Marvel's battle-scarred 'The Defenders' find teamwork tough

New York : Riding the slipstream of the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, "The Defenders" is promising to bring a more tortured and cerebral superhero vibe to Netflix's ever-growing repertoire of Marvel series.

The show unites for the first time the titular characters from the streaming service's four standalone Marvel series -- "Luke Cage," "Iron Fist," "Jessica Jones" and "Daredevil" -- when it premieres on Friday. 

They join forces to battle a threat to their home town of New York in the shape of the malign Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver), who seems to be linked to the shady multinational conglomerate known as The Hand.

But the group starts out as a tenuous alliance between four very different characters, all of whom are used to going it alone and have little time for the concept of team spirit.

The group's first meeting doesn't augur well for things to come, with Luke Cage and Danny Rand -- alias the Iron Fist -- even coming to blows. 

Actress Krysten Ritter says Jones, a young woman with a tortured past, a penchant for booze and a colorful vocabulary, is "very reluctant" in particular to be part of a team. 

"Everybody's so used to working on their own, they all feel that their way is the best way," said Mike Colter, who plays Cage, at a roundtable with journalists in New York.

"So sometimes each one of us gets really determined to force our way of doing things because it's the only way we know." 

What persuades the four heroes to band together, says Colter, has to be something really big -- a danger to "a larger number of people than just the people of Harlem" that threatens the whole city.