Luke Cage

"We're here to fight what can't be fought alone, for the people who need us to. The ones who can't fight at all. If that ain't the definition of a hero I'm changin' the damn definition right now."
Character Stat Sheet
== Public Information ==
Luke Cage has been a street level vigilante, one half of the first incarnation of Heroes for Hire and an Underground Avenger. Now, as a husband and a father, he has returned to his old stomping grounds of Heroes for Hire, aiming to turn the close knit group into a nation wide organization.
While many still know him as Power Man, he has taken up to simply going by Cage.
== Background ==
=== Back In The Day ===
Harlem. Yeah, I know what people say. I hear it. I just don't care. Ain't no place better or worse than my hometown. It's all the same shit, just different streets. And those streets is where my story begins.
I ain't gonna' front, I was a little bastard back in the day. Runnin' the streets with my man, Willis. We got into everything, man and wasn't none of it good. Bein' a little knothead, I let Willis talk me into joining The Rivals. We was bad as ever and didn't take no mess from no one. 'Specially no damn Diablos. But it ain't stop there, 'cause it never does, right? We started doin' jobs for punk ass Sonny Caputo, stealin', robbin', whatever got us money. Get busted, hit Juvey, get out an' start over again. I'mma tell ya' right now, that ain't no way to live. An' it took me seein' my Mama cry every night, 'cause of me, to realize there had to be another way. Livin' where I lived, the struggle, The Man? All thems was just excuses. And I hate excuses.
So I manned up. I got off the streets and got to work. I ain't finish high school so I worked wherever I could. I had a lot of crap to make up for but that's what bein' a man is all about. You gon' make mistakes, but you better learn from 'em and when the time comes, you better handle business. And that's what I was doin'. But so was Willis, jus' the wrong kind of business. I couldn't get him out. I tried, Lord knows I did. But he was stubborn as I was. But we was still friends, damn near brothers, an' I'll be damned if I was just gonna' write him off. Naw, that ain't my style. We been through too much for me to just turn my back on him. So when I heard things was goin' south for him, I stepped in, saved his life.
Or ruined it.
To hear him tell it, I'm the reason his girl broke it off with him. He thought I was pushin' up on her, which I wasn't. She was fine but not even my type. Next thing I know, I'm gettin' hauled off to prison on a bum ass drugs charge. Figures, right? The one that actually took the time to turn his life around ends up behind bars. Bullshit.
=== Bad Rap ===
Now, I'mma' be real with y'all. A lot of people will try to tell you that prison is sweet an' it ain't no thing. But the truth is, prison is a bitch. I ain't have nobody. I tried to write my fam but I ain't never hear back. I got no visitors, no nothin'. I was on my own. And there was only one man to blame, at least how I saw it, and that was Willis Stryker. I knew his punk ass set me up, but good luck tryin' to get anybody to listen to you while you in prison. I might as well have been tellin' people I was the king of England. I was ruled by anger at that time, brawlin' with anybody that looked at me longer than two seconds. Hell, I even tried to escape a few times. I wasn't lettin' no prison stop me from whoopin' Stryker's ass. Believe that.
I was causin' too much trouble, though, 'cause eventually they found a way to get me outta' upstate and sent me down south to Seagate. My rep got me hassled the moment I stepped foot in the place. Buttin' heads with one of the guards, Racist Rackham we called him. Beatings were daily with Rackham and eventually I heard he got demoted or somethin', 'cause he was no longer in my face. Lucky for him.
I guess my time at Seagate wasn't all bad. That's where I met Doc Burstein. Noah. I ain't know the dude from Adam but after a couple visits, he was talkin' to me about some crazy research experiment he was doin'. I was down. Why not? Wasn't like I had anythin' better to do. Prison ain't exactly the Ritz, y'know? So I'm gettin' hooked up to this crazy ass machine, I don't know what it is. All I know is Noah's tellin' me I might die, but if I don't, what he's doin' could change the world. He gets his machine goin' and then he's off. At this point, I'm feelin' weird as hell. My body's goin' all kinda' crazy and then it goes crazier. Somethin' musta' went wrong 'cause I feel like a billion bucks. Or, I guess, somethin' musta' went right. By the time the machine powers down, I'm up an' at 'em and I see Rackham. This fool shoots me but I don't feel a thing. So you know what I do, right? I beat his ass an' get the hell outta' dodge.
Y'know, by punchin' down the wall. No bullshit.
