By Cameron Kerkau, managing editor.
Marvel premiered their latest Netflix show “Luke Cage” on Sept. 28 and it seems to have made quite a splash. There is even speculation that the technical difficulties that Netflix experienced on the date of its premiere were directly related to the amount of viewers that tuned into the streaming service to see the Power Man in action. It’s amazing to see a character who was once one of Marvel’s lesser knowns to get this kind of love and support. Especially since hardly anyone outside of staunch comic book reader’s had heard of him before it was announced that he’d be getting his own television show.
In fact, Luke Cage was once considered a relic of a dead genre for a long time. See, Luke first appeared in 1972, one year after the film “Shaft” hit theaters and popularized the “Blaxploitation” film genre. Coined by Junius Griffin, once head of the NAACP, the term Blaxploitation refers to the exploitation films of the 1970s which featured a mostly black cast in an urban environment. Despite often being criticized for their portrayal of racial stereotypes, Blaxploitation films were generally successful and Stan Lee, who was publisher at the time, wanted to cash in on the craze. He recruited Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, and John Romita Jr. to create Marvel’s own Blaxploitation character.
“Luke Cage: Hero for Hire” is credited as being the first mainstream comic title to be led by an African American protagonist. It was considered groundbreaking for its time, but it’s portrayal of Luke was just as stereotypical and problematic as anything else from the genre. As the popularity of Blaxploitation films declined, so did the sales of Luke Cage’s book. Though Marvel did prolong its life by pairing Luke with Iron Fist, who is also getting his own Netflix show, the book was cancelled in 1986.
Despite a few guest appearances and a couple of failed attempts of giving him another series in the following years, Luke Cage fell into obscurity. It seemed that he had no real place in the Marvel universe, until Brian Michael Bendis revamped the character to guest star in 2001’s “Alias,” the series which was recently adapted as the Netflix show “Jessica Jones.” With “Alias,” Bendis stripped Luke of a personality rooted in stereotypes and fleshed him out as a real, fully-functioning character. From there, Luke Cage started to reappear all over the place in the Marvel universe, most notably becoming a member of the New Avengers.
Luke Cage hasn’t lost steam since his reappearance in “Alias,” only becoming more prominent in the fictional universe, and more popular in ours. Culminating in the Netflix show which celebrates the character’s entire history, including his roots in Blaxploitation. Luke Cage’s status in 2016 as one of Marvel’s newly most popular hero’s is an unexpected, but welcomed surprise.