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Luke Cage has some unfinished business. At least, that’s what Cage’s actor Mike Colter said about the character he played in the Netflix series Luke Cage. Across two seasons, Cage established himself as the superman of Harlem, a wrongfully-convicted man who gained super strength and invulnerability due to prison experiments. He was last seen alongside not just the Iron Fist Danny Rand, Cage’s partner in the comics, but also with Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock a.k.a. Daredevil. Now Murdock has come to the MCU with Daredevil: Born Again, which will welcome back Jessica Jones in its second season.
Is Cage far behind? Colter isn’t saying for sure. “I’ve had conversations and I’ll leave it at that,” he slyly admitted while visiting Shawn Stockman’s On That Note. “Daredevil’s back. Jessica’s back. We’re in a better position to see this come into fruition faster than we think.” Which isn’t a strong “yes.” But that isn’t a “no” either.
While much of the conversation with Stockman focuses on music—which is, after all, the topic of his show—he and Colter cannot help but express their love of Luke Cage a.k.a. Powerman, one of the most prominent Black superheroes in comics. Created by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, Roy Thomas, and John Romita Sr., Cage first appeared in 1972’s Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1.
In the same way that Iron Fist and Shang-Chi sought to jump on the martial arts craze and Blade and Werewolf By Night wanted to capture some of the horror buzz, Cage was created to take advantage of a larger interest in Blaxploitation films, and his earliest appearances matched the tone of Shaft and Superfly, albeit in an all-ages comic book tone. However, Cage truly found his footing when being paired with Iron Fist for genre heavy adventures, which continued to define the character even when he was elevated to Avengers status in the mid-2000s by writer Brian Michael Bendis.
It was Bendis’ work on the character that caught the attention of Netflix, who based their Marvel shows on his street-level comics. But while Colter’s performance was rightly praised, as was the show itself—especially the first two thirds of season one, which co-starred an electric Mahershala Ali as the villain Cottonmouth—he has not yet been revived for the current MCU.
Which isn’t to say that Colter has been missing from screens. In addition to a main role in the cult favorite series Evil, Colter stole the screen from Gerard Butler in the pulpy actioner Plane, and in fact will be the star of a sequel, now in production.
Yet, it’s hard to imagine a better time to bring in Colter as Cage than Daredevil: Born Again‘s second season. The season borrows heavily from the Devil’s Reign storyline from the comics, in which Mayor Wilson Fisk outlaws all masked vigilantes from New York City, waging a war against the heroes. Of course, Fisk loses in the end and is expelled from office. And who takes his place as mayor? Why, none other than the Power Man, Luke Cage.
Will Born Again‘s second season include that plot beat and give us Mike Colter as Luke Cage again? Colter isn’t saying, but that sure sounds like some business we’d like to see him finish.
Daredevil: Born Again season 2 premieres to Disney+ on March 4.
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