In the early 1970s the traditional Hollywood studio system was disintegrating by small degrees. A once-prohibitive art form had been democratized by the commercial availability of cameras, and the American counterculture had given birth to a proliferation of independent filmmakers, each with their own style, vision, and political leanings. Alongside this came exploitation cinema, the artistic revolution’s gory, purportedly lowbrow cousin – films like 1965’s Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and 1978’s I Spit On Your Grave focused on what cinema purists would view as the tawdry, sensational, and distasteful. Films like 1972’s The Last House on the Left and 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would become foundational genre films despite their horrible, unthinkable content.
At the same time, there had been a Black Panthers-led call for Black artists to reclaim their portrayal in media. The revolutionary group understood that to control Black representation was a political necessity.
It was only natural, then, that Blaxploitation cinema was born—few mediums could be as instantaneously visible as film, and while the exploitation ethos was always inherent (the films, like 1971’s Shaft and, before it, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, focused on crime, anti-heroes, and violence), the films were almost uniformly created by Black directors, Black performers, and often scored by Black musicians. What’s more, the films were popular across the racial divide, pushing the visibility even further.
Marvel Comics
It was in the midst of this cultural revolution that Luke Cage was born. 1972’s Hero for Hire (later retitled Power Man with issue #17) attempted to tap into the gritty, Black-led market. While the character’s origins are inherently political – Cage, like many Black men throughout American history, is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit – there was one striking flaw in the delivery: the book was crafted, uniformly, by white men.
Marvel Comics
This has lead to some rather critical academic discourse on the legitimacy of Cage’s intent and origins, but for our purposes as readers and critics of comic books, it means one simple thing: regardless of intent, these early Luke Cage stories could never quite approach the earnest portrayal of Black anxieties. Unlike Blaxploitation cinema, which often focused on the very real, crushing and systemic narrowing of legitimate opportunity, Luke Cage stories barely touched upon the Black experience beyond a then-impressive Black cast.
It isn’t really until Don McGregor came on the title, in Power Man #28, that any real sense of gravity enters Cage’s life. Though white, McGregor had been developing a facsimile of racial understanding in the pages of Jungle Action – he would long be associated with Black Panther, and his work on the character helped influence the incredible 2018 film – and was more willing to indirectly discuss racism, racial economic disparity, and the all too real violence perpetrated against African Americans.
McGregor’s tenure on the book was short, running through seven issues (all of which are collected in this week’s Luke Cage Epic Collection: The Fire This Time), but they are devastating. Up until #28, Cage had been mired in a somewhat hokey latticework of villain-a-week antics. His only pressing continuity – the tragic circumstances of his imprisonment and origin – had been wrapped up in just a few issues at the beginning of Hero for Hire.
The tail end of McGregor’s run introduced an ongoing sense of tragic ramifications. #32 introduces the horrifying villain, Wildfire, who seems like any number of Cage’s one-and-done villains. But Wildfire’s motivations are far more sinister than any Cage has ever dealt with: the Simmons’, a Black family of four, has managed to move into a white suburb, and Wildfire intends to burn down their house.
Marvel Comics
The story flirts with harsh realities: the economic struggle of Black families, the obvious similarities to burning crosses. It commits, however, to tragedy: on Wildfire’s second attempt, he succeeds, and in doing so ends the life of Auggie Simmons, a young boy.
The Simmons story runs underneath the rest of McGregor’s run – Luke attends Auggie’s funeral in the following issue, and is further mortified to realize that Auggie’s sister Beth is near-catatonic with trauma. Luke attempts to nurture her out of her grief, but the Simmons family is ultimately faced with a grim decision: stay in the remains of their house among neighbors who had only passively watched their assault (and, in one case, attempted to aid Wildfire) or be chased out, their American dream taken from them.
Marvel Comics
McGregor’s departure from the book saw the end of any sense of gravity – the remaining issues of The Fire This Time return Luke to his hokey villains and nearly continuity-free concerns, and important supporting characters (including the Simmonses) are dropped. But for a moment – for seven non-consecutive issues – Luke Cage came close to mirroring the Black experience. For that brief moment, the character came as close to the intent of Blaxploitation (or the call for truer Black representation in media) that he could get, and wouldn’t return to that ambitious spot of the Marvel canon for some time to follow.
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