=== Black Power, Man ===
So now I'm super, right? I mean, I'm indestructible. I'm punchin' down walls. I'm stronger than I ever been. And I damn sure ain't normal no more. Gift or curse, it ain't even matter. This the hand I was dealt and I was just gonna' have to play these cards. So I made my way back to New York. While I'm layin' low, I'm seein' what's goin' on. Crime is high, super this and super that is poppin' up all over the place. Innocent people is gettin' caught in the middle. And I got people gettin' robbed right in front of me. Now, I ain't sayin' life was all peaches an' cream when I left but this ain't what I wanted to come back home to.
So I did somethin' 'bout it. I saw somethin' bad goin' down, I stopped it. I became Luke Cage. Started workin' outta' the Gem Theater. Doin' what I could to try and keep my city from goin' to the dogs. But I had to eat too. So I became what I like to call a Hero For Hire. This is when things really started to get crazy. When I wasn't hired to be a hero, I was tag teamin' with other heroes, stoppin' craziness or savin' the world. Whatever works. But I wasn't gonna' forget about New York. I couldn't. So I played it close to home.
Now you don't whoop some bad guy ass an' save lives without startin' to get noticed. And I did. Eventually, I took to callin' myself Power Man. Even got me one of them stupid costumes. Tryin' to fit in with the hero crowd. It worked for a bit. People started recognizin' the skills and I was makin' pretty good bank. Figurin' out I couldn't do everything by myself, I hooked up with Iron Fist. Together, we started whoopin' ass for cash.
Power Man and Iron Fist. Nobody did it better.
=== Goin' Under ===
Me an' Fist kept the streets clean for a few years while those other super squads handled theirs. The Avengers were doin' their thing an' we were doin' ours. 'Course, though, Fist wanted to spread his wings a bit. He hooked up with the Avengers an' I held the Heroes For Hire fort. Things we're good. But nothin' ever really stays that way. Not in my line of work anyway.
While Fist was doin' his Avengers thing, I was doin' a couple things myself. When I wasn't punchin' fools in the face for gettin' too comfortable in my hood, I was chillin' with my new girl, Jess. Everything was everything. But y'know things can't stay like that forever, right? There's only so much chill time the Power Man can get.
Iron Man goes crazy, right? The Avengers get neutered by the government. Fist calls me up talkin' 'bout he keepin' the Avengers goin' himself, but Underground. So, of course, I'm in. We put Heroes For Hire on the back burner for a bit and do the unsanctioned badasses thing for a while. We doin' everything we can, but the world's goin' crazy on its own. But that's just how it goes, right?
Eventually, the Avengers got over themselves or whatever. I don't even know. I had bigger things on my mind. Like proposin' to Jessie.
=== Hero For Hire ===
So that's about it. I'm married now. Got a kid now. That's my life. Okay, not my entire life. Because there's always some punk that needs to get his clock cleaned. There's always some so-called supervillain tryin' to take over the world. And for some reason, they like to start with New York. But I'll be damned if I'm lettin' that go down.
I got mouths to feed. I got lives to save. I got a city to protect. I got jobs to do.
Yeah, it's about to get real.
== Personality ==
So let's be honest about this right now, Luke Cage is about as real as they come. He's tough, he's badass and he's not exactly the type that won't back up every thing that comes out of his mouth with extreme force and prejudice if he has to. That alone makes him a very intimidating and daunting individual, which feeds directly into how he manages to keep himself as a man that commands respect. Whether that respect comes from his allies or his enemies, it doesn't particularly matter. Luke Cage will get what he believes he deserves.
While in his younger days, Luke was emotionally unstable when it came to his anger. He could find himself flying into a rage with ease. He has since mellowed out (some) and become a bit more calm. He now exhibits a controlled anger that is much more terrifying to those that don't know him. He's a big man with incredible abilities and seeing him actually angry is not something that you want to pay too close attention to.
Underneath the rough and tumble exterior, Luke is a big softy. He's got a sense of humor that he hides beneath his rock solid shell. His levels of sarcasm and jokes tend to be made even more funny by the fact that even he doesn't crack himself up. He plays them straight and that is something that is pretty hard to do. His heart is full of life, laughter and love. It shines through his solidity in these great moments of humanity.
Cage makes friends just as easily as he makes enemies. He's got a sense of honor and justice that he follows, which basically means he will do the right thing and do right by the people he cares about the most. He's done things on both sides of the law and the his Mama raised him to be a better person that he was turning out to be as a teenager. Ever since then he hasn't been able to stop himself from being what he was destined to be.
A Hero.
== Trivia ==
== Soundtrack ==
== Gallery ==
== Logs ==
Category:Marvel Features
Category:Altered Humans
Category:Intellect
Category:Heroes for Hire
Category:Avengers
Category:Iron Will
Category:1982 Births
Category:Regenerative Healing
Category:Available Characters