Marvel Makes a Powerful Change to Luke Cage’s Origins

“It’s about power, man.” Before he was Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, Carl Lucas was a petty thief on the streets of Harlem. When gang leader Willis Stryker framed him as a pusher of heroin, Lucas was arrested and did time at Seagate Prison: a maximum security prison on the ocean. Determined to escape prison and get his revenge on Willis, Lucas volunteered to be the guinea pig for Dr. Noah Burstein’s experimental process in exchange for parole. A research physiologist working under a grant from Stark International, Burstein subjected Lucas to an electro-biochemical system for stimulating human cell regeneration to counter aging and disease.

Lucas emerged from his chemical bath with newfound power: he was strong enough to break out of prison with his bare fists, and bullets bounced off his impenetrable skin. He then returned to New York and adopted a new name — a reminder of the time he spent caged in prison — and became Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. The man called Cage took his revenge on Willis, now Diamondback, and later took yet another new name: Power Man.

RELATED: Ultimate Namor Surfaces as Captain America Battles the Red Skull Gang in The Ultimates

When the 16-issue Hero for Hire was retitled Power Man starting with 1973’s issue #17, Cage christened himself the flashier “Power Man” so his superhero exploits might get the same press coverage as the likes of Spider-Man and Captain America. After a fight with Danny Rand, the Living Weapon known as Iron Fist, in 1977’s Power Man #48, the book was retitled once more when the duo decided to go into business together in Power Man and Iron Fist #50. With the ex-convict finally exonerated for Willis’ crimes, the issue was appropriately titled “Freedom.”

But that was the original Marvel Universe. On Earth-6160 — a divergent universe that resembled Earth-616 until it was remade by the Maker, a villainous, multiversal Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe — a fifteen-year-old Carl Lucas “Luke” Cage was falsely imprisoned in Seagate in 2005.

The Ultimates #9, from writer Deniz Camp and guest artist Chris Allen, then jumps to the present day: February 2025. Cage is transferred to Gordium Correctional Facility, a Midas Group Penitentiary “specializing in the for-profit prison space.” (In this reality, Midas is the “ultrapreneur” who purchased the White House in 1963 — the same year that the United States of America was reshaped into the North American Union and Regional Subsidiaries as seen in Ultimates #2.)

Cage has his global citizenship revoked and is reminded that within the walls of this black site, prisoners have no rights. After spending the past two decades behind bars, in which he strengthened his body and mind while enduring abuse from uniformed guards, Cage makes an ally when he saves a fellow inmate from being shanked: Danny Rand.

A worker in Midas’ mandatory worker-employment program, Cage rails against “modern-day slavery” and the system that has made them into “non-people.” He tells Rand, “They say it’s about justice. They say it’s about the law. It’s not about any of that sh-t. It’s about power, man.”

In a flashback to Seagate in 2014, Cage is brutally beaten for forming a “prison gang” that is a reading group. In February 2025, Cage continues: “It doesn’t matter the color of your skin or what god you worship. The only distinction that matters in here is the distinction between the pigs and the prisoners. The guards and the inmates. Us and them.”

“The guards are our only enemies here,” Cage says. “Our most immediate struggle is with themm and through them, the unjust system they uphold. We struggle for nothing more — and nothing less — than control over our own lives. If we are to succeed in our struggle, you’ll have to fight for the life of the man next to you as if it were your own. Which it is. Because believe me, if they come for him one morning… they’ll be coming for you that night.”

In a broken world where the supervillains who sit on the Maker’s Council control the seven major territories from the shadows, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Lad, has set out to fix the world. He formed the Ultimates resistance network and, using Stark boxes to send technology to people like Peter Parker to unlock their destinies as the heroes they were supposed to be, has been recruiting heroes like Thor, Lady Sif, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Charli Ramsey/Hawkeye, Lejori Joena Zakaria/She-Hulk, Hank Pym/Giant-Man, Janet van Dyne/Wasp, Jim Hammond/Human Torch, Reed Richards/Doom, and America Chavez.

January 2024: Cage has been sent to the Seagate infirmary so many times that he gets a reputation for being “unbreakable.”

February 2025: Cage plots a prison break inside Gordium Correctional Facility. Over a game of chess, he tells Rand, “The people, whether inside these walls or outside, have no control over their lives. But we can take control. First of this facility, and then our future. The system cannot stand. The world can no longer afford it. It never could. It cannot be reformed — the system resists reform — but must be transformed in the revolutionary sense. We must take power back for the people. Many of whom will at first be afraid of us. That’s okay. We’re going to scare them not to death, but to life.”

January 2024: Cage receives a Stark box and a message from Tony Stark. Within the orb is an ionic catalyst that will endow Cage with unbelievable strength and unbreakable skin. As Cage embraces his destiny, a hologram of Iron Lad tells him: “Together, we will free the world.”

February 2025: Cage’s prison break is foiled by Gordium guards. It’s Midas policy to use lethal force to squash attempted escapes and riots, so Cage and his co-conspirators are lined up against a wall to be executed by firing squad.

January 2024: From his cell in Seagate Penitentiary, Luke Cage is reborn. “They stole your future. Robbed you of your destiny,” Stark tells him. “Do you want it back?”

February 2025: Gordium guards open fire on the chained Cage. But bullets bounce off of his bulletproof skin, and their chains cannot hold him.

January 2024: Cage smashes through the penitentiary walls to take Seagate Prison with a rallying cry: “All power to the people!”

February 2025: Cage leads another uprising in Gordium. “All power to the people!”

January 2024: Iron Lad congratulates Cage on taking Seagate and freeing the prisoners. He invites Cage to join the Ultimates, but Cage tells him he can do more good inside than out.

Cage tells Stark: “Because of all I’ve endured, I know — I can’t get free until everybody’s free.” When he’s transferred to another Midas Group Facility, New Brunswick Correctional, Cage has broken free of his bondage and, wearing chains and handcuffs from the prisons that couldn’t break him, Luke Cage leads another revolt with the words: “ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.”

Ultimates #9 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.