Let's jump right on in with Luke Cage Noir #1. Well, first let me say that I'm not nearly as familiar with Cage's character or history as I am with the X-Men or Spider-Man, so I'm probably not necessarily going to catch all the significant Mythology Gags except for the handful that I managed to find info on online. Thankfully, my semi-loyal readership is probably even less familiar with our pal Luke.
I'd also like to note that it's Black History Month (or, it was when I originally posted this; the date you see at the bottom of this installment is that of the most recent edit), though that wasn't consciously on my mind when choosing to do this series next. Still, it seems oddly appropriate, given our hero is a strong black man in a period when discrimination was rampant and mainstream. My real motivation in doing this series in particular was a recent interest in Marvel's output in the 1970s, as you can no doubt see from my What If...? LB. I'm still trying to track down the old Black Goliath comic, in fact. Man, if ever there was a hero who never got his due, you know? Er, I should move on.
I'm not even sure I can properly describe this cover in a way that does it justice. Luke Cage's face is wreathed in shadows as he catches bullets to the chest without so much as flinching. See for yourself
◊; it's amazing.
The variant cover isn't as good. Cage grimaces as seven men point their guns right at him.
We begin in a dark alley, a cockroach skittering out of a discarded liquor bottle being crushed by a man who chokes a pretty young white woman to death. We get a Violence Discretion Shot of sorts, only seeing the "action" as it were by way of shadows. The man leaves, not even bothering to hide the body, which is discovered by a beat cop not long afterwards. Over all this, there is narration. "Everybody thinks they're born for greatness. But some people... some people are born just to die."
The scene shifts to a prison cell. Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" plays on a DIY-esque radio. The cell door clangs open and inmate #3457AG15 is called forward. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen: a powerfully built black man by the name of Luke Cage. Narration, by this point clearly Cage, continues as he says goodbye to Riker's Island, his home of ten years. "What about me? What was I born for? Trouble."
Cage goes back to his old neighborhood immediately, where the front page headline of the Amsterdam News reads "Luke 'The Power-Man' Cage FREE!" People talk about him in hushed whispers as he walks past, wondering if it's really him. A young newspaper vendor asks Cage if his skin is really like steel. Cage flexes his bicep; "You tell me." He heads into the local barbershop for a nice shave, narrating that when he was in the joint he missed this place the most. "The smell of cheap cologne, the spittin' of stories, and most importantly, the word on the street." A crowd has gathered outside to watch him get that shave - you'd almost think they were looking at Superman.
The barber, Lil' Walt, is happy to see Luke. He says it reminds him of the time he and the Harlem Hellfighters were thrown a parade in Paris. The Harlem Hellfighters were an all-black air squadron in WWI; it's also the name of the high school football team in the Harlem area, which is kind of stupidly awesome. Cage says he wants to find "Stryker", and Walt's got that word on the street Cage missed so much. Styker's running everything in Harlem and the Barrio now. Lil' Walt attributes this to something Cage did, after which "negroes felt like they didn't have to play by the offay's rules no more." Man, somebody did their homework; "offay" is an extremely old form of "whitey".
Hearing this, Cage notices the crowd outside, gazing at him in wonderment. Two old men are in the barbershop playing a leisurely game of chess. One of them says he heard rumor that Cage got out because of some scientific experiment that was supposed to kill him. This is essentially 616 Cage's origin. Cage tells him he shouldn't believe everything he hears and goes on his way. Outside, a white guy in a car asks the other passenger what he should do. "Not a damn thing. Yet."
Cage drops by Fronty's Meat Market, which is totally not a front. The guy at the counter says "Oh Lord" when Cage walks in, and lets him in the back. Cage knocks on the door, and the eyehole slit slides open. "Password?" "Luke Cage." "Yeah, right." "Last time I say it. Luke Cage. Open up." The guy behind the door says he doesn't believe in the boogeyman, but Cage makes a believer out of him by hooking his fingers in his nose and banging his head against the door until there's a noticeable dent. Wisely, the doorman acquiesces and lets him in - where 8 guys have Thompsons trained on him. The place, I should probably mention, looks to be a hot speakeasy not unlike the Black Cat from the Spider-Man Noir series.
Thankfully, their boss breaks it up. It's Cage's old friend Willis Stryker, who welcomes the big guy back. As they sit down for a couple cold ones, Cage narrates that it's good to see Stryker. They grew up together, as near brothers as two men can be short of biologically. Styker says prohibition, which was evidently implemented not long before Cage was put away, was the best thing that ever happened to him. "Cats always gonna want two things — hooch and lookers — and I got 'em both." Styker wants Cage to work for him. He's a big, strong guy with a Hell of a rep; few types make better enforcers. Cage declines the offer, saying he's got some business to handle first.
Stryker tells him that's probably not going to happen; pretty much everybody Cage knew back when is either long out of town or long under the ground. Cage asks about a woman named Josephine. Stryker's silence says it all. We now see Cage standing before the grave of Josephine Ball - and having a flashback to when they first met. Josephine was clearly a top class Tsundere. "I'm a queen bee, baby, so just know: if you come around my hive, you will get stung."
