I love Luke Cage more than I have a right to love a show. It is a me thing. It is a Harlem thing. It is a childhood thing. It is also a good writing and integration thing. Many stories have problems translating on to the big screen–especially when budget and ‘power level’ demands that you limit CGI. Agents of Shield is terrible at this, despite being the one show that deals with the least amount of powered individuals (at least in theory). Instead of building in the rich history of the Marvel characters and their unexplored backstories Agents of Shield chooses to, unwisely, fall upon the creation of new powered individuals and mix them with icons and aliens creating little more than a hot mess (Ghost Rider pun!).
Luke Cage ain’t about all that. Cage is the antithesis of wrecking things to try to build your own thing. Instead Cage gently reshapes characters from the story canon–sometimes depowering individuals vs. pumping them up into super villains and heroes. For those who haven’t read the comics, Luke Cage is one half of the original Luke Cage and Iron Fist duo known as Heroes for Hire. Many of Cage’s original supporting cast have already appeared on the show and have been integrated into MCU: New York as part of the collection of shows on Netflix. This new season goes a bit deeper into the original run of villains and does so without really raising the power stakes but instead raising the emotional stakes for all of the characters. This is about how you feel about these people, not about how strong Cage is as compared to other heroes. Don’t get me wrong, you are going to get a villain that can trade blows with Cage, but if the first season is any indicator, that is only the start of the intrigue in this season.
Watch it. Love it. Go do it now… I mean after you read …
Some Thoughts:
- I weigh more than I ever have in my life. I am legit fat. It is not a happy or healthy situation and demands a course correction–should I have the courage to correct the situation.
- I’ve been thinking about death more and more lately and I cannot for the life of me (ha, pun!) understand why. I’ve resigned myself to the reality of discontinuation, but I am not yet at peace with the idea of it. Not yet. Not ready.