Luke Cage starts going up against bona fide costumed super-villains during the next twelve months of his life, kicking off a new phase in his career with no less than Doctor Doom. He also begins to get to know some of New York’s other superheroes, such as the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. It should come as no surprise, then, that his series is soon rebranded from Luke Cage, Hero for Hire to Power Man, signaling a move toward more standard (and less lethal) superhero action. It’s striking how many of Luke’s foes wind up dead by the end of these stories, which really limits his rogues’ gallery to a series of one-and-done villains.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale). Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Now continuing… The True History of Luke Cage, Power Man!
January 1966 – Luke Cage is ringing in the New Year with David “D.W.” Griffith in his office above the Gem Theater on W. 42nd St. in Manhattan when he spots the Fantastic Four flying past his window. Luke jokes that the world-famous superheroes didn’t stop to get his autograph. In the morning, Luke learns that the Thing’s girlfriend, Alicia Masters, was kidnapped during the festivities in Times Square by a mystery woman called Thundra in order to draw the Thing into a grudge match at Shea Stadium. Like most New Yorkers, Luke eagerly awaits the “battle of the sexes” and is disappointed a few days later when the bout ends inconclusively. True to her word, Thundra releases Alicia unharmed afterwards.
While pursuing leads on the two-month-old murder of Frank Jenks, Luke makes time to see Dr. Claire Temple, now his lover. They often hook up at the neighborhood clinic Claire runs with Dr. Noah Burstein, the man responsible for Luke’s superhuman powers. One day, a nattily attired white man offers Luke $200 a day to track down four men who have stolen company secrets from his anonymous employer. When he hears that the four men are hiding out in the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Luke realizes he is being offered the job because he is black. Even so, he accepts, thinking it will be good money for easy work. However, when he tracks down the culprits several hours later, Luke discovers that they are actually robots. He manages to destroy one of the robots, but the others escape into the night. Determined to find out what’s really going on, Luke tracks the man who hired him to the Latverian embassy, where he comes face to face with the infamous super-villain Doctor Doom. The armored tyrant convinces Luke that the case he was hired for is legit: since there are no black people living in his kingdom, Doom needed to hire a black New Yorker to track down the renegade robots, preferably one with superhuman abilities—ergo, Luke Cage is the right man for the job. Despite his misgivings, Luke returns to Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he is ambushed by the three remaining robots. After smashing them all to pieces, Luke heads back to the Latverian embassy to collect his fee. He becomes enraged when the doorman insists that Doctor Doom has left the country in order to cheat him of his earnings.
Intent on collecting his $200, Luke storms into the Baxter Building headquarters of the Fantastic Four, where he gets into a scuffle with Mister Fantastic, the Thing, the Human Torch, and Medusa. After Luke explains that he is merely seeking help getting to Latveria, though, Mister Fantastic agrees to lend him a rocket ship, having read good things about Luke in Phil Fox’s column in the Daily Bugle. When he arrives in Doctor Doom’s isolated kingdom in Central Europe, Luke finds himself in the middle of a full-scale robot rebellion engineered by Doom’s alien foe, the Faceless One. Luke agrees to join forces with the Faceless One and his robot army in order to breach Castle Doom’s defenses. Once that has been accomplished, Luke confronts Doctor Doom in the throne room and demands his $200. Doom is surprised, having assumed that Luke was acting on behalf of the Fantastic Four, and responds dismissively at first, but his arrogant condescension merely enrages Luke. By repeatedly striking the same spot on Doom’s chestplate, Luke is able to knock his armor’s weapons systems offline. However, when the Faceless One then tries to kill Doom, Luke intervenes, as he is unwilling to stand by as a man is murdered—especially a man who owes him money. The Faceless One beats a hasty retreat, but Luke refuses to go after the alien, since Doom still hasn’t paid him for the last job he did. Doom is amused, saying that Luke reminds him of himself in his younger days, and gives him the $200 in cash. After counting the money, Luke departs, leaving Doctor Doom to deal with the robot rebellion on his own. When Luke returns the rocket ship to the Fantastic Four, they are astonished that his mission was successful. Rather than brag, Luke tells them to look him up if they ever need a favor. He then heads down to the street and hails a taxi, ignoring the Thing’s barrage of questions about what exactly went down in Latveria.
