Prisoner Carl Lucas, locked in the sweat box, reviews the
events that led to his being a convict in Seagate Prison. In Harlem, he and his
pal Willis Stryker led a gang called the Bloods; after a while, Carl started to
long for a normal life and the two men drifted apart. Stryker started dating
Reva Conners, a friend of Carl’s but she discovered his dark side and went to
Carl for help. Stryker responded by planting drugs in Carl’s apartment and so
Carl was sentenced to fifteen years in Seagate. Carl quickly made an enemy of
brutal guard Rachman who delighted in telling Carl that Reva had been killed in
an attempt on Willis Stryker’s life….
Carl is approached by Dr Burnstein who offers him a chance
to volunteer for a risky medical experiment. Carl enters the large device intended
to stimulate human cell regeneration but Rachman, seeking to further torment
Carl, turns up the power on the machine and it explodes but Carl is apparently
unharmed and he beats up Rachman though Dr Burnstein stops him from killing the
man. More guards arrive and shoot Carl down—but, to everyone’s surprise, Carl
isn’t injured. So he busts out of the prison and takes off into the swamps,
killing a stray alligator on the way….
Carl arrives back in Harlem seeking revenge against Stryker.
Needing cash, he teams up with a couple of crooks to rob a bank. Carl’s
newfound strength enables him to rip the vault door off but they are confronted
by an elderly guard; Carl discovers he doesn’t have the heart to be a criminal.
One of the other guys shoots the guard and Carl knocks them both out and
escapes. Later, Carl stops a hood robbing a local store and when the proprietor
offers him a reward, Carl knows what he can do with his powers. He adopts a new
identity: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. His first big job has him beating down the
Rhino and after that jobs come his way. Luke then targets Stryker’s operations,
finally revealing himself to his enemy. Stryker overcomes Luke with knives
emitting a shrill sonic signal and the hero awakens to find himself chained to
four trucks and the villain has them pull in opposite directions. Cage tears
the trucks apart, igniting a fire and bursting free and pursues Stryker over
rooftops, denouncing him for Reva’s death though the baddie never cared about
her. Stryker falls through a skylight and is killed by his own exploding knife.
Cage finds that revenge just leaves him empty….
Epilogue: Years later we find that Cage has been sending
most of his Hero for Hire money to support the bank guard who was crippled in
the robbery. This year he finally meets the man face-to-face and the old man
tells him he isn’t to blame for what happened to him and assures Cage that
seeing a man of color alongside the Avengers and Defenders is an inspiration
and the old man put Luke’s money into improving the neighborhood. He assures
Luke Cage that, despite any mistakes he has made, he really is a hero.