5 Essential Luke Cage Stories

We are officially less than one month away from the release of Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix. Since Michael Colter’s debut as Luke Cage in Marvel’s Jessica Jones Season 1, fans have been eager to see the character move to center stage and take over as the protagonist of his own series.

In the meantime, those curious about Luke Cage can catch up with his past adventures in the Marvel Comics universe, some of which are sure to inform the events of Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix.

Luke Cage is a hero who has gone through many different phases in since he was created by Archie Goodwin, John Romita Sr., and George Tuska in 1972.. Here we present five essential Luke Cage stories to summarize the characters long career.

Most of the issues mentioned here are available on Marvel Unlimited.

Marvel’s Luke Cage arrives on Netflix on Sept. 30, 2016.

The Origin

Luke Cage first appeared in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 in 1972. The issue provided a backstory for the character, told in bronze age style, that revealed how the convict Carl Lucas came to be Luke Cage.

In 2012, Marvel Comics released Avengers Origins: Luke Cage #1, a one-shot that featured a modernized version of Luke Cage’s origin told by writers Mike Benson and Adam Glass and artist Dalibor Talajic.

The story of Avengers Origins: Luke Cage #1 tells of how Carl Lucas was imprisoned and abused at Seagate Prison after being framed by and old friend name Stryker. Lucas is selected for a science experiment that gives him superpowers. Lucas uses his new powers to escape the prison. Once he’s bac on the street, he takes the name Luke Cage and realizes that he can use his powers to make money as a hero instead of turning to a life of crime.

The issue concludes with a final showdown between Luke Cage and Stryker, and an epilogue that hints at the hero Cage will later become. It’s a fine starting point for anyone looking to jump into Luke Cage’s history.

The Hero for Hire

Most fans who know anything about Luke Cage know him as being partners with Iron Fist as Heroes for Hire. The two first teamed up in Power Man #49 and Power Man #50 (Power Man is superhero name that Luke Cage used to use). This is also the story in which Luke Cage finally clears his name with the authorities.

In 1978, Power Man was renamed Power Man and Iron Fist beginning with issue #67. Luke Cage and Iron Fist continued their adventures as a crimefighting, for-profit duo through 1986’s Power Man and Iron Fist #125, and the series is fine Bronze Age era reading that really soaks up the blaxploitation sensibility that informed Luke Cage’s creation.

If you’d prefer a modern take on Luke Cage and Iron Fist’s bromance, Marvel Comics relaunched Power and Iron Fist early in 2016 under the creative team of writer David F. Walker and artist Sanford Greene. It’s a strong series, and it began appearing on Marvel Unlimited in August.

The Marvel Knight

While Netflix branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may use the Defenders name, it has little in common with the strange grab bag of superheroes that made up the Defenders team of the Marvel Comics Universe.

Instead, Marvel’s Defenders on Netflix has much more in common with the street level superhero team featured in Marvel Knights, a series begun in 2000 that features several of the characters appearing in Marvel’s Defenders.

The team featured in Marvel Knights, who never actually refer to themselves by that or any other name, is originally brought together to hunt down the Punisher. By the time Luke Cage joins the team in issue #11, the team already consists of Daredevil, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Cloak and Dagger, and Shang-Chi.

Luke Cage makes a splash in his very issue, and immediately finds himself butting heads with Daredevil, as Luke Cage’s Hero for Hire ways don’t sit well with the moralistic Daredevil. It’s a nice hint of possible things to come when the two meet on Netflix for Marvel’s Defenders.

For more of Luke Cage at the street level and teaming up with other street level heroes, we’d recommend the Luke Cage: Avenger trade paperback collection, which features the aforementioned Avengers Origins: Luke Cage, the gritty New Avengers: Luke Cage – Town Without Pity miniseries, and a team-up story that has Luke Cage joining up with Iron Fist, Daredevil, Moon Knight, and Spider-Man to take on Kingpin and Killgrave the Purple Man.

The Avenger

In 2005, Marvel Comics relaunched the entire Avengers franchise in New Avengers. The issue featured one of the most unique and star-studded Avengers rosters of the time. Avengers icons Captain America and Iron Man returned to the team, and Spider-Man and Wolverine, two of Marvel’s most popular character who had never been Avengers before, joined up. And with them came, to most fan’s surprise, Luke Cage.

Luke Cage almost immediately proved his worth to the Avengers. In the opening storyline, “Breakout,” Luke Cage helps the team – which consists of whoever happened to be around and wasn’t yet officially the Avengers – quell a riot at the raft. After that, he joined the team officially, and became the heart of the New Avengers, reminding that being a hero meant taking the time to do good as much as it meant stopping evil.

The first volume of New Avengers lasted 64 issues until the Siege event saw it relaunched for “The Heroic Age.” Luke Cage remained on the team post-relaunch and was also placed in charge of the Thunderbolts by Captain America himself.

This era is Luke Cage at peak superhero, interacting with the biggest and most iconic of Marvel Comics’ superheroes and supervillains. New Avengers was also the flagship Marvel Comics title of the era, so it’s really required reading for any Marvel fan.

The Wedding

We could easily have folded New Avengers Annual #1 into the New Avengers section of this article, but that didn’t feel like it was doing justice to the wedding of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, one of the most interesting, exciting, and relatable romances of the modern Marvel Comics era.

Of course, no superhero wedding is complete without a superhero battle, so the Avengers also square off against the Adaptoid, but what you’re really reading this for is the wedding of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.

If you’re wanting to track the romance of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones – and your should – most of that takes place in the comics that focus on Jessica Jones. Start with Alias, which has recently been collected into three new volumes titled Jessica Jones: Alias so that fans of Marvel’s Jessica Jones will know what they’re looking for. The romance continues in The Pulse, which sees Jessica Jones trade her life as a private investigator for a job as a superhero beat reporter. That series has also been recently collected as Jessica Jones – The Pulse: The Complete Collection.