February 1966 – Luke confers with Mimi Jenks, Frank Jenks’s widow, about the murder investigation, though she is averse to paying Luke any more money. She takes Luke to the bank where Frank kept a safe deposit box, but the only clue they find is a matchbook from a Manhattan restaurant with something written in Spanish inside the cover. Since Frank apparently didn’t speak Spanish, Luke decides to check it out. Unfortunately, when he arrives at the address, Luke discovers that the restaurant has just burned down. Frustrated, he heads over to visit Claire at the neighborhood clinic and is annoyed to find Daily Bugle columnist Phil Fox still trying to arrange an interview with Noah Burstein. When Luke returns to his office in Times Square later, he fights a gang of hit men who were lying in wait there. Though he defeats the killers, Luke is zapped into unconsciousness by their leader, the Puerto Rican crime boss known as Señor Muerte, who is wearing an insulated costume that delivers powerful electric shocks. When he comes to, Luke finds himself chained up in a tunnel on the waterfront which is starting to fill with icy water from the harbor. Señor Muerte gloats about Luke’s impending death by drowning, then takes his leave. With great effort, Luke escapes from the death trap and goes to meet with his informant, Flea, for more information about Señor Muerte and his illegal gambling operation. Flea provides an address, but it turns out to be a trap—Señor Muerte is waiting with an outlandish array of gambling-themed murder devices. Luke smashes his way through the onslaught and causes Señor Muerte’s costume to short-circuit, electrocuting the criminal. After completing his investigation, Luke reports to Mimi Jenks that her husband’s murder has been solved: Frank had lost a lot of money in Señor Muerte’s casinos and was going to blow the whistle on them in hopes of saving himself. Learning of the plan, Señor Muerte had Frank killed in an attack staged to look like a random mugging. Mimi is disgusted that Frank would stoop to gambling with mobsters, but Luke berates her for driving Frank to it with her pretentious social climbing.
A couple weeks later, Luke is hired by Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to capture Spider-Man, who is wanted by the police in connection with the murder of industrialist Norman Osborn. Though he doesn’t like working on Saturdays, Luke agrees to take the case. After doing some research, Luke determines which parts of the city Spider-Man is most often spotted in and then hangs out for a while on a high rooftop in Midtown Manhattan, several blocks east of Times Square. When Spider-Man eventually swings by, Luke leaps out and tackles him. However, the web-slinger proves to be a surprisingly formidable opponent, and his barrage of angry insults enrages Luke. Their brawl ends when Spider-Man knocks Luke through a skylight and swings off on his web-line. Determined to earn his pay, Luke next heads to the campus of Empire State University in Greenwich Village, where he crashes a student dance party. Sure enough, Spider-Man appears a moment later and attacks Luke. They trade punches for a few minutes until Spider-Man gets fed up and webs Luke down to some cement steps. Unable to break free, Luke agrees to listen to what the wall-crawler has to say. Spider-Man apologizes for insulting Luke about using his super-powers for money, admitting that he also initially tried to cash in on his abilities. As they talk, Luke realizes that Spider-Man is just an over-emotional teenager and not a killer. Thus, after they’ve gone their separate ways, Luke heads over to the Daily Bugle Building and returns Jameson’s money, saying he won’t be able to fulfill the assignment after all.
