Yet Another 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Luke Cage
In line with the release of Netflix’s Luke Cage, we are coming up with our own list of things you may not have known about Luke Cage. We’ll try to be original because there’s a boatload of listicles already published and being shared online.
A bit of background before we get into the good stuff. Luke Cage wasn’t his original (neither was Nicholas Cage’s name, more on that later). Cage was originally Carl Lucas and after going through rough times, decided to change his name to “Luke Cage”, because, its a lot tougher sounding. The character was created in 1972 by Archie Goodwin and John Romita Sr. His first appearance was for the book Hero for Hire # 1 (thus the strong connection with the brand/ title).
Luke Cage: Paid Defender
Cage has always gravitated towards the superpowered community in the Marvel Universe. But it was mostly brushes because of his job as Mang Jose Hero for Hire. However he gets to play hero during the time he joined the superpowered group known as “The Defenders” (yes, THAT Defenders). But did you know that he was later paid to be part of the team by Nighthawk. After a successful deal, Cage stuck around but when the #squadgoals interfered with work, Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond) decided to start giving him cheques. He did leave after sometime because he felt like he didn’t belong to this team.
Danny Calls Cage Daddy
No not Danny Rand aka Iron Fist. We’re talking about Danielle Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. The baby should be street-level hero royalty being the daughter of former Power Man and one-time heroine Jewel. Kidding aside, they named the baby indeed, after Danny. This baby will go places as its been mentioned several times that she will become “a” Captain America in the future. More than that, this baby has been lucky to be in the company of the New Avengers around the time they disbanded the first time.
The New Avengers calls it quits by spending an afternoon in the park joining the Cages as they stroll with their daughter Danielle
And she gets to call Wolverine her “tito”
Nicolas Cage – Luke Cage Fanboy
Credits: sobreelmundodelcine.com
Did you know that “Con Air” and “National Treasure” star Nicolas Cage’s uncle is none other than “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Copolla. His real name is Nicolas Kim Copolla. So when he was starting out in Hollywood, he used a screen name and that was Nicolas Cage. He got the “Cage” from one of his favorites, Luke Cage. The dude apparently wanted to distance himself from his famous uncle and viola, a legend was born.
Luke Cage: New Avenger 2 and Buying the Avengers Mansion for a Dollar
So after the disbanding of the New Avengers, Marvel’s Heroic Age happened and guess what? Luke Cage was once again leading a new iteration of Avengers. Of course he still had Spider-Man and Wolverine (who were already in Commander Rogers’ Avengers team) but he did get new players like The Thing and Daredevil. But more than that, the best trivia from this point was him actually getting the Avengers Mansion for a measly dollar from Tony Stark who had already moved the base of operations for the main Avengers team in Stark Tower/ Avengers Tower.
tony stark sells avengers mansion to Luke Cage for a dollar (New Avengers vol 2. issue 1)
Sold His Soul to Norman Osborn
During the time that he was the leader of the New Avengers and around the time that Norman Osborn was the leader of HAMMER, Cage had been very vocal about his dislike for Osborn. The Hero-for-Hire made a deal with Osborn to surrender in exchange for the assistance in finding Danielle who was kidnapped by Skrull Jarvis.
Jarvis kidnaps Danny Cage in the end of Secret Invasion
Before Osborn can even make a move, Cage makes his escape from the Dark Avengers with the use of Wrecker’s enchanted crowbar
luke cage beats the dark avengers with the wrecker crowbar
Like an OK WWE feud, this gets revisited several more time before Osborn’s “demise” in New Avengers volume 2.
So to summarize and to do a tl;dr:
1, Luke Cage still got paid during his first stint with the Defenders
2. He named his baby after Iron Fist
3. Nicolas Cage used Cage’s last name for his screen name to distance from famous director uncle.
4. While leading the Avengers, Cage bought the Avengers Mansion for a dollar from Tony Stark
5. He double crossed Norman Osborn to save his baby after being kidnapped.
Editor’s Note: While I was writing this, I’m rediscovering why I was in love in Marvel before. Sure they might be turning out crappy stuff but even the Bendis stuff wasn’t half bad in hindsight. So maybe we’ll do explainer post in less than 500 words next time. In fact I already have a topic in mind.
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