During his time off between wrapping production on The Defenders and beginning production on the second season of Luke Cage, Mike Colter made a stop at Houston’s Comicpalooza and had quite a bit to say about stepping back into the character for his solo series. While all the characters from the crossover will be changed by their experiences together, there are still plenty of threads from their individual series that need to be followed. According to Colter, one such thread for Cage will be dealing with his VERY public identity.
The last half of season one teased the idea of people coming to Luke for help once he made the choice not to hide himself and his abilities as the Power Man, and it looks like that decision will play a central role for the character moving forward:
It’s something that we’ll explore in the Defenders and hopefully in Season 2 of Cage which I start very soon. It’s very different. He’s out. People know what he looks like. He’s not in any kind of disguise. People know where he lives. They know where to find him so its something he has to deal with. Most superheroes don’t have to deal with that and can kind of keep it separate.
After Cage’s brawl with Diamondback was broadcast and given the public nature of his surrender to the authorities, there’s no doubt that he’s going to be THE most recognizable of the crew and will be getting a lot of attention from both sides of the law. It’s great to see the Netflix writers’ room understands how this has been a central part of Luke’s comic book adventures for years and choose to explore it in the series. While he’s bulletproof, his public identity makes him vulnerable through those he cares about and it’s almost certain that we’ll see that trope dealt with at some point. It’s not all bad for Luke (or fans) however, because it’s his public identity that could potentially get us closer to that Heroes for Hire series that we ALL want to see.
Thanks to our friends at the It’s All Connected Podcast for the audio! How do you think they’ll play with the idea of Cage’s powers being public knowledge? What would you like to see? Let us hear about it in the comments.
