Marvel's Luke Cage is the next addition to the growing Marvel/Netflix TV show lineup and features Mike Colter back in the title role, following his debut as the character on Jessica Jones season 1 last year. The Luke Cage series picks up a few months after the events of Jessica Jones' freshman season, with Cage having left Hell's Kitchen for Harlem in the hopes of starting afresh. Of course, when you're a bullet-proof man with a soft spot for helping others, you can only stay out of trouble for so long.
Luke Cage features Cheo Hodari Coker (a writer/producer who has worked on series like Southland and Ray Donovan in the past) as showrunner, with a cast that includes Mahershala Ali (House of Cards) as Harlem crime boss Cornell Stokes/Cottonmouth and Simone Missick (Wayward Pines) as noble police officer Mercedes "Misty" Knight. The first Luke Cage teaser trailer offers a quick glimpse at Cottomouth in particular, but primarily focuses on Luke Cage doing what the future members of Marvel's The Defenders do best: beating up bad guys in hallways.
Marvel/Netflix has now unveiled an official poster for Luke Cage and revealed that a new trailer for the series will arrive tomorrow (Tuesday, August 9th, at the time of writing this). You can check out the one-sheet with Colter in character as the "Power Man", below.
Similar to Marvel/Netflix series past, Luke Cage will embrace a grittier and more adult tone as it explores the life of yet another New York-based vigilante who has "their feet firmly planted on the ground" (as the official Marvel/Netflix press release for the Luke Cage poster puts it). Where Daredevil seasons 1 and 2 effectively blend mob drama with martial arts super-heroics and Jessica Jones season 1 unfolds as a taut psychological thriller with a neo-Noir steak, the Luke Cage series is shaping up to be more of a pure crime drama set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - one that has a distinct hip-hop influence, too.
Coker has made it no secret that Luke Cage will wear its black superhero identity on its sleeve, with every season 1 episode being named after a Gang Starr song and leaked set photos showing Cage (dressed in a hoodie) crossing paths with cops in what comes off as being a clear shout-out to the Black Lives Matter movement. That's all the more appropriate too, seeing as the Luke Cage comic book property has always been a politically-charged one, going back to the character's roots in the Blaxploitation cinema of the 1970s. If everything works out, then Coker's comparison of Luke Cage being "The Wire of Marvel television" may well prove to be all the more accurate, in the best way possible.
NEXT: Luke Cage Showrunner On the Series' Portrayal of Harlem
Daredevil season 1 & 2 and Jessica Jones season 1 are now available on Netflix. Luke Cage season 1 will arrive on September 30th, 2016. The Defenders and Iron Fist arrive in 2017. Release dates for Jessica Jones season 2, The Punisher and Daredevil season 3 have not yet been announced.
Source: Marvel/Netflix