But that's another story for another day.
And it revealed why he chose to portray a blind man in such an unusual way. The series seems to have rethought how Daredevil "sees" things, no longer this matrix effect in CGI. Now it's more like all his senses work together to paint a picture that is very detailed and 3 dimensional. And he tries to look like a normal blind guy, but it comes off just a tad sideways. But I get it and it totally makes sense now.
I was also very interested in King Pin. With him entering Hawkeye, I needed to get a greater understanding of that character too. And holy handgrenades Batman, I got a giant gulp of him too. What a deep and meaty character they created for him in this series. So dark, but so emotional. I fully understand why he wanted to reprise that character for the MCU and I am looking forward to more (come on, do we really think they brought him back just to shoot him in the head?.. be honest).
So, after that deep dive into the man's work I was changed internally. He went from a guy I was ok seeing just to bring in cast members I instantly loved to the most needed addition to lift the franchise up and raise the bar on action.
Now, Iron Fist, that guy may take a bit more soulsearching to accept, but that too, is another story for another day.