Avengers Origins: Luke Cage

[Col_Fury]

AVENGERS ORIGINS: LUKE CAGE (January, 2012)
By Adam Glass, Mike Benson & Dalibor Talajic

APPEARANCES:
Power Man (Luke Cage, also in fb), Reva Conners (in fb), Willis Stryker (also in fb), Rackham (also in fb), Dr. Burstein, Rhino

FLASHBACKS:
Carl Lucas was a petty criminal along with Willis Stryker, but a woman came between them. Lucas was framed and sent to prison.
SYNOPSIS:
Carl Lucas starts fights in prison and makes enemies with everyone. Lucas is offered a chance at parole if he takes part in an experiment. He does, but prison guard Rackham tries to kill him. Lucas survives and escapes; he now has steel-hard skin. Lucas returns to his old neighborhood to find it’s been overrun by prostitution, drugs and crime. Wanting revenge on Stryker, Lucas robs a bank to get money, but when a security guard stands in his way, he changes his mind. Lucas’ partners shoot the guard, paralyzing him. Lucas beats up his partners and escapes. He decides to make money another way, by changing his name to “Luke Cage” and becoming a “Hero for Hire.” He gets an office and waits for business to show up. When the Rhino crashes through his wall, he beats up the Rhino and gets free advertising from it. Luke tracks down Stryker and attacks him. Stryker defeats Luke with his sonic switchblades and captures Cage. Cage wakes up chained to four cars; Stryker plans to kill him in the street to send a message to the neighborhood. Cage breaks free and accidentally kills Stryker. Years later, Cage visits the paralyzed security guard, who reveals that with all the money Cage sent him over the years, he built a youth center and always considered Cage a hero.

NOTE:
Hmn. In LCHFH 1, Cage makes a name for himself, but that didn’t work out so well for his business so he gets an office in LCHFH 2. Here, he gets the office first, then after a bunch of sitting around, then makes a name for himself.

In LCHFH 2, Stryker takes a hostage to get Cage’s attention, then Cage wants to fight Stryker. Here, Cage’s entire motivation for coming back to town is going after Stryker, and even tracks down Stryker himself. In LCHFH 2, Cage is shocked, SHOCKED!, that Stryker is even still in town at all.

I’ve been rolling this thing around in my head for a while now, and I’m really not seeing a way to make this thing fit. I can squint past some of the hiccups (like the making a name for himself thing; I can see him doing a number of things to build a reputation over time) (or the office thing; maybe after the first one was destroyed he then got the one at the Gem Theater, or whatever), but the motivations are so opposite between this and the original (coming to town looking for Stryker vs. having NO IDEA that Stryker is even in town at all) that I just can’t see a way to merge the two versions that I’m comfortable with.