Marvel’s Luke Cage (Netflix, Season 1)
Sep. 9th, 2017 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroFollowing the events of Jessica Jones, Luke has recovered and is working as a janitor and dishwasher up in Harlem. At a nightclub owned by criminal mastermind Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, who is connected to several sinister forces from Luke’s past.
I think Luke may be stronger here than he was shown to be in his appearances on Jessica Jones, where his toughness was his primary power--the contrast being that she was stronger and could leap/fly, but she couldn’t take a bullet. Luke isn’t Superman strong, but he’s at least as strong as Jessica was, and uses his strength more often than she did.
Similarly, while one could argue that Jessica Jones was as strong a feminist superhero show as we can get at this point in time, this is the strongest black superhero piece I think we’re going to get for a while. A bulletproof black man in a hoodie, on the run from corrupt police and trying to save the good folks of his neighborhood from the bad apples (and asshole interfering white folks). Heck, Justin Hammer never even appears, but his weapons business is a major impactor on the plot.
The fact that there are a dozen well-developed black female characters who generally avoid being sexualized is impressive, as well. Mike Colter is a beautiful man, and the cinematographers know it. (Hardly an episode goes by that his shirts stays on for the entirety of.) The women of the MCU realize it as well, given that he manages to sleep with most of the women he shares screen time with. But they generally aren’t running around in their underwear: The camera stays on Colter and is only about the beefcake.
The nods to comic continuity are cute—Pop refers to him as “Power Man” early on, and when he breaks out of prison right after getting his powers he “coincidentally” ends up in his 70s costume. Also, Diamondback’s super-suit in the last episode very much resembles his comic costume. I love that kind of thing.
Each of the Defenders apparently gets a specific neighborhood of Manhattan they get to defend. Kinda makes me wish they’d cross the river and get to Kamala Kahn in Jersey City already.
I wonder if they made themselves a problem by having hour-long episodes, given that the Cottonmouth material pretty much peters out by the halfway point. Granted, there’s some padding, with music acts and the like, but mostly they tried to fill too much time with the material they had and then had to come up with a new plotline to fill the rest of it—Diamondback’s connection to Luke’s past feels shoehorned in. Besides the flashbacks, if you think of Mariah and Shades as the “real” villains, the plot ended up flowing better than I thought it would.
Given that the art and music of Harlem is a theme to the show, I didn’t think the music acts felt much like filler—they often set the mood fairly well. I was amused by the appearance by Method Man and wonder who approached whom about the guest spot.
The ending is a strange sort of pointless cliffhanger—Mariah and Shades are free and Luke is headed back to Seagate, but Claire and Bobby have the evidence and connections to get Luke out again quickly; and Misty isn’t going to sleep until she brings the villains down. We know how this really ends. Why end it on the bittersweet note?
Overall: I’m not interested in Daredevil or Iron Fist, but I did want to watch The Defenders, and I wanted to watch this first to keep late-arrival spoilers to a minimum. I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
I think Luke may be stronger here than he was shown to be in his appearances on Jessica Jones, where his toughness was his primary power--the contrast being that she was stronger and could leap/fly, but she couldn’t take a bullet. Luke isn’t Superman strong, but he’s at least as strong as Jessica was, and uses his strength more often than she did.
Similarly, while one could argue that Jessica Jones was as strong a feminist superhero show as we can get at this point in time, this is the strongest black superhero piece I think we’re going to get for a while. A bulletproof black man in a hoodie, on the run from corrupt police and trying to save the good folks of his neighborhood from the bad apples (and asshole interfering white folks). Heck, Justin Hammer never even appears, but his weapons business is a major impactor on the plot.
The fact that there are a dozen well-developed black female characters who generally avoid being sexualized is impressive, as well. Mike Colter is a beautiful man, and the cinematographers know it. (Hardly an episode goes by that his shirts stays on for the entirety of.) The women of the MCU realize it as well, given that he manages to sleep with most of the women he shares screen time with. But they generally aren’t running around in their underwear: The camera stays on Colter and is only about the beefcake.
The nods to comic continuity are cute—Pop refers to him as “Power Man” early on, and when he breaks out of prison right after getting his powers he “coincidentally” ends up in his 70s costume. Also, Diamondback’s super-suit in the last episode very much resembles his comic costume. I love that kind of thing.
Each of the Defenders apparently gets a specific neighborhood of Manhattan they get to defend. Kinda makes me wish they’d cross the river and get to Kamala Kahn in Jersey City already.
I wonder if they made themselves a problem by having hour-long episodes, given that the Cottonmouth material pretty much peters out by the halfway point. Granted, there’s some padding, with music acts and the like, but mostly they tried to fill too much time with the material they had and then had to come up with a new plotline to fill the rest of it—Diamondback’s connection to Luke’s past feels shoehorned in. Besides the flashbacks, if you think of Mariah and Shades as the “real” villains, the plot ended up flowing better than I thought it would.
Given that the art and music of Harlem is a theme to the show, I didn’t think the music acts felt much like filler—they often set the mood fairly well. I was amused by the appearance by Method Man and wonder who approached whom about the guest spot.
The ending is a strange sort of pointless cliffhanger—Mariah and Shades are free and Luke is headed back to Seagate, but Claire and Bobby have the evidence and connections to get Luke out again quickly; and Misty isn’t going to sleep until she brings the villains down. We know how this really ends. Why end it on the bittersweet note?
Overall: I’m not interested in Daredevil or Iron Fist, but I did want to watch The Defenders, and I wanted to watch this first to keep late-arrival spoilers to a minimum. I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
