Every Marvel Show, Ranked From Worst to Best

There's no denying that Marvel has taken over the world of pop culture since Iron Man first hit the big screen in 2008. In the past 15 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and superhero films, in general) have dominated the box office and come to define a particular era of blockbusters. Although the MCU's film counterparts have been going through an overall rough patch over the past few years, the TV side has only continued to churn out hits (as well as a few misses). It has always been a strong, often underrated part of Marvel, from the early ABC days to Netflix's Defenders era to the recent proliferation of Disney+ shows. While MCU movies often drown themselves in an attempt to focus on the big-picture, (multi)-universal implications of their heroes' stories, the TV shows are comfortable indulging in the smaller, interior worlds of just one person or a handful of people. This allows the shows to really indulge in character portraits and take their time fleshing out some of their most beloved figures.

Marvel's TV agenda shows no signs of slowing down, with Echo hitting Disney+ earlier this month and the long-awaited, often re-named Agatha Harkness show slated to premiere on the streaming giant later in the year. After about a decade of live-action television since the MCU took off (excluding one-off specials like Werewolf by Night and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special), we thought that it could be a good time to take a look back at all that Marvel's live-action TV selection has to offer. From the forgotten X-Men shows that aired on Fox and FX to the latest Disney+ releases, here is every Marvel live-action TV series, ranked.

Released on ABC just as Netflix's Marvel shows were taking off, Inhumans is a certified flop. The series tackles the Royal Family of Inhumans after a military coup forces them to relocate to Hawaii, with Black Bolt (Anson Mount) at the helm. The show was an unsuccessful IMAX special event experiment at the time that failed to offer a compelling story, intriguing characters, or visuals that really worked, and has since faded into the background of the great Marvel tapestry.

The Defenders — the four Hell's Kitchen-based Marvel characters released on Netflix in the late 2010s — had such a wild array of success. The shows both provided some of the best Marvel adaptations of all time (more on that later) and, in the case of Iron Fist, some of the worst. As the last Defender to get his own show, the series followed Danny Rand (Finn Jones), a billionaire martial arts expert who called on the power of the Iron Fist to defeat his enemies. The show lacked the emotional, character-driven tethers of its counterparts and failed to offer anything of substance to the Defenders' line-up.

Helstrom's greatest fault is that it just isn't that interesting in the grand scheme of Marvel stories. At the outset, the Hulu series had an alluring premise, especially considering the often overlooked horror elements that it originally promised to incorporate. The show follows the two adult children (played by Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon) of a serial killer as they hunt down the worst that humanity has to offer, but it fails to approach its demonic concepts with any ingenuity.

Secret Invasion was a bit of a misfire. The series, which marks the first Marvel TV show in Phase 5, gives Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury a well-deserved solo series. The show sees Fury team up with Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), a former Skrull leader, to defeat rogue Skrulls who want to control Earth. Jackson is great, but the series struggles in plot (possibly due to creative shake-ups during production), and ultimately misses the mark on creating a memorable, cohesive story.

The Defenders — Netflix's super-collab made up of Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Luke Cage — were crafted in such a purposeful way, always overlapping their individual series and leading towards a big team-up like The Avengers, which was why it was such a surprise when the lone Defenders season aired and it was simply OK. In it, the quartet teams up to fight The Hand, an insidious five-fingered force haunting the city. The best part of the series, other than finally getting to see the four Defenders together in one room, is Sigourney Weaver's performance as Alexandra, the main finger and helm of The Hand.

Overall, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier isn't a bad show. The series follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) six months after Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) handed over the Captain America mantle. Wilson teams up with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) to stop a group of individuals who are juiced up on fraudulent Super Soldier Serum and of the belief that the world was better during The Blip. The miniseries is an action-packed tale worthy of the Captain America title, but it ultimately suffered due to timing. The show premiered hot on the heels of WandaVision, which was one of the best shows of the year, and set The Falcon and the Winter Soldier up for inevitable, hard-to-live-up-to comparisons.

Lasting three seasons, Runaways wound up being one of Hulu's most interesting original teen dramas — with a superhero twist. The series follows six teenagers who team up against their criminal parents, the individuals who make up the Pride supervillain team. While Runaways might be overlooked in favor of the more adult Marvel shows (and the ones more closely related to the Avengers), the show was a fun, light romp. The series has since been removed from Hulu and lost in the overall lore of Marvel, but it was a relatively successful endeavor in its heyday.

