Luke Cage Gets His Own Hulkbuster Armor

Sweet Christmas! Mayor Cage wages war on a Spider-Man villain in Luke Cage: Gang War #3.

January 10, 2024, 4:05pm

It takes a Hulkbuster to be a gangbuster. Crime lords like the Kingpin and Tombstone have plunged New York into an all-out gang war, forcing Mayor Luke Cage to uphold former Mayor Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Act — even as the turf war escalates across the entire city. But when Alistair Smythe unleashed an army of Spider-Slayers, Cage donned a stealth suit and assembled a new vigilante team to defend the city: his wife Jessica Jones, the former Iron Fist (and currently powerless) Danny Rand, and the duo Cloak and Dagger.

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This week’s Luke Cage: Gang War #3 begins with Smythe’s giant Spider-Slayers attacking the mayor’s office as he plots to take over New York while the city is at its most vulnerable. The skyscraper-sized robots prove to be too formidable for Cage and Cloak, who are on the frontlines despite being in violation of the Anti-Vigilante Act. His “secret identity” blown, Cage tells police officers on scene that they can arrest him after he’s stopped Smythe.

If Cage can penetrate the robots’ armor and destroy the circuitry, he can neutralize the Spider-Slayers. The unofficial defenders arrive to help Cage against the Spider-Slayers… only for Smythe to activate a legion of (human-sized) robots. Outgunned, Danny realizes the heroes can’t win fighting hand to hand and returns to the Rand Corporation to retrieve a secret weapon. Danny’s company funded a tech firm out of Tokyo that convinced him to build a robo-suit that may or may not be operational.

As the Spider-Slayers overwhelm Team Cage and New York’s finest, the heroes marvel at the sight of Cage piloting a giant suit of armor he calls “the Cagebuster.” With it, he’ll have a helping hand from Spider-Man when Luke Cage: Gang War #4 concludes writer Rodney Barnes and artist Ramon Bachs’ four-issue Gang War tie-in on February 21.