Luke Cage: City of Fire Writer Reveals What Happened to the Canceled Marvel Series

At one point in 2021, Luke Cage: City of Fire was supposed to see release and serve as the return of a solo Power Man book. Scripted by Ho Che Anderson, the three-issue micro-series was set to include art by a different artist on each issue, featuring the likes of Farid Karami, Ray-Anthony Height, and Sean Damien Hill. At the time, many thought Marvel canceled the series because of ongoing pandemic-related distribution problems. As it turns out, that's not quite the case.

In a new wide-ranging interview with CBR, Anderson revealed Marvel opted to shelve City of Fire to protect the writer from "right-wing nuts." According to Anderson, the story was set to feature Luke Cage being hired by the mother of a slain Black man to protect the man's murderer, a law enforcement officer.

"Long story short, they sat me down and said, 'We're canceling this book. We're afraid that the subject matter is going to be damaging for you. We don't want you to be attacked by right-wing nuts,'" Anderson told the site. "I was like, 'Fellas, I can handle myself. Let them come at me. I have no fear about that. You don't have to do this.'"

Anderson added that he isn't convinced that's the real reason why Marvel decided to cancel the book.

"I don't know that that's precisely what was going down. I think there were probably some other issues with their higher-ups who just said, 'No, this is going to affect our bottom line. We don't want the story out there,'" he added. "That's my suspicion. Nobody's ever come out and said that to me. Also, this was right around the time [of] the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and the decision that had come down, and they were really worried that there was going to be some blowback with the Kyle Rittenhouse lovers of the world or whatever. So they chose to take the cautious route."

The writer added that he has since repurposed that story into something of its own that he hopes to publish regardless. He's also not stopping the cancellation from affecting his work with the House of Ideas, as he's already working on more stuff with the publisher even though it might not align with his personal storytelling desires.

"I've gotten over it now. Like I said, I'm continuing to work with them," Anderson concluded. "I'm still enjoying myself, and I managed to figure out a way to repurpose City of Fire for its own creation, which I'm super excited about. But I will never do work for Marvel that is about anything other than 'The villain of the week wants to take over the world.'"

0comments