Sometimes I feel like one of the only people in the world that DIDN'T like what Bendis did with Luke Cage.
I mean, he used him an aweful lot and kept pushing him to the foreground of every single thing that was happening, but he took all the edge and interesting bits away from the character. He wouldn't even give the guy a costume. He was just generic nice black guy.
You can argue the character lost some of his edge (though frankly marriage and fatherhood can do that to a person), but I think the lack of a costume is perfectly in character for Cage.
He doesn't have a secret identity to protect, nor is he reliant on a costume for protection or his powers. He's simply a guy who doesn't feel the need to run around wearing brightly colored spandex... and I totally buy that from him.
I'm not a big fan of him but I have everything collected because the artwork is stellar.
Besides, I will always be grateful to Bendis for bringing Jessica Drew back from limbo and making her an avenger.
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"Who wouldn't go out with the Black Widow? I'd strangle a litter of kittens for one dinner with her!"
Adrian Toomes aka the Vulture
"Natasha Romanoff, A.K.A. Black Widow - ex-KGB, formerly with S.H.I.E.L.D...Probably the brains of this operation.I have followed her career, and she has been consistently UNDERRATED."
THe argument against this is that he never actually let the Sentry be that. He was compromised from the moment he started using him. For that story to have had meaning, it would need to clearly have a point A, which he never did. IF this was intent, he failed miserably from word go.
I think he was just enamored with a cool character that wasn't being used, but couldn't find a good way to really use him, and wound up flailing around a lot through several different ideas, none of whose direction lasted long enough to go anywhere. Ultimately, this floundering was the exact opposite of what a character like that needed, and we haven't had a good run on the character since as a result. Since then, his story has been incremental steps forward followed by amazing leaps back as every writer seems to want to use their own 'sentry versus void' story. Lemire broke the cycle, and what happens next? Zub and Rosenberg put him back to the conflict that story was supposed to break out of.
Which, in a way, is sort of a funny allegory to the way relapses happen in mental illness, but also the way nobody who knows you lets you move past it either.
Last edited by Tendrin; 05-12-2020 at 09:35 PM.
bendis seemed to want to make it clear that Sentry had mental problems, but what those problems were exactly seemed to change from issue to issue. There was never really a time you could get a clear idea of what Sentry was. It just felt like Bendis missed the whole idea of the character. He just wanted the biggest strongest guy around for various roles.
Last edited by K7P5V; 05-13-2020 at 09:36 AM. Reason: Corrected grammatical errors.
Just a simple guy that doesn't felt he need to dress up is NOT the kind of thing you do when you're an Avenger. The Avengers have a reputation. And really, Luke should understand the value of a reputation, as well as recognition and even marketing. If he's an Avenger, he needs to look like an Avenger, not like a random black guy that just happened to be standing there. Given Luke's background, he should be a guy that's marketing himself and making money off his new found status. He doesn't even need a full costume, just a trademark look.He doesn't have a secret identity to protect, nor is he reliant on a costume for protection or his powers. He's simply a guy who doesn't feel the need to run around wearing brightly colored spandex... and I totally buy that from him.
Honestly, his 70s outfit with the yellow and the metal headband and his 90s outfit in the Cage book were never really anything more than slightly exaggerated street clothes.