Why Luke Cage needs more Jessica Jones

Luke Cage season two drops tomorrow on Netflix. Could it have been improved by a little more Jessica Jones? Absolutely.

Caution: spoilers for The Defenders as well as the first seasons of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones

When the cast list for Luke Cage’s highly anticipated second season dropped earlier this year, it was missing one crucial element: Jessica Jones.

While it might be easy to forget, especially now that Luke Cage has become a black American icon and very well may have broke Netflix when the show first came out, he started off as a slice of eye candy in Jessica’s first outing.

No one has arguably added more to the Netflix Marvelverse than Jessica Jones – not only is she a powerful icon in the #MeToo era, her show became a bonafide critical hit and landed Marvel their first Emmy to boot. She’s gone on to become one of the leading characters in the franchise, landing two seasons of her own and major screentime on Avengers-lite team-up The Defenders.

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While she’s been replaced by Iron Fist’s Danny Rand as Luke’s latest superhero partner, here are a few reasons why we think she would have made an incredible addition to the season.

Major sparks would fly

Luke and Jessica have been linked in major ways, both on-screen and in the comics. With the first season of Jessica Jones exploring her guilt at being forced to kill Luke’s wife, their complicated connection went through sparks to betrayal to sparks again when they met up once more for The Defenders. Given that they eventually got married in the comics and had a child, the chemistry makes a lot of sense. But Marvel seems to be playing the long game here.

Luke and Jessica combine major fanbases

There was once a time when playing to interests considered niche or political was too risky for large studios, but not anymore. People loved Jessica’s stance as a feminist icon, and the politics of Luke Cage’s first season represent a black American pop-culture renaissance that went on to make Black Panther one of the studio’s most successful outings yet. With major interest in both characters, bringing them together would only be a win for Netflix, Marvel, and audiences everywhere.

The perfect on-screen match

One of the biggest criticisms of The Defenders was how it dropped the ball maintaining the tone of the individual series. Daredevil and Iron Fist are masters of martial arts with connections to mystical factions like the Hand and K’un-lun, but Luke and Jessica are New York brawlers looking just to get by and land a few drinks. Their regular-joe dynamic goes far with helping the audience connect with the characters and, who knows, believe there may really be heroes among us.

There’s also the question of common courtesy: with Luke adding so much to Jessica’s first season, it only makes sense to return the favor. Check out the latest trailer below.

Next: Luke Cage returns June 22nd: Here's what you need to know.

Netflix will release all thirteen episodes on June 22nd.