On his way home, Luke stops in at the neighborhood clinic, where he finds Claire and Dr. Burstein treating a young woman who was injured when a super-villain calling himself “Chemistro” attacked her place of employment, the New York offices of General Motors. The president of the company is on hand, and he hires Luke to track down Chemistro and bring him to justice. Thus, Luke heads immediately to the General Motors building, where he learns that Chemistro used some kind of ray gun to transmute the floor of the executive suite to glass, which then shattered under the weight of all the furniture. Luke sends some of the glass for analysis at a private chemistry lab he has worked with previously, and they soon report that the glass had a highly unstable molecular structure and quickly crumbled to dust. The next day, Luke eavesdrops on an emergency board meeting at GM, where he is surprised to learn that the executives all know Chemistro’s real identity, for he is a disgruntled former chemist for the company. Before Luke can react, Chemistro crashes the meeting and threatens the board members. Luke immediately leaps into action and attacks the villain, giving the executives time to flee. Despite his foe’s all-concealing costume, Luke realizes that Chemistro is African American. Unfortunately, Chemistro uses his “alchemy gun” to turn the floor beneath Luke’s feet to paper, sending him crashing down into the lobby below. After Chemistro makes good his escape, Luke confronts the GM board members and demands a full explanation. They reveal that Chemistro’s real name is Curtis Carr, and he was fired when he refused to surrender the alchemy gun despite having developed it on company time. Now, it seems, Carr is out for revenge. Though he suspects Carr has gotten a raw deal, Luke promises to capture him.
Unable to pick up Chemistro’s trail, Luke returns to his Times Square office, where he finds Phil Fox waiting for him. Luke’s annoyance turns to cold rage when Fox calls him by his real name and mentions Seagate Prison. Luke’s attempt to play dumb fails; Fox is too sure of his facts. The reporter proves unsympathetic to Luke’s side of the story and makes clear that he’s intent on blackmail, even suggesting that Luke’s superpowers would make him a formidable bank robber. Luke loses his temper and smacks Fox around, threatening to beat him to a bloody pulp if he makes trouble. Fearing for his life, Fox stumbles down the stairs and flees. Moments later, Claire enters, saying she ran into Fox outside and was disturbed by his bizarre behavior. Worried how Claire would react if she learned the truth about his criminal past, Luke refuses to discuss the matter. He knows his only option is to wait and see what Fox decides to do next.
March 1966 – Three days later, Luke disguises himself as a race car driver at an exhibition of prototype sports cars sponsored by General Motors at a test track in New Jersey. As expected, Chemistro appears and uses his alchemy gun to change Luke’s car into a soft, flammable substance. Though the car explodes into a huge fireball as it spins out of control, Luke emerges from the conflagration unharmed. He chases Chemistro into the stands and apprehends him, pulling off his mask and demanding that he surrender. Instead, the unhinged Chemistro transmutes his own foot into solid steel and kicks Luke in the face. However, his foot immediately crumbles to dust, sending Chemistro into a state of shock. Luke tries to calm his hapless foe down and grows angry when Phil Fox heckles him from the crowd, suggesting they still have unfinished business. An ambulance arrives then to take Chemistro to the hospital, and Fox slips away before Luke can confront him. The president of General Motors personally thanks Luke for ending the threat to his company and pays him handsomely for his efforts.
April 1966 – Luke’s high-profile victory for General Motors pays off again when he is personally hired by New York mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate the death of a city accountant who was apparently killed by an intelligent tiger. Suspecting the involvement of a super-villain, Mayor Lindsay has come to Luke, thinking he’ll be easier to work with than the Avengers. Luke agrees to take the case, provided he has a free hand to conduct the investigation in his own manner. With the terms agreed upon, Luke visits the city accounting office, where he merely learns the dead man audited the education and sanitation accounts. Further inquires at various government offices prove equally unrevealing, leaving Luke frustrated. On the way over to Claire’s clinic, Luke is ambushed in the street by a tiger, a lion, and a panther, and he is startled when they seem to be growling out words in English and Spanish. Though he manages to drive the cats off, Luke realizes their claws must have been coated with poison that has seeped into his skin. He staggers into the clinic, where Claire and Burstein treat him. Phil Fox drops in, having witnessed Luke’s battle with the big cats, and taunts him, dropping numerous veiled references to his blackmail scheme. Luke tells Fox to get lost but again declines to tell Claire what’s going on between them. He suspects Burstein of having betrayed him to Fox but knows he can’t confront him when Claire is around. He also realizes Fox must be hoping for a bigger payoff if he lets Luke sweat for a while, expecting to wear down his resolve. His head swimming, Luke goes home to recover from the poison.
