Heroes for hire
This awesome original art page arrived in the mail this afternoon. It's page 14 from Iron Fist/Wolverine, issue #3. Jamal Igle is the penciler; Rich Perrotta finished the drawing in ink.
I don't know anything, really, about the comic itself, so I have no idea why the main character seen here in addition to Wolverine is Luke Cage, aka Power Man, the former Hero for Hire, while Iron Fist himself is nowhere to be seen. (Cage and Iron Fist costarred in the Power Man/Iron Fist series back in the '80s, but this book is of much more recent vintage.) I can't tell you much about the artists, either, other than that I hear good things about Jamal Igle's work.
I don't have to know much about the storyline, however, to appreciate the bold images here: the action shot of Power Man slugging the dragon in panel one; the full-body Wolverine pose in panel two; the expressive close-up of Cage in panel four. Wicked cool stuff.
A lifetime ago though it was, I still remember vividly the night in 1972 when I purchased the inaugural issue of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire. My family was just returning to the U.S. from our two-year stint in Greece, and we were on our way to our next duty station in California. We were visiting my aunts in Kokomo, Indiana — my mother had three sisters living there, two of whom have since passed on — and my cousins and I went shopping at a local grocery store. I did what then came naturally: I gravitated toward the comics rack.
There I saw a remarkable wonder — this comic with an African American (we were still just getting used to saying "black" then, but you know what I mean) superhero as the title character. Of course, I had to have this comic — brothers weren't getting breaks like that every day back in the Age of George Wallace (and I don't mean the comedian). Was the character a little stereotypical in the early '70s blaxploitation mode? Sure, to a degree. I could have done without the chain around his waist and the faux ghetto dialogue. (Cage had an annoying habit of shouting "Christmas!" as an expletive. To this date, I've never heard any black person of my relation or acquaintance speak that way.) But in many ways — as had been the character of T'Challa, the Black Panther, before him — Cage represented an image young comic readers of all colors desperately needed to see: A powerful man of African heritage who was no one's sidekick, valet, or lackey.
Before you even ask: No, I don't still have that copy of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire #1. Due to the transitory nature of our military life, and the weight restrictions that applied every time we had our belongings shipped to or from an overseas destination, my comic collection routinely got pitched in the trash every time we relocated. Not that it would have mattered, because in those days, we treated comics as reading material, not as collector's items. We dragged them around in bicycle baskets, crammed them in hip pockets, tore the covers off so we could cut out the pictures of our favorite heroes and tape them to our bedroom walls. Who knew they'd be worth a small fortune someday?
I don't know anything, really, about the comic itself, so I have no idea why the main character seen here in addition to Wolverine is Luke Cage, aka Power Man, the former Hero for Hire, while Iron Fist himself is nowhere to be seen. (Cage and Iron Fist costarred in the Power Man/Iron Fist series back in the '80s, but this book is of much more recent vintage.) I can't tell you much about the artists, either, other than that I hear good things about Jamal Igle's work.
I don't have to know much about the storyline, however, to appreciate the bold images here: the action shot of Power Man slugging the dragon in panel one; the full-body Wolverine pose in panel two; the expressive close-up of Cage in panel four. Wicked cool stuff.
A lifetime ago though it was, I still remember vividly the night in 1972 when I purchased the inaugural issue of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire. My family was just returning to the U.S. from our two-year stint in Greece, and we were on our way to our next duty station in California. We were visiting my aunts in Kokomo, Indiana — my mother had three sisters living there, two of whom have since passed on — and my cousins and I went shopping at a local grocery store. I did what then came naturally: I gravitated toward the comics rack.
There I saw a remarkable wonder — this comic with an African American (we were still just getting used to saying "black" then, but you know what I mean) superhero as the title character. Of course, I had to have this comic — brothers weren't getting breaks like that every day back in the Age of George Wallace (and I don't mean the comedian). Was the character a little stereotypical in the early '70s blaxploitation mode? Sure, to a degree. I could have done without the chain around his waist and the faux ghetto dialogue. (Cage had an annoying habit of shouting "Christmas!" as an expletive. To this date, I've never heard any black person of my relation or acquaintance speak that way.) But in many ways — as had been the character of T'Challa, the Black Panther, before him — Cage represented an image young comic readers of all colors desperately needed to see: A powerful man of African heritage who was no one's sidekick, valet, or lackey.
Before you even ask: No, I don't still have that copy of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire #1. Due to the transitory nature of our military life, and the weight restrictions that applied every time we had our belongings shipped to or from an overseas destination, my comic collection routinely got pitched in the trash every time we relocated. Not that it would have mattered, because in those days, we treated comics as reading material, not as collector's items. We dragged them around in bicycle baskets, crammed them in hip pockets, tore the covers off so we could cut out the pictures of our favorite heroes and tape them to our bedroom walls. Who knew they'd be worth a small fortune someday?
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 6:25 PM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
Re: Luke Cage.
Wow! Lots has changed. I think he'll be dying the comics again.
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