Daredevil’s Charlie Cox says that a subtle clue reveals when Luke Cage takes place in the Marvel timeline.
Luke Cage will soon grab the baton of Netflix’s street level Marvel Cinematic Universe on television with scary super-strength. While the gritty urban action has, thus far been showcased in presumably linear fashion on Daredevil Season 1, Jessica Jones Season 1 and Daredevil Season 2, it seems that the Harlem exploits of Mike Colter’s nigh-indestructible would-be Hero for Hire actually takes place within the breadth of what we’ve already seen. Now, Daredevil himself Charlie Cox offers the proof!
At Wizard World Chicago’s Daredevil panel on August 21, Charlie Cox, who plays the titular blind beater of criminals, appeared alongside fellow cast members including, most relevantly, Rosario Dawson. There, Cox shared an interesting anecdote exemplifying the efforts of Marvel Studios to ensure a connected continuity between the Netflix shows. In this case, Dawson’s character in the embattled ER nurse Claire Temple was the apparent centerpiece of the strategy when a subtle onscreen detail in a Daredevil Season 2 episode gives away the timeline of the ensuing Luke Cage. As Cox explains (via Comic Book Resources):
"One thing that I thought was really cool is that in the second season, we had a scene together and in the storyline we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and it takes place at the hospital. Rosario had – Claire Temple has a cut in her eyebrow. So I was like, 'What is that?' Apparently it had nothing to do with our world but it’s part of Luke Cage. The timeline had been thought through and worked out so that whatever’s going on in Luke Cage, which we don’t know, I don’t know, somehow at some point during that show, the next day she’s in the hospital talking to me."
Dawson’s Claire Temple is, indeed, set to appear in Luke Cage (as pictured below), where the mysterious cut she's sporting in DaredevilSeason 2 will likely be explained. The appearance will yet again solidify the character’s status as the visible unifying thread of the Netflix MCU shows. Claire’s makeshift medical skills has played a crucial helping hand during the bad nights of Daredevil and his early, beaten, lacerated, near-death nocturnal activities.
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Notably, as a favor to her then-new friend Jessica Jones, Claire also saved the life of a powerful stranger in Luke Cage after an incident on Season 1 of Jessica Jones involving a shotgun blast directly to his head left the uber-durable hero unscathed on the outside, but in a coma after suffering brain trauma. After the hospital staff were vexed when conventional medical steps like IV needles were ineffective, the critical Luke was stolen back to Jessica's apartment where Claire – who had already accumulated experience caring for superheroes with Daredevil – figured out that Cage’s unbreakable exterior was actually quite vulnerable in his eyes; a weakness that saved his life, allowing Claire to relieve pressure in his brain.
Interestingly enough, for Dawson, the role of Claire has been an unconventional freelance type, per-episode experience, since her work for Marvel typically involves random shoots, not even allowed to read previous scripts for character context. In fact, sometimes she’s not even made aware of the actual Marvel show she’s shooting. As Dawson explains:
"I have no idea -- I’m just sort of working and have this question mark for the entire year, which is when are they gonna call me? And for what and how is it going to show up? What I do, I come in pretty late, so I won’t get those first couple episodes. That happened with the second season [of Daredevil]. When I came on, they didn’t send me any of the previous episodes so I suddenly just came in in the middle of all this insanity and they’re like, 'You’ll watch it at the premiere with the rest of us.' My character’s a little standalone in that sense."
Yet, Dawson’s Claire – at one point speculated to be the MCU version of comic book hero healer Night Nurse before Rachel McAdams was confirmed for the part in this fall’s film Doctor Strange– has been a crucial boon to the heroes of the burgeoning street level theater of the MCU and her character’s importance only seems to increase with each appearance, despite the apparent “standalone” strategy. She’s a character who has, thus far, been depicted as a luck-deprived individual whose original good deed of helping Daredevil in Season 1 ended up immersing her into the brutally inconvenient position of caring for New York’s vigilantes. However, we might see that position and her arc elevated with her upcoming appearance(s) in Luke Cage.
Luke Cage Season 1 will be getting paid to thrash evil when it arrives on Netflix on September 30.