Over the next two days, Luke’s investigation leads him to the Bronx apartment of schoolteacher Alejandro Cortez, who had a major grant proposal denied due to budget cuts that the murdered accountant had recommended. Cortez’s wife confirms that he was bitter about losing his funding, swore to get revenge, and promptly disappeared. Noting that the living room walls are covered with circus posters, Luke decides to check out the circus currently occupying Madison Square Garden. There, he finds Cortez, who has adopted the super-villain identity of Lionfang. Trapping Luke in the lion-tamer’s cage with the tiger, the lion, and the panther, Lionfang reveals that he has developed a means to transfer his mental patterns into the brains of the big cats, granting them near-human levels of intelligence. Since the villain hasn’t had the opportunity to coat the cats’ claws with poison, though, Luke easily defeats the animals. Lionfang tries to escape by swinging across the arena on the trapeze bars, but Luke knocks down the pole on the far end, planning to catch Lionfang when he falls. Unfortunately, Luke misjudges his foe’s momentum, and Lionfang plummets to his doom. Filled with self-recrimination, Luke reports his findings to the mayor’s office. Over the following week, Claire helps Luke come to terms with his role in Lionfang’s death.
May 1966 – Intending to take a day off, Luke goes for a stroll down Broadway, only to have people all around him inexplicably start changing into hideous, demonic monsters. As the city itself transforms into a weird, alien landscape, Luke tries to contain the rioting creatures. Finally, less than an hour after it began, the phenomenon ends and everything reverts to normal. Luke is shocked as he surveys the tremendous damage the city has suffered from the monsters’ rampage, while the people who had been transformed wander around in a daze. A few minutes later, though, all the damage is suddenly undone, as if by magic. Later, the Avengers report that the entire event was a mass hallucination created by a super-villain whom they have defeated, though the government insists it was the work of a mutant terrorist. Luke isn’t sure what to believe.
Sometime later, Luke receives a frantic phone call from a nearby demolition site; three workers are hopelessly trapped under tons of rubble and they will run out of air before conventional rescue efforts can reach them. Luke races to the scene, smashes his way into the collapsed building, and carries the three men to safety. The construction company agrees to pay Luke the top rate for his heroic efforts, and Luke’s reputation continues to grow.
June 1966 – A few weeks later, Luke is brooding in his office late one night when Mimi Jenks unexpectedly turns up, seeking sanctuary after a man she was out on the town with became too sexually aggressive. Unfortunately, the man in question, local attorney “Big Ben” Donovan, bursts in a moment later and attacks Luke, thinking him a romantic rival. Though the drunken Donovan proves to be a tough customer, Luke soon knocks him unconscious. He then puts Mimi in a taxi, promising to call her later after Donovan has sobered up. When Luke returns to his office, though, Donovan attacks him again. Their fight smashes up the place until Luke finally beats Donovan into submission. The two men then talk for a couple of hours, getting to know each other, and Luke realizes Donovan isn’t such a bad guy. At dawn, they go out for breakfast and end up parting as friends. However, when he gets home afterwards, Luke receives a call from the public defender’s office informing him that Claire Temple has been arrested for the murder of Phil Fox. Shocked, Luke heads to the jail and speaks to Claire through the window of her cell after being turned away by the police. He is horrified to discover that Claire has learned that he is an escaped convict and that the man who actually killed Fox has apparently kidnapped Mimi and escaped. Claire never saw the man but heard his thick southern drawl through the door of Mimi’s apartment just before Fox was shot. She was arrested while examining Fox’s body, because she had unthinkingly picked up the murder weapon from the floor and was holding it when the police arrived. Promising to get legal help from his new friend “Big Ben” Donovan, Luke sets off to track down Fox’s killer.