Hopes for The Punisher, a spin-off from the beloved Daredevil series, were admittedly high. The show follows former marine Frank Castle/the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) as he enacts his particularly brutal form of vigilantism on the world. Although the series was intricately set up in Daredevil, wherein viewers got to see the Punisher's mission to avenge his murdered family, it struggles to stick the landing and interestingly picks up on the tail end of this vengeance quest. With this central task out of the way, The Punisher never quite finds its footing again.

While X-Men shows are often left out of the Marvel live-action TV game (due to complicated licensing), the franchise has appeared tangentially in a couple of punchy series, including Fox's often overlooked drama, The Gifted. The series follows the parents of the Strucker family (played by Amy Acker and Stephen Moyer) after they discover that their children are mutants. The show takes place in an alternate timeline that no longer has X-Men, so a mutant revelation is less than desirable, and the parents decide to go on the run from the government. The Gifted was promising, but it was ultimately canceled after two seasons and pretty quickly forgotten.

Echo is both rated TV-MA and dropped as one five-episode-long binge, which is reminiscent of Marvel's Netflix shows. Also like the Netflix shows, Daredevil (Charlie Cox) makes an appearance (ahead of the highly anticipated Daredevil: Born Again). The series picks up after the events of Hawkeye, following Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) as she is pursued by longtime Marvel TV villain Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), her former boss and surrogate uncle. The show is dark, gritty, and — although slightly slow in the beginning — ultimately wraps up into a promising future for the next phase of MCU television (under the character-driven Marvel Spotlight banner).

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is responsible for so much of Marvel TV today. Premiering after the success of The Avengers, the series focuses on Avengers character Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) as he assembles a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to investigate bizarre cases and fight back against Hydra. The ABC series ran for seven seasons, becoming Marvel's longest-running live-action TV show, and garnered a passionate fan base. Most impressively, it balanced Marvel storylines with full network season orders, creating a superpowered procedural of sorts.

Luke Cage (Mike Colter) received a decent introduction in the first season of Jessica Jones, but it's in his titular series that viewers get to see the extent of both his impenetrable powers and his grief over the loss of his wife. The third Defender standalone series, Luke Cage is alluring on its own, but the series lags when it comes time to compare it to the tight storytelling of some of its Defenders counterparts. The show also features an all-star supporting cast, including Mahershala Ali, Rosario Dawson, and Alfre Woodard. While it's not the most memorable show from Marvel's Netflix era, Luke Cage stands the test of time as a portrait of a man just trying to get by.

Marvel goes Freeform in Cloak & Dagger, a great series about two teens (played by Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt) who gain powers following the collapse of a platform on the Gulf when they were younger. They discover that their complementary powers work best together and eventually team up. The series succeeds more than some of its teen Marvel counterparts because of how topical it is, proving a fearlessness to embrace difficult subjects. From the oil rig to police brutality to addiction, the show never shied away from the hard stuff and left audiences all the better for it.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law caught a lot of flack for a show that still wound up being quite good. The series follows Bruce Banner's (Mark Ruffalo) cousin, Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), as she attempts to balance her life as a lawyer of superhuman cases after an accidental contamination from Bruce leaves her with the ability to turn into a Hulk. The series embraces Marvel's comedic side and puts a fun twist on the "can she have it all?" genre of television that is usually reserved for network sitcoms. Also, it's a pretty great, literal take on female rage and poses some of the interesting questions we've all had about the Avengers over the years (like, do they get health insurance?).

If you were disappointed by what went down on the cliff in pursuit of the Soul Stone in Endgame, the excellent Hawkeye miniseries helps smooth over some of the aches by providing Hawkeye with one of his most compelling storylines to date and introducing the world to Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Twenty-something Bishop, who was inspired by Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) as a kid, masquerades in his Ronin get-up and eventually catches his attention. The duo team up, fairly reluctantly on Barton's part, to take on some common enemies and attract a slew of characters along the way, including a memorable appearance from Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh).

