Comic Book Character of the Week: Luke Cage

Luke Cage, born Carl Lucas, was born and raised in Harlem where he spent his youth entrenched in gang activity with his friend Willis Stryker. Over time, Lucas sought to better himself after seeing how his actions affected his family, while Stryker continued rising throughout the ranks of crime. Eventually, Stryker’s girlfriend broke up with him and went to Lucas, so Stryker blamed Lucas for his breakup and framed him for a crime.

While in prison, Lucas’s brother falsely told him that their father died, and thus Lucas got into many prison brawls due to his rage at his father’s death and his best friend’s betrayal. Also while in prison, he became the target of a sadistic guard and was eventually chosen to go through testing based on the Super-Soldier process. While Lucas was undergoing the experiment, the sadistic guard messed with the controls, hoping to kill or maim Lucas but instead Lucas gained superhuman strength and durability.

Afterwards he went back to New York and had a chance encounter with some criminals that made him want to use his powers for good. He became Power Man for a while though this eventually created conflict with the original Power Man.

Since then, Luke has worked with Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Dr. Druid, Blue Marvel, the Fantastic Four, and more and has joined such teams as the Defenders, the Avengers (multiple times), and the Heroes for Hire (what he is most known for).

Luke is more famous for his work with Iron Fist as the Heroes for Hire and for generally wanting to be paid for his work as a hero. This was one of his complaints when he worked with the Defenders, until eventually they paid him a retainer.

More recently, Luke has led an Avengers team (the Mighty Avengers) which included the likes of Blue Marvel, Monica Rambeau, Blade, Power Man (son of the original Power Man), and more. This new Mighty Avengers team has helped stop Thanos’s invasion as well as Shuma-Gorath’s entrance into the Earth dimension.

Luke’s powers include unbreakable skin and durability that has taken hits from Wolverine’s Adamantium claws, Wonder Man (at least a 90 tonner), Rhino, Hulk, Namor (even underwater where he’s more powerful), Thing, and more. He’s also taken nukes and other powerful energy attacks such as high voltage electricity, and has taken the impact of a large building falling on him. His unbreakable skin has also given him resistance to nerve hits and to other attacks that target the neural system. He is also, of course, very bullet proof.

His Superhuman strength began at around 20 tons, but has since upgraded to allow him to knock out the likes of Thing and She-Hulk in one hit (very impressive), and also take out Ironclad (80 tonner) and Namor (who has tangled with Hulk and Thor before).

His fighting skills are decent as he’s been trained by Iron Fist some, and he’s been agile enough to disappear from human sight and to perform a lot of acrobatics.

Despite his humble beginnings, Luke has worked hard to become a leader and a hero and has sacrificed a lot to save the Earth again and again.

Make sure to check out his new and popular series on Netflix.