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Introducing Luke Cage: Netflix's first Black Marvel Superhero
Other | Monday 12th September 2016 | Phil
Luke Cage is part of the ongoing Marvel masterplan. Following the revamping of just about every Marvel Movie character and the unification of four of Marvel’s biggest cinema franchises (Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America) in the two current ‘The Avengers’ films, Luke Cage will be the third out of four Marvel characters that will eventually make up The Defenders. Alongside him will be Daredevil and Jessica Jones, both of whom already have well-received and ongoing Netflix series. The fourth and final character to complete this street-level team will be Iron Fist. Both The Defenders and Iron Fist are due to air sometime in 2017.
He will be the second black main character to be introduced to us by the Disney owned Marvel Comics, with the first being The Black Panther via the film Captain America: Civil War.
With the way events have been unfolding in the U.S in the aftermath of Ferguson and the consequent rise of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, it seems the perfect time to introduce the global viewing public to Luke Cage. A Black Superhero who was first created by Marvel to capitalise on the growing popularity of the Blaxploitation Movement in the early 1970s, he was reimagined as a positive Afro-American role model when the popularity of films like Shaft and Black Belt Jones began to wane.
The positive rhetoric of the Luke Cage narrative should be a useful source in helping the outside world further understand Afro-American expression whilst also reinforcing the beliefs and work of the ongoing Black Civil Rights Movement in the U.S at a time when prejudical and racial police conduct appears to be firmlly institutional.
Adding weight to the production values will be A Tribe Called Quest legend Ali Shaheed Muhammad and the analogue king Adrian Younge, who has produced for heavyweight artists such as Ghostface Killah, Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z and Souls of Mischief, who will be scoring the soundtrack to the show. The creative presence of these two adds not only appropriate Hip-Hop energy and class to the whole affair, but shows the wider support of the hip-hop and black communities in The States for this show.
Luke Cage Season 1 starts on Netflix 30th September.
@PhillyTea
