Ah yes, the good old, tried and true origin story. Every hero gets one, it seems, as it’s a time honored tradition in comic book adaptions – after all, how else are we going to find out the story behind how a hero got their particular brand of abilities. However, while there was a time were virtually every superhero title out there was an origin story, later attempts realised that maybe it was time to give the overused trope a rest and skip right to the hero already being fully formed. Much like Daredevil and Jessica Jones before him, Luke Cage has benefited mightily from showing up pre-powered, but like them they eventually went back and covered their pasts thanks to some liberal use of flashbacks. Well, after three episodes (and a whole bunch of appearances in Jessica Jones), it’s time to finally see what forged the man into who he is today – and while we’re at it, clear up a lot of dangling backstory concerning the character of Reva Connors: Luke Cage’s wife.
As Luke lay unconscious in the rubble of a Chinese restaurant blown up by a rocket fired by local crime boss, Cottonmouth, his mind drifts back to equally uncomfortable moments from his past when his life all but came to an end. Once a former policeman and going by the name Carl Lucas, we join him as he’s being sent to Seagate prison after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Trying to build up an emotional wall to try and protect him from the strain of incarceration, Lucas is adamant he’s not letting anyone in, but soon, inspite of himself, he befriends long timer Squabbles and finds himself getting attracted to prison psychologist Reva Connors.
However, remaining a thorn in his still penatratable side is the man in charge, sadistic corrections officer Albert Rackham, who is eager to coerce Lucas into joining his illeagal fighting ring by any means necessary. Applying pressure in all the right places, Carl soon finds himself sliding into a dark place as he endures multiple brawls in order to keep those he cares about safe; but after accumulating numerous scars and a magnificently unkempt afro, Reva finally catches on and tries to save him.
The result is Rackham’s goons (which include Shades) almost beating Carl to death, but unbeknownst to many, Seagate has a secret habit of illeagally experimenting on prisoners who volunteer. Dumping him in a water tank that would make Weapon X proud, Reva convinces Dr. Noah Burstein to try an experimental procedure on Lucas to promote advanced healing, but after Rackham arrives and screws everything up, the resulting explosion has an unintended side effect. Now granted super strength and unbreakable skin, Lucas literally punches his way out of Seagate and survives the swim to shore where he meets up with Connors and adopts the name, Luke Cage. However, while it seems that the pair are owed a happily ever after, Jessica Jones has already told us that’s never going to happen…
While I’m in agreement that indulging in an origin story is unnecessary when we’re already well versed in the details (I mean, do we really need to see the shooting of Uncle Ben or the Waynes again?), it’s still worth indulging in when the character in question has an origin that isn’t common knowledge. It’s also nice to see a Marvel/Netflix show that gets the timing right and drops a flashback episode on us that actually feels organic to what’s actually occuring in the story. Thanks to Luke being buried alive in the debris of an exploded restaurant, we’re still left with an extended cliffhanger, but it’s one that weaves nicely around the flash-forwards that keep the current characters relevant while we wistfully look back courtesy of Vincenzo Natali, the director of Cube and Splice.
It’s also cool that the show mixes things up to turn the entire episode into a prison movie as we watch Carl Lucas try various methods to survive a prison term in the callous hellscape of Seagate prison. All the familiar tropes are there; a kindly, but doomed, old timer who shows him the ropes; a brutal man in charge who enjoys stripping the humanity from his prisoners; a kindly psychologist who manages to bring our hero out of the emotional exile he’s placed himself in; and it not only proves to be a nice chance of pace for the season, but it’s a refreshing shift for superhero titles in general as the usual aspects of superhero creation (defective equipment, billion to one chance of survival, bullshit science) merge well with the prison story.
Of course, while the overall tale is pretty grim, we also find the episode in a weirdly playful mood too, as not only do we get some fun banter between Lucas and Squabbles over who’s the best out of Bruce Lee and Jet Li, but we get some dutiful nods at classic comic book lore. In fact, the moment where our hero inadvertently recreates his comic accurate look from the 70s proves a goofy, lighter touch the series has thus far been missing and it’s worth the price of admission alone just to see him announce that he looks like “a damn fool” before removing that iconic “tiara”. However, as much as the episode works as a great origin, there is the issue that for most of it to make sense, you need to have some Jessica Jones cliff-notes to hand as it leaves the act of tying up most of the threads completely down to you. Once the newly christened Luke Cage and Reva run off to start new lives, the episode neglects to fill us in on what happened next (she’s ultimately murdered by a mind controlled Jessica Jones as the villainous Killgrave seeks to dig into the super power research she was involved in), which is a little presumptuous of the connected universe to just assume we can remember what occurred without some handy prompts. It’s not the end of the world, but it is fairly messy considering so much of Cage’s past was revealed in an entirely other show.
However, with this taken into account, “Step In The Arena” still proves to be a great installment that not only doesn’t ruin the momentum of the show, but actually uses its change of time and location at exactly the right moment to allow Cage in the present to finally step forward and gave something akin to an “I am Iron Man” moment as he addresses the press. Flicking from blaxploitation to prison movie with ease, it’s good to see that Luke Cage has found it’s own way to subvert superhero tropes much like his future Defenders stalemates did, and while a lot of familiar details are expected in the actual physical creation of our hero, it’s also smart enough to use them in meaningful, new ways. Plus, we actually got to see him in a yellow silk shirt and a tiara…
Four episodes in and Luke Cage is still going strong while ploughing fresh territory in an overcrowded genre. While some of the dot-connecting could have been a bit cleaner (would including a bit of revealing footage from Jessica Jones really been so hard?), the prison flashbacks prove to be a perfectly placed diversion to prove that Harlem’s hero for hire is still impressively showing his power, man.
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