(Note: This post contains spoilers for Netflix’s “The Defenders.”)
Detective Misty Knight becomes a big player in Season 2 of “Iron Fist,” helping Danny Rand and Colleen Wing deal with the Triad gangsters in Chinatown. But if you’re not caught up on “The Defenders” or “Luke Cage” Season 2, you might be wondering what the deal is with Misty and her superpowered arm, and you might have missed how she came by it.
Netflix’s “The Defenders” takes place between “Luke Cage” seasons 1 and 2; after “Daredevil” Season 2 and “Iron Fist” Season 1, but before “Jessica Jones” Season 2 and “Iron Fist” Season 2. For a brief period, it finds most of New York’s street-level superheroes (Luke, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist) teaming up to take down the operation of the evil ninja group known as the Hand.
While Luke (Mike Cotter) and the rest are fighting the Hand, Misty (Simone Missick) follows the supers to Midland Circle, where the bad guys are trying to complete their evil mission. She comes across Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) and Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) planting C4 to take down the building and stop the Hand’s plans. Or, more accurately, she finds the pair fighting members of the Hand who are trying to stop them from blowing up the building.
Among the bad guys fighting Colleen and Claire is the sword-wielding Bakuto (Ramón Rodríguez), one of the founders of the Hand and Colleen’s former mentor. Misty intervenes in the fight to save Colleen’s life as she fights Bakuto, but can’t save herself — Bakuto’s blade slices off Misty’s arm in the process. Colleen and Claire manage to win the fight and save Misty before the building is leveled.
Misty losing her arm is a big part of her character development in “Luke Cage” Season 2, and in the comics, it’s part of what eventually turns Misty into a superhero herself. Danny (Finn Jones) uses his company, the Rand Corporation, to create a replacement arm for her (in the comics, it comes from Tony Stark). The powerful mechanical arm gives Misty the strength to fight crime, and she winds up leaving the police force in the comics. She eventually teams up with Colleen Wing to form the Daughters of the Dragon.
There might be a similar future in store for Misty in the Netflix Marvel shows, now that Danny hooked Misty up with her new arm in “Luke Cage.” She gets a few chances to use it in “Iron Fist” Season 2 top stop a bad guy or two. Misty’s path beyond “Iron Fist” hasn’t been determined, so who knows what she’ll be able to do with her mechanical arm — but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a history of prosthetic arms turning regular people into seriously powerful badasses.