After phoning Donovan and checking out the crime scene in Mimi’s apartment, Luke breaks into Noah Burstein’s home and rousts him out of bed, accusing Burstein of betraying him to Phil Fox. Burstein insists that he never did but reveals that he had a journal about his experiments at Seagate Prison, which Fox must have stolen. Realizing the killer must now have the journal, Luke heads up to Harlem with a growing sense of desperation. He finds his informant, Flea, who taunts him about Seagate. Enraged, Luke demands that Flea come clean, so the stoolpidgeon leads him to a closed-down liquor store for a meeting with his former fellow inmates Shades and Comanche. Not in the mood for the pair’s posturing, Luke forces Flea to reveal that he encountered a drunken Phil Fox a week or so ago, when the reporter bragged about having dirt on Luke. Flea helped Fox get home, where he read the stolen journal after Fox passed out on the couch. However, feeling bad for having betrayed Luke to Señor Muerte a few months ago, Flea decided to keep his discovery to himself. Several days later, though, Flea recognized Shades and Comanche from Burstein’s account, and they were receptive to doing some business with him on account of his close relationship with Luke. Shades and Comanche then explain that they intend to seize the Harlem rackets from the crime boss known as Morgan and want Luke to join them, in exchange for their help capturing Phil Fox’s killer. Luke rejects their proposal until Shades reveals that they know the killer’s identity—Albert “Billy Bob” Rackham, the racist guard who abused them all at Seagate. Feeling the weight of his past crashing down on him, Luke agrees to the scheme. He then goes out to phone Donovan, and they hatch a plan to free Mimi, capture all the criminals, and exonerate Claire.
Flea leads Luke, Shades, and Comanche to a modest house in suburban New Jersey, where they confront Rackham, who has Mimi tied to a chair and is threatening her with a gun. Having heard on the radio that Claire has been arrested for Fox’s murder, Rackham gloats that only he or Mimi could clear her name. Unfortunately, Luke’s plan suddenly goes awry when the ceiling caves in on them. Pinned beneath the wreckage, Rackham panics and shoots Mimi three times in the chest. As the house continues to collapse, Luke pulls Shades and Comanche to safety while Flea carries the dying Mimi outside. Luke is about to drag Rackham from the rubble when the cause of the destruction reveals himself—a heavily armed white man with a crewcut and a southern accent calling himself Stiletto. Obviously privy to all Luke’s secrets, Stiletto is intent on sending him back to prison, but Luke overcomes his arsenal of exotic weapons and gives him a beating. As the police arrive on the scene, Stiletto shocks Luke with a cryogenic device and runs off, vowing to return to capture him another day. “Big Ben” Donovan turns up and informs Luke that Rackham has been killed—run over by an ambulance while attempting to flee—but Mimi confessed to Phil Fox’s murder before she died. Luke is shocked by Mimi’s last selfless act and grateful that she has saved Claire from prison. The police congratulate Luke as Shades and Comanche are taken into custody. The two crooks decide not to expose Luke’s true identity, apparently grateful that he saved their lives. Later that afternoon, Luke is on hand when Claire is released from jail, and they share a tender kiss.
July–October 1966 – After the initial euphoria of her exoneration wears off, Claire has a hard time dealing with the fact that Luke never confided in her about his criminal past. From her own experience of being wrongfully accused, she has nothing but sympathy for Luke’s situation but is hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to be honest. As a result, Luke feels awkward around Claire, causing their relationship to falter. He buries himself in his work, as his growing reputation ensures a steady stream of routine, though not particularly lucrative, assignments for the “Hero for Hire.”