We're back with Stryker in what I'm guessing is a continuance of the previous scene with him. He tells Cage a fire broke out in her building. She died a few days later in the hospital. He hands Cage something she'd want him to have: a heart-shaped locket with "to my baby girl" engraved on it. Cage gets a contemplative look on his face; something's not right here. He abandons that line of thought, however, when he hears a gun cocked right next to his head - and a barrel pressed against the back of his skull. Stryker tries to talk to the nervous would-be shooter, but Cage wants to take care of this himself. He didn't remember this jittery creep at first, but it's Charlie Tuna. "I remember you now. You liked to beat up on helpless dames. Broke the jaw of a pretty little canary named Mia because she wouldn't give you no play. So I smacked you around, open-handed, like the fruit you are. And then you cried and begged me to stop."
Charlie's sweating bullets, but he's not backing down. He wants to see how bulletproof Cage is when he pumps his head full of lead. Cage stands up and takes his jacket off, because he doesn't want to get blood on it when he tears off Charlie's arms and beats him with them. He grabs the gun and puts the barrel right up to his chest, daring Charlie to pull the trigger on three or get his skull crushed. Cage is in a benevolent mood, so when his count reaches three he just lets Charlie go — as long as he leaves his Nice Hat. Stryker leaves momentarily to do some business and leaves Cage to talk to a white dancer at the place. She tells him after he was busted, Josephine hit the skids, started doing drugs and might have even turned to prostitution.
As Cage walks home in the rain, carrying but not wearing his jacket or his hat, he thinks. "My gramama always used to say, the guilty dog barks the loudest. I didn't know what was up yet, but I knew something was." That, he says, is when things got interesting. A car pulls up beside him and a white man with an ugly dog in his lap asks Cage to hop in. Cage is, naturally, skeptical. Offay only comes uptown if he's got something to hide... or lose. The white guy, Randall Banticoff, insists that he only needs ten minutes of his time, and it won't be wasted.
Cage figures what the Hell and gets in. Banticoff shows him a newspaper from the day before his release: "White Woman Found Slain in HARLEM!" That woman was Banticoff's wife, Daisy. Cage wonders what this has to do with him. Banticoff says the police aren't being very helpful and he thinks they might be protecting someone, motivating him to seek outside assistance. Cage tells him to check the yellow pages for a private dick, but Banticoff would rather hire Cage due to his reputation, his connections, and the fact that Harlem is his neighborhood. Cage seems interested, but wants to know what's in it for him.
Banticoff says that "only two things motivate men: money and sex. I can give you plenty of both." Cage isn't having it; he wants a clean record and a fresh start. Banticoff doesn't know if he can manage, but decides he can get creative if that's what it'll take to get Cage on the case. They've got a deal - but since Cage just got out of the pen, he'll need a little money.
Cage narrates that there was something about Banticoff that wasn't right. He was hiding something. His hands were rough; he was no stranger to manual labor. Why would a rich white man have working man hands? Cage guesses Daisy was the one with the money. Who sent Banticoff? Why? Anyway, Cage greases a palm to take a look at Daisy's body in the morgue. Here we get a great bit of narration and one of my favorite lines in the book: "White folk think being colored can only be a curse, but trust me, being black has its benefits. You see, we're everywhere... yet no one ever sees us." That last line is accompanied by shots of black people in various occupations: butler, waiter, cook, shoe shine, bus driver... Cage equates it to being invisible, and appreciates the ability to move about unseen.
He also notes that due to the morgue being overbooked and understaffed there won't be an autopsy for a few days. The guy Cage payed to get in theorizes that she wanted a taste of the old dark meat and got in over her head, but Cage doesn't seem to be listening. "The black-and-blue marks around her neck meant she was choked — which is usually personal. Though I did choke a cellmate once because he ate my peanut butter." Cage notices bloating, but the body's only been there since last night — she's been dead longer than that. Leaving, Cage laments that he's not out of prison for a day and he's already looking for two dead women - Daisy and Josephine.
That night, he goes to the graveyard to dig up Josephine's grave. Something's not right about Stryker's story. That locket was a gift — from Josephine's father, not him, and she never would have parted with it. That, and if it were in a fire it would show damage from the heat, but it doesn't. He hits the casket. Stryker and that dancer are both lying, but why put him behind the eight ball? Opening the casket, Cage finds... nothing. He hears a clicking sound. There's a flashback to Cage delivering a wild punch to some ugly guy's face - until a guy puts a Thompson to the back of his head.
That same gunman is standing in front of Cage now, piece in hand and two ravenous dogs at his side. He's a heavyset man with pale skin, a scar on his left cheek, and sharp, shark-like teeth. "C'mon Luke... don't tell me you forgot your old pal, Tombstone."
End of issue 1
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