The Defenders will have major effects on all four heroes

The four main characters of The Defenders will be changed by the events of the show.

Many expected that established character development and a number of story arcs would be brought into The Defenders. However, it was unclear if the heroes would take anything from the show. Well, showrunner Marco Ramirez has the answer.

Ramirez recently spoke with Playboy and explained that weaving together the storylines from the four individual series was no easy task:

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"“There were charts. I mean, I was just popping pills, Claire Danes style, looking at the walls going, ‘This doesn’t make sense!’ It was seriously color coded like, ‘This is where Luke ended. This is where Claire was.’ It was crazy town. I think ultimately, the goal is that in many years, if you want to sit down and watch the whole thing, chronologically, you can.”"

He then confirmed that each of the main protagonists will somehow be changed by what occurs in the show:

"“None of us wanted to do the procedural version where they’ll go back into their own shows completely unchanged. The events of Defenders will affect each of them.”"

With such a massive event, it’s understandable that all the heroes — and maybe even their respective supporting casts — will take something from the experience.

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This isn’t too different from the way things wrapped up at the end of The Avengers (2012). For instance, Tony Stark was left traumatized by the ordeal, while Thor returned his villainous brother Loki to Asgard to pay for his crimes.

It’s difficult to say exactly how the characters will be changed when they return to their own shows. But, with The Hand gunning for the heroes and their allies, it’s safe to assume that hardly anyone will come out of the ordeal unscathed.

The Defenders begins streaming on Netflix on August 18, 2017.