November 1966 – Luke receives a telegram from Ugandan economics minister Dr. Kinji Obatu, who is seeking to hire super-powered protection during his visit to the United States. However, as Obatu is staying at a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, and hasn’t provided any travel funds, Luke tosses the telegram in the trash. Having seen in the newspaper that Iron Man is currently in Detroit, Luke figures Obatu can retain the service of the Golden Avenger instead. Even so, Luke thinks that potential clients might take him more seriously if he had a typical superhero code name, and he starts to consider his options.
Soon after, Luke is hired by a man claiming to represent Iron Man’s employer, Stark Industries, to test their factory’s security measures by attempting to steal a new spacesuit designed as part of their space-exploration program. The man, who calls himself Orville Smythe, warns Luke that not even Iron Man has been informed of the test, so he’ll have to be on his guard. Excited by the prospect and happy with the generous check Smythe has presented, Luke accepts the assignment. As he is leaving the building at dusk, Luke encounters Noah Burstein, whom he has been avoiding for months. Burstein wants to apologize for all the trouble his journal caused, but Luke blows him off and heads out to Stark’s facility on Long Island. After successfully breaching the vault containing the prototype spacesuit, Luke gets into a brutal battle with Iron Man. When Luke finally calls it quits, insisting that he’s fulfilled the assignment Smythe gave him, the confused Iron Man realizes that Smythe was an impostor. Sure enough, Smythe, now wearing the spacesuit, tries to escape in an experimental aircraft. Seeing that Iron Man’s flight capability was knocked offline during their fight, Luke races after the plane and grabs on just as it takes off into the sky. Luke smashes his way into the cockpit, but after a brief struggle, Smythe stumbles out of the damaged aircraft and plummets to his death. Unsure of how to land the plane, Luke radios for help, and Iron Man instructs him on how to activate the remote-control systems. Iron Man then meets him when the aircraft returns to Stark Industries, whereupon Luke rips up the phony check he’d been given. Iron Man assures Luke that Tony Stark will reimburse him for his trouble—minus the cost to repair all the damage he caused. Annoyed, Luke heads for home. The evening proves not to be a total loss, though, for Luke has decided on a new code name: Power Man.
December 1966 – Luke is frustrated when his efforts to rebrand himself as Power Man have no discernible effect on his business, though D.W. assures him that it’s a cool name. Luke is also concerned that so many people—Noah Burstein, Shades, Comanche, Stiletto, Flea, and now Claire Temple—know of his true identity as escaped convict Carl Lucas. It’s only a matter of time, he realizes, before he’ll have to confront the shadows of his past or be overwhelmed by them.
Notes:
January 1966 – After starting off the year with a cameo appearance in Fantastic Four #133, Luke Cage’s adventures resume in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #8. For Doctor Doom’s perspective on these events, see my Doctor Doom Chronology. Luke is out working a case when the Avengers try to phone him in Daredevil #99.
February 1966 – Luke battles Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #123, which sort of crosses over with Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #12. In that issue, General Motors is fictionalized as “Mainstream Motors.”
May 1966 – Luke makes a cameo appearance in Avengers #118 as Dormammu tries to merge Earth with his own mystical realm, the Dark Dimension. The Avengers decide to conceal the truth about that event from the public to avoid mass panic, a fact that President Morris N. Richardson’s anti-mutant administration would surely take advantage of.
November 1966 – Luke receives Kinji Obatu’s telegram in Iron Man #65. He is unaware that Obatu is the super-villain known as Doctor Spectrum, though he may learn this fact from news reports shortly afterward. Luke’s subsequent misunderstanding fight with Iron Man brings us up to Power Man #17, the first issue with the new title.
Jump Back: Power Man – Year One
Next Issue: Secrets of the Scarlet Witch – Part Five
