Comics Explained: Luke Cage

As of writing the second season of Luke Cage has just begun on Netflix. Cage is one of Marvel's major characters and his debut in 1972 represented trends of the time. He is also extremely important in the history of comics as although he is far from the first black comic book character, Black Panther as one example appeared in 1966, he is the first to have his own comic. Born during Blaxploitation he has had his own identity since then and remains one of Marvel's biggest characters.

Real World Origins

During the 1970s as a new genre came to prominence following the end to legal racism in the United States during the 1960s. This genre featured African-Americans as protagonists with majority African-American casts, quite often heavily featured African-American Vernacular English, was originally for an urban African-American audience (although this soon changed) and looked at issues still plaguing the African-American community which the Civil Rights Movement failed to address. Junius Griffin of the NAACP coined a phrase to describe this new genre: Blaxploitation. Some have argued that Blaxploitation was empowering while others have argued it reinforced white views of African-Americans. Marvel soon took part in Blaxploitation with the creation of Luke Cage. Created by Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and John Romita Sr. Cage debuted in his own comic, Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 in 1972.

Comic Origins

Cage's debut in Hero for Hire #1

Cage's backstory has periodically been explained over a course of around four decades in various stories, The Defenders Vol.5 #3 is a good example which showed us a lot of his backstory. Luke Cage was born to a family in Harlem, New York and was originally called Carl Lucas. The young Carl joined a gang with his friends called The Rivals and you may recognize a few of them from the Netflix show, such as Shades but he is different to his comic counterpart. His best friend was Willis Stryker who will become important later. Carl decided to leave the underworld seeing how it was hurting his family and he decided to lead a legal life, but Stryker became very involved with the underworld becoming powerful. However, when Stryker was running fowl of the mob he planted drugs on Carl and called the police; this could eliminate the drugs and get both the police and mob off his back. This brings us to Hero for Hire #1. Taken to Seagate Prison Carl declares his innocence earning the hatred of a racist warden called Albert 'Billy Bob' Rackham who decided to make his life hell. Then Marvel's figurehead's legacy came into play. A recurrent theme in Marvel's history is people trying to recreate the Supersoldier serum which gave Captain America his powers; Weapon Plus which gave Wolverine his adamantium is one example of this. Dr. Noah Burstein wanted to test his new serum in Seagate and Carl volunteered. Burstein left the machine he was using alone as Carl was undergoing the procedure so Billy Bob Rackham decided to tamper with it. Instead of killing him it made his skin super durable and expanded his muscle mass giving him super-strength and making his skin unbreakable. Carl literally punched his way through the prison walls and escaped; the prison saying he drowned as he escaped. Arriving back in Harlem he changed his name to Luke Cage and decided to adopt a new life course.

Hero for Hire

Now called Cage he decided to rent an apartment to operate from owned by a film student called David W. Griffith, (quite ironic considering film director D.W. Griffith, although talented, made the movie seen as reviving the KKK, Birth of a Nation). Cage decided to be a 'Hero for Hire' - if you needed help or needed criminals dealt with you could call Cage with his signature catchphrase heavily rooted in Blaxploitation, 'Sweet Christmas!'. Stryker, meanwhile, became scared that his former friend was alive and out of prison so he ordered a hit on him. At the same time Burstein set up in New York after learning of Cage's innocence assisted by Dr. Claire Temple. When Cage was attacked by Stryker's hitman Claire Temple rushed to help him only to find out that his was fine thanks to his unbreakable skin. In Hero for Hire #2 Cage planned to confront Stryker in order to clear his name with Claire's help which goes wrong as Stryker fell through a skyline killing him. Cage would begin fighting crime to help New York, or to help others, and in Hero for Hire #5 he came across one of his enemies who would later appear in the TV series: Mariah Dillard. A man was murdered and his body taken by a gang called the Rat Pack. His wife came to Cage and taking her job for free in sympathy which would bring him in confrontation with the gang's leader Mariah. Cage would defeat them and they would be sent to prison. In Hero for Hire #8 he would properly come into contact with the wider superhero community in such a fantastic fashion. He would be hired by Dr Doom to take down rouge Doombots and when he skipped town the Fantastic Four took him to Latveria! He then beat up Doom saying 'Where's my money, Honey?'. From issue seventeen the comic would go on to be called Power Man as Cage regularly started interacting with other heroes, including briefly replacing the Thing in the Fantastic Four, as he officially adopted that as his superhero moniker. 

Cottonmouth

Power Man #18, Cottonmouth's debut

A story arc introduced one of Cage's most enduring opponents in Power Man #18 and ending in #20: Cottonmouth. Luke came home one day to see two venomous snakes on his desk. When he had defeated them two men arrived to take him to their boss Cottonmouth. Cottonmouth was one of New York's major bosses and a key figure in the drug trade. He revealed his urge to hire Cage to which he agreed who hoped to trap Cottonmouth thinking he's the one who supplied the heroin used to frame him. After retrieving a shipment of heroin from a rival gang for Cottonmouth he was accepted into it and was introduced to the boss' assistant Mr Slick who was supposed to show him the ropes. Cage hoped to use Mr Slick's accounts to take down Cottonmouth but as he was contacting the police Cottonmouth attacked him. During the scuffle Mr Slick was accidentally knocked from a window killing him and ending Cottonmouth's with it as it was revealed that Slick's photographic memory meant that they had never needed to hold records. With that Cage had taken down another underworld boss but was still no closer to clearing his name.

