The Essentials of Luke Cage

I have a number of Marvel Essentials that I haven’t read yet: Thor Vol. 1-2, FF Vol. 1-3, Spidey Vol. 1-5. I’ve picked some up and regretted it so much when I saw them, I couldn’t bring myself to re-read the stories. One of them is Essential Luke Cage Power Man Volume 1 TPB. Over at the Pulse, they have an interview with the three early writers of the 1970s series: Steve Englehart, Len Wein, and Tony Isabella. Now after reading this I have to give this volume another try. Cage was so cool at the time: the first black superhero to have his own series. He had this ex-con origin, where he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and tortured in jail by a white supremacist prison guard. As a result of a science experiment, he became nearly invulnerable with steel-hard skin (and yeah something else must have been steel-hard as well). Another thing that was different about Cage was that his series was titled “Hero For Hire”, making him the first mercenary hero, although he did his fare share of pro-bono work. The painful part in re-reading these old stories is all the phony, “black” dialogue that these white writers could only pick up from blaxploitation movies. When Cage’s sales dimmed, they changed the name of the book to “Luke Cage, Powerman!” and had him fight the original Power Man, a bad guy from the Avengers. Still later, they partnered Cage with Iron Fist in a pretty good series that was kick-started by Claremont and Byrne. Marvel tried reviving Cage in a darker MAX title by Brian Azzarello, which thoroughly turned me off. I’ve quite enjoyed Brian Bendis’ depiction of Cage in Alias Vol. 1 and New Avengers.