Why Claire Temple holds the Netflix Marvelverse together
By Josh Nadeau
Superheroes get all the glory – but Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson, is the real star of the Netflix Marvelverse. How does she bring it all together?
Minor spoilers for all seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders.
Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury originally showed up as a side character in Iron Man 2, and back then, audiences didn’t know how instrumental he would be in bringing the Avengers together in their own film. Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple plays a very similar role in Netflix’s corner of the MCU.
At first she appeared just as a supporting character in the first season of Daredevil, but Claire would eventually go on to play a more influential role in all the Defenders’ stories and stake out some space for her own. Here are a few reasons she’s the connective issue tying our favorite small-screen heroes together.
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Claire has a personal connection to each Defender.
She started out as a potential love interest for Matt Murdock on Daredevil, but Claire went on to prove her importance on all four series leading up to The Defenders. She saved the day on the finale of Jessica Jones, and then joined the cast of Luke Cage as a major player and eventual romantic partner.
She went on to defend herself by training at Colleen Wing’s dojo in Iron Fist and went on to journey with them to China, becoming not only a supporting character but a physical protagonist with the ability to defend herself. Claire used her connections to help bring Luke and Danny Rand together in The Defenders. , and her history with Matt and Jessica helped smooth the team into cohesion.
While she never appeared in The Punisher, her presence was felt to profoundly in the other series that it wouldn’t be out of place to call her the fifth Defender.
She rounds off a lineup of powerful women of color
Jessica Jones has become a feminist icon and rightly so – in her first season, she went on to defeat a walking representation of rape and violation. But most of the other powerful women in the Netflix Marvelverse are women of color.
Claire Temple, as a strong latina woman, is taken just as seriously whether she’s on the streets of Harlem or in the boardrooms of Hell’s Kitchen. She led the way for Simone Missick’s Misty Night and Jessica Henwick’s Colleen Wing, and was the first to provide a substantial diversity to the show’s lineup.
Claire represents the every[wo]man.
Jessica has superpowers, Misty has a robotic arm and Colleen was trained by ninjas. Claire Temple started the series as a nurse, but has gone on to kick ass and take names all by herself. By not having powers or augmented training, Claire provides a gravity and sense of stakes that would be all too easy to forget in a regular superhero show.
But that doesn’t mean she takes her role passively: she’s continued to provide top-notch medical service to heroes in need, but she’s also taken up arms against enemies like The Hand more than once. She’s a regular woman who stepped up, and gives the audience someone like them to root for.
Next: Luke Cage season premiere recap: episodes 1 & 2
Catch Claire on season two of Luke Cage, currently streaming on Netflix.