Power Man and Iron Fist

As the 1970s wore on the interest in Blaxploitation started to dip and it coincided with a dip in interest of martial arts. As a result Marvel decided to bring their martial arts hero, Iron Fist, and place him in Power Man who still remained popular enough to warrant his own series. In Power Man #48 Iron Fist would join with Cage. The criminal overlord Bushmaster had found evidence of Cage's innocence and decided to use this to blackmail Cage - he would give Cage the evidence if he kidnapped investigator Misty Knight. However, Knight was the girlfriend of Iron Fist and the three came together to fight Bushmaster resulting in them permanently joining together and clearing Cage's name. He had his name legally changed to 'Lucas Cage' as the comic itself with issue fifty being renamed Power Man and Iron Fist. Together they would form the Heroes for Hire which remains a key part of Marvel up until today. Like when he was alone the Heroes for Hire would protect people and fight crime if asked by a law-abiding person. Throughout the run the two would become best friends and come into contact with other heroes. One of these, retroactively done, was Jessica Jones. With Power Man and Iron Fist #111 James Owsley (now called Christopher Priest) would take over the comic - he now writes the current run of Deathstroke. Owsley would try and move Cage away from his Blaxploitation roots including limiting how much he said 'Sweet Christmas' and expanding his vocabulary to not just include stereotypical phrases associated with Blaxploitation. Quite shocking in Power Man and Iron Fist #125 in 1986, the last issue, Iron Fist was killed off and Cage got the blame. Owsley later commented 'Fist's death was senseless and shocking and completely unseen. It took the readers' head clean off. And, to this day, people are mad about it. Forgetting, it seems, that (a) you were supposed to be mad, that death is senseless and Fist's death was supposed to be senseless, or that (b) this is a comic book'. Regardless in a traditional Marvel manner the dead Iron Fist was revealed to be a doppleganger five years later and he was brought back.

In 1992 Cage would get his own series again by Marcus McLaurin titled Cage where the front cover had Cage tearing apart his old uniform to show there was a break with the past. Set in Chicago where he would be a Hero for Hire again. He even teamed up with the Punisher in Punisher 60-62 where the two would fight drug dealers together. Eventually when Iron Fist turned up alive former Heroes for Hire lawyer, Jeryn Hogarth, would clear Cage's name. Trying to reconnect with his family he finds out that his brother, James Jr., had been recruited by an organization giving him powers. Now calling himself Coldfire he ended up fighting Cage but the two eventually came together to fight the organization with James sacrificing himself to take them down. Eventually Cage and Iron Fist came back together to reform the Heroes for Hire in 1997's Heroes for Hire #1. A villain called Onslaught had apparently killed the major Avengers, Fantastic Four and Dr Doom leaving a power vacuum in New York which Cage and Fist decided to resolve. They were joined by other heroes including She-Hulk, Hercules, Black Knight, White Tiger, the original Human Torch, Hercules, and the second Ant-Man. During this time Cage would face international foes, like Master of the World, and street level crime.

Jones and the Avengers

Cage and Jones from Alias #28

Cage would later appear in Jessica Jones' mature title Alias. After a sexual encounter as Jones worked as a private investigator the two would begin bonding from Alias #15 when they worked together as bodyguards for Matthew Murdoch, the Daredevil. Later on in the series when we found out about the abuse she was subjected to by Purple Man (partially shown in her own Netflix series) they grew closer until Alias #28 when she revealed that she was pregnant. Moving in together Jones would become a reporter for the Daily Bugle in another title, called The Pulse, which would involve Cage teaming up with Spider-Man to lure out the Green Goblin, who had attacked Jones, and reveal that he was Norman Osborn. We now get to Secret War. Nick Fury had recruited a team of heroes consisting of Cage, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Quake, Daredevil, and Black Widow to take down Lucretia von Bardas of Latveria. However, as Fury had left out that it would involve destroying part of a city he had the minds of the heroes wiped as he knew they would have opposed this. A year later von Bardas blew up Cage's apartment hospitalizing him as although he has unbreakable skin he is susceptible to trauma. Despite this he recovered and married Jessica who gave birth to a daughter called Danielle (named after Iron Fist). He would also form a new team of Avengers. In New Avengers #1 Cage would be one of the heroes to respond to an attempt at mass escape of several supervillains from the Raft prison alongside Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman and Wolverine. Together they would form the New Avengers.

The new team would face issues. During 2006's Civil War, which you can read about here, the superhero community became divided about the Superhuman Registration Act which would basically turn them into police officers. Cage was one of many heroes to oppose this and unlike the film the act was US only so Jessica went to Canada with their daughter. Cage became one of the key figures in the resistance to the act being second only to really Captain America himself. After Captain America's death at the end of the Civil War Jessica would join him in hiding where he would lead a resistance group called the New Avengers with other heroes, including Wolverine, against the government aligned Mighty Avengers. Cage would continue leading his team throughout the Skrull invasion in the Secret Invasion story and Norman Osborn's rule over SHIELD (which he renamed HAMMER) in Dark Reign. With Osborn's fall, and with it the Registration Act, Cage finally came out of hiding. However, he initially rejected joining the new version of the New Avengers in New Avengers Vol.2 #1 and only accepted when Tony Stark let him run his own team from the Avengers Mansion which he sold to Cage for a dollar (which he borrowed from Iron Fist to buy).

Luke Cage and the Mighty Avengers

Cage remained a integral part of the Avengers with him initially leading the new Thunderbolts, a team comprised of villains wanting to reform themselves, and he helped the Avengers fight the X-Men in Avengers vs. X-Men where he fought Namor. Eventually, Cage went on to form a new version of the Mighty Avengers who later actually defeated some of Thanos' invading force during the Infinity storyline. Cage has since remained very integral to Marvel's stories including the recent ongoing Hunt for Wolverine story being published as of writing.

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