The Ms. Marvel miniseries was such a delightful surprise and introduced one of the best teen members of the MCU. As Kamala Khan, Iman Vellani plays a very relatable 16-year-old who spends her days writing Captain Marvel fanfiction. Struggling to fit in with her peers, she finds her world turned upside down when she develops powers. Not only is Ms. Marvel a smart take on the classic teen series that showcases the highs and lows of high school, but it also provides a winking, meta character for longtime Marvel fans to see themselves in. 

Moon Knight impressed. The series, about a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder, functions like a psychological horror at times. The always excellent Oscar Isaac stars as Marc Spector, whose altars pull him into a dark mystery featuring Egyptian Gods. The series includes a particularly powerful performance from Ethan Hawke as a persuasive cult leader. The show is a different direction for Marvel, creating a welcome change of pace that is refreshing and points to an evolving take on MCU television.

Some might have forgotten about Legion, which is technically connected to Marvel through the X-Men, since the show premiered with relatively little fanfare on FX despite being universally well-received. The series leans into its dark, prestigious roots and approaches superpowers through the lens of mental illness and misunderstanding, asking what if the thing that is wrong with you is actually a gift? Dan Stevens stars as David Haller, a man diagnosed with schizophrenia and routinely institutionalized, who finds kinship among fellow mutants and is able to learn about his psychic mutant powers at the Summerland institute, under the guidance of Melanie Bird (Jean Smart). The show is a dutiful experiment, both in genre and narrative, and approaches the superhero genre from a place of curiosity.

Airing on ABC during the winter mid-season breaks for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter was one of the best Marvel TV series, despite being canceled after just two seasons. The show follows the events of Captain America and the aftermath of World War II, focusing on Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) after she joins the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), where she is relegated to boring office work while other (male) colleagues get to be in the field. The series dutifully fleshes out one of the most beloved Captain America characters, separating her from being known just as Steve Rogers' love interest, and also gives a young non-AI Edwin Jarvis (James D'Arcy) more of a backstory.

Loki is fun and clever, and the best possible scenario for Marvel to bring back the god of mischief, who was previously killed off in Avengers: Infinity War. The show follows an alternate "time-variant" version of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who split off in 2012 after successfully stealing the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame. This Loki is arrested for branching timelines and tasked with fixing things, or else he'll get permanently erased from existence. Trippy and heavy on the multiverse, the show smoothes over any confusions by leaning on Hiddleston as a charming, still slightly naughty guide.

Premiering in April 2015, Daredevil was the first of the Defenders to hit Netflix and helped showcase a darker, grittier type of superpowered individual in the MCU. The show is the best possible case for a reboot of Ben Affleck's early 2000s film of the same name, and gives Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) a much more nuanced portrait. The series follows Murdock, a blind attorney, as he practices law by day and fights crime by night utilizing his heightened senses. While the underground conspiracies that Murdock uncovers as his vigilante alter-ego and the extravagantly choreographed fight scenes help drive the series, it's his relationships with Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) that came to define the series and its avid following.

WandaVision, released during the pandemic in early 2021, was such a cool moment for TV and managed to reinvigorate an excitement for Marvel following 2019's largely conclusive Avengers: Endgame. A love letter to television, the show follows Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) as they go about their days as a married couple in an idyllic sitcom world. The miniseries takes its time revealing its central plot — including details surrounding why a very dead Vision seems to be alive, how their TV trope-filled life came to be, and where they are in the Marvel timeline — but the mystery is compelling, heartfelt, and well worth the wait. The series is also a surprisingly poignant meditation on grief and escapism, released in a year when many people were using TV to do just that.

Jessica Jones is hands-down the best thing to come out of Marvel's on-screen boom, across both film and television. Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the series follows superpowered Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) in the wake of a traumatic event that has left her reclusively working as a private investigator in Hell's Kitchen and drinking her way through her nights. When the source of her trauma (a creepy, incredible performance from David Tennant) resurfaces, she must summon all of her strength to fight back against him. The series also serves as an epic backstory for Hellcat, stemming from Jessica's beloved adoptive sister Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor). While the third and final season wasn't everyone's cup of tea, the first stunning season alone propelled the show to the top of this ranking. Not only does Jessica Jones top Marvel lists, the show is one of TV's best depictions of the aftermath of sexual assault and coercion, as well as the complicated intricacies of PTSD.