Luke Cage was the first black superhero to headline his own mainstream comic and because
of his popularity on the Netflix TV shows, let’s take an obnoxiously deep dive into
his history, origins, and everything in between.
Because that’s what we do here on Comic Drake.
First off, Luke Cage isn’t even his real name.
It’s Carl Lucas.
Carl was a member of a gang in Harlem called The Rivals along with his best friend, Willis
Stryker.
After a while though, Carl went legit, but Stryker just got deeper into crime.
Both of them were after the same woman named Reva Conners, who got with Stryker first,
but found comfort in Carl once she saw what the criminal lifestyle was like.
Needless to say, Willis was not a fan of that so he planted heroin in Carl’s home which
got him sent to prison.
Carl got into many fights in jail and hearing that Reva was killed while he was incarcerated
certainly didn’t help.
However, Carl was enlisted for a risky experiment looking to aid cellular regeneration.
Unfortunately, one of the guards that Carl pissed off sabotaged the experiment causing
an explosion.
Since this is a comic book, this of course gave Carl superpowers in the form of super
strength and unbreakable skin.
Hell, he’s even strong enough to create shockwaves simply by… clapping.
Sweet Christmas, that’s just awesome!
...You see, Sweet Christmas is Luke’s catchphrase.
Okay… moving on...
Using his newfound powers, Carl escaped prison and took up the new name of Luke Cage as well
as the alter ego of Power Man, the Hero for Hire.
It’s exactly what it sounds like.
Sometimes though, Luke would take on jobs and not accept payment until he knew the family
could afford it.
Good on you, Luke Cage.
Good on you!
Cage also sought revenge on his former best friend, Stryker, who was now going by the
new name of Diamondback, but the feeling was empty when he finally took vengeance so Luke
just threw himself into his work.
Fun fact, he’s done a job for Doctor Doom, but since Doom skipped out on paying him,
Luke became friends with the Fantastic Four and kicked his butt.
In fact, Luke became such good friends with Marvel’s first family that he even filled
in for The Thing when he lost his powers.
Outside of the Fantastic Four though, Luke Cage was also briefly a member of The Defenders
which are basically a street level version of The Avengers.
Funnily enough, Cage is the only member of the Netflix Defenders crew to have ACTUALLY
been a Defender in the comics.
It’s crazy how that works out.
Now, it’s hard to talk about Luke without also mentioning his best friend, Danny Rand
A.K.A.
Iron Fist.
Oddly enough though, the two didn’t get along at first, but after a couple of team
ups, they grew closer.
Heck, Iron Fist even helped Luke get evidence that proved that he was innocent of the initial
crime that Diamondback framed him for.
The two got so close that Luke even included Danny in on his business, changing Hero For
Hire into Heroes For Hire.
On one of their missions, the duo met Luke Cage’s future wife, Jessica Jones, who was
going by Knightress at the time.
While they barely kept in touch, Luke never EVER forgot her name.
Now when one of Iron Fists’ enemies made Luke think that he killed Danny, Cage avoided
authorities by moving to Chicago.
When the truth was revealed though, Luke stayed, but got kidnapped and was forced to undergo
a second procedure that made himself even stronger.
Oh, and it also made his jacket as unbreakable as his skin…
Because comics.
With that whole ordeal out of the way, Iron Fist re-formed Heroes For Hire and although
he was reluctant at first, Luke did get around to joining the team.
This iteration of the company was purchased by Stark-Fujikawa and laid off Luke since
he was an ex-con.
Yes, Luke was laid off from a company what was his own brainchild.
After taking some other jobs like helping out with Daredevil’s Marvel Knights, Luke
decided to take a short break from the superhero lifestyle and opted to open a bar where he
reconnected and had a one night stand with Jessica Jones.
I’d like to point out though that this bar only shows up for one issue total and never
EVER comes back which begs the question…
what happened to it?!
No seriously, how does one lose a bar or not even mention that they owned a company like
that at some point?
I don’t know.
Anyway, Luke went back to doing some freelance work with one job being Matt Murdock’s bodyguard.
See, when the world found out that Matt was Daredevil, he still wanted to deny it so he
hired both Luke Cage AND Jessica Jones who have not spoken in months.
They…
did not get along at first, but warmed back up to each other which is good considering
that it’s revealed that Jessica was three months pregnant with Luke’s baby.
Yup.
Luke was very supportive of Jessica during her pregnancy, but was dragged into a team
assembled by Nick Fury to investigate the country of Lavetaria funding tech themed supervillains,
but was mind wiped afterwards.
