Irregular’s Intel – Why I Love Luke Cage (Revisited)

Blog-IIHere at Geek Watch One, we try to not repeat ourselves. But with Luke Cage hitting Netflix this week, we thought it was worth revisiting Kylan’s post from last year covering the character’s history. Enjoy! 

Luke Cage is a Marvel character who has been around since the early 70’s and has mostly been a B or C tier character until Alias (with Jessica Jones) and the “Civil War” event. Now he’s up there with the big boys – Cage is even an Avenger now! As you may know, he is one of my faves and is a great study in self improvement. Ride with me in the way back machine as I give you a crash course on him from his meager beginnings to his rise to the top.

Luke_Cage,_Hero_for_Hire_Vol_1_1Luke Cage started off as Carl Lucas. He was a little bit of a trouble maker when he was a kid. He ran around with a gang, “The Rivals”, that included his friend Willis Stryker. Eventually Carl realizes that this is not the way to live his life and quits the gang and goes legit, working mainly low skill jobs. Meanwhile, Willis has caught the eye of organized crime bosses and he’s brought into the fold. Stryker manages to piss off some Mafia heads and they send muscle to beat him. Carl shows up and saves his friend’s life. Stryker’s girlfriend Reva Connors leaves him because of the violent life Stryker lives and seeks solace in the arms of Carl. Willis is angered by this and plants drugs in Lucas’ apartment and calls the police on him. He is then arrested and convicted for the crime and is sent to prison. Carl decides to keep to himself and try to ride out the time when he is offered an opportunity to have his sentence shortened. A doctor working on a formula for speeding up cell regeneration needed a human test subject. There is a guard who hates Lucas and sees messing with the doctor’s machine as a chance to be rid of Lucas once and for all…but that isn’t what happened. After messing with the dials before Carl gets in, the machine goes haywire and explodes, giving Carl Lucas steel hard skin, super strength, and increased cellular regeneration. He then promptly escapes and heads back to New York.

From here, you can see the Blaxpoitation inspired origin that Luke Cage was given. It was a reflection of the times and the character was rather popular. Now, once he gets back to NYC he changes his name and, while looking for work, stops a purse snatching and someone pays him a reward. He then gets the idea to become a Hero for Hire… basically a super powered Shaft. When I was a kid I felt bad for him… he was getting paid to do stuff that Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man did for free. But, as I361311514158_1 got older, I gained a newfound respect for the man. He was a super hero with a business plan!! True, he was still talking jive and was made to look like he was little more than an impervious blaxpoitation hero, but that was what was selling at the time.

Eventually the blaxpoitation fad dies out and Luke Cage is teamed with another victim of a 70’s fad that had fallen out of fashion, Iron Fist, a creation out of the Kung Fu craze. The two team up and it is a bromance of the ages. Now, he’s still talking jive, but he’s at least he’s not as angry. Eventually, Power Man and Iron Fist gets cancelled and the two are relegated to guest spots in other books.

It’s not until the 90’s that we see Luke Cage begin to develop. He gets another solo series and it shows him symbolically throwing away the old costume for more modern attire. He’s also become more aware of the world around him, that there’s more to life than New York City. The book eventually ends and a new Heroes for Hire book begins. But, it isn’t until Brian Michael Bendis gets his hands on Luke Cage that we see real changes happen in the character. In Alias we begin to see the softer side to the traditionally hard edged character. We also begin to see elements of self imLuke_Cageprovement in him. In subsequent books (Heroes for Hire, The Pulse, Daredevil, Thunderbolts) we see that he has begun to learn other languages, become an effective leader, and is able to operate with Captain America and Tony Stark as easily as he can with Iron Fist and Moon Knight.

The Luke Cage that you see now is one who has depth, relevance, and resonance. He could easily have stayed street and no one would have missed him, but he has been one of those characters who has always held a special place in the hearts of many comics fans – I mean Nick Cage picked his stage name because of Power Man! It’s good to see THAT Luke Cage on my TV screen!

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