Luke Cage is back in action in Mighty Avengers #1. The superhero turned super dad left Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the finale of the Brian Michael Bendis era.
The new team is born as events of Infinity shatter the Marvel Universe. The Avengers are in space and Earth needs defenders. Writer Al Ewing explains Cage’s return with Marvel.com:
“Luke is, obviously, the hub around whom all this revolves,” Ewing explains. “When we rejoin him at the start of #1, he’s back at Heroes for Hire, working with a pair of Avengers Academy graduates in the shape [of the new] Power Man [Victor Alvarez] and White Tiger, but Ava has her doubts about the setup, and Luke finds they mirror his own. He’s not the same person he used to be, and the low-key, day-to-day Hero for Hire work doesn’t feel enough anymore.”
“He wants to make bigger changes to the world, the kind he can only make with the social and cultural cachet of The Avengers at his back. So when Thanos [attacks] NYC, it acts as the catalyst for something that’s already brewing: Luke stepping up to form his own Avengers, following his vision and dedicated to his goal of helping people who need it, when they need it, how they need it, on whatever scale they need it.”
Veterans Luke, Spider-Man, Falcon, She-Hulk are joined by new kids White Tiger, a new Power Man, Blue Marvel and the former Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau. The big mystery is who is the new Ronin?
This is a very ethnically diverse team and that’s on purpose.
“The racial diversity of the line-up is no accident, really. I’ve always responded to people asking why we don’t have a black Avengers or Latino Avengers that it feels artificial. But, the reality is that people who want to see characters in comics representing them have a point. We first started conceptualizing this book in February around Black History Month and the anniversary of the death of my friend Dwayne McDuffie. So I set out no to do ‘Black Avengers’ but more Dwayne McDuffie Avengers. I wanted to have a minimum of non-white characters but not have that necessarily be the point, then a lot of the characters who fit into what we wanted to do ended up being minorities. It’s not a ‘solution’ to lack of diversity elsewhere, but it’s something we considered,” says Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort.
Part of the diversity includes the new Power Man introduced in the Shadowland epic is mentored by Cage and Iron Fist.
“Power Man’s power set is actually a lot like Iron Fist’s, so there’s that with him and Luke. Their dynamic is not the teacher-student relationship Victor has with Danny Rand. It’s more boss and intern. It’s like when you’re running a business and there’s a spot for your friend’s kid who you don’t really like. There’s a pretty massive argument between them right in the first issue,” says Ewing.
By Editor