As a result, he was attacked in his home with a massive explosion.
The hospital had a hard time treating Luke because of his unbreakable skin, but he was
moved by Iron Fist to the secret hospital of the Night Nurse, the superhero community’s
go-to gal for medical care.
After recovering, Luke helped a bunch of other superheroes contain a mass breakout at a big
superhuman prison called The Raft.
All of the heroes involved went on to form a new incarnation of The Avengers since there
wasn’t one at the time.
After joining the Avengers, Jessica gave birth and out came little Danielle Cage!
In a moment of happiness, Luke proposed to Jessica, they got hitched, and have been married
every since!
The happiness didn’t last for long though since pretty soon afterwards, the superhuman
Civil War started and Luke fought against the government as a member of Captain America’s
Secret Avengers despite the fact that his identity has been public for years.
Even after the war, Luke led some other heroes who also avoided registering their identities
so they hid from the law in Doctor Strange’s basement.
Jessica Jones signed the Superhuman Registration Act so that her daughter could be safe in
Avengers Tower which caused some conflict with Luke who still didn’t want to.
Ironically though, she left the baby Danielle with Jarvis, the Avengers butler, so she could
help fight the shapeshifting alien Skrulls who had secretly been invading Earth and it
turns out…
Jarvis was also a Skrull imposter...
Luke was so desperate to find his child that he even enlisted the help of the Dark Avengers’
leader, the former Spider-Man villain, Norman Osborn A.K.A.
The Green Goblin in exchange for joining his team.
Despite Norman getting the child back, Luke double crossed him and didn’t join the Dark
Avengers.
Well, Osborn wasn’t a fan of that and when Luke took some heart damage, normal doctors
weren’t able to patch him up because again, unbreakable skin.
That’s when Norman stepped in and fixed Luke, but put a bomb right on his heart.
Thankfully though Doctor Strange and Hank Pym were able to get rid of it.
After the fall of Norman Osborn, Captain America took over as the head of global security and
gave Luke Cage two important jobs.
The first was making him the warden of The Raft and head of the Thunderbolts, a government
run super team made up of convicted villains.
If that wasn’t enough though, Cap also gave Luke his own Avengers team and Tony Stark
even sold Cage the Avengers Mansion for just a dollar.
Admittedly, these New Avengers more or less supplemented the main Avengers team, but Luke
disbanded it after the Avengers vs. X-Men event in order to ensure the safety of his
wife and child.
In one last act, Luke sold Avengers Mansion back to Tony Stark for five dollars, turning
a profit!
Cage went on to reform Heroes For Hire, but after helping save New York from Thanos during
the Infinity event, he rebranded it as the new non-profit Mighty Avengers.
This was all fine and dandy, but when Luke got caught up in the AXIS event, his personality
was inverted and he tried to sell the Mighty Avengers, Heroes for Hire, and any associated
trademarks.
Thankfully, this move was blocked by his wife and Iron Fist thanks to legal safeguards so
that once Luke got better again, all was a-ok.
Well… that is until the still inverted Tony Stark sued the Mighty Avengers for copyright
infringement…
just as the world was ending thanks to the universe destroying Incursions.
Well the Secret Wars put the Marvel universe back in order, and now has Luke buckled down
with his family life even going so far as to watch how much he swears since his daughter
was picking up some bad words.
However, the former office manager of Heroes For Hire, Jennie Royce, was released from
prison after she served a sentence for manslaughter-while-possessed.
She took advantage of Luke and Iron Fist’s guilt over her situation and had them steal
a magic necklace.
Jennie got corrupted by the artifact so the duo take her down and in the aftermath, they
decide to re-form the Heroes For Hire.
As soon as they do though, they’re thrown in the midst of the Civil War II event which
more or less brings us to the time of this recording.
If you want to read more about Luke Cage for yourself then I recommend checking out Alias,
The Mighty Avengers Vol 2, and the current run of Power Man & Iron Fist, but hey!
Which video would you like me to tackle in the future?
A history of the Heroes For Hire or Iron Fist?
Click to cast your vote or tweet me @TrailerDrake.
And also, I mentioned a LOT of Avengers teams in this video so if you want to learn more
about all of them then I recommend checking out this video right here where I go into
every single Avengers team that was ever in the comics.
Like it’s one of my favorite videos that I’ve made and I put a LOT of work into it.
So I think it’s a good one.
You should check it out if you’re interested.
If not then, you can click off and go watch something else and leave me here… in sadness.