An interesting take on the origin of Luke Cage. Luke more or less fills the role of a private detective on a quest of revenge. A common staple of classic noir stories are the internal monologues and this story has PLENTY of them. While I enjoy reading cheesy, dated analogies, I won’t lie I had to sit there every now and then and decipher what the characters were actually saying. It brought the pace down and really took me out of the narrative.

The plot is decent enough, as is the mystery Luke is out to solve, the plot treats its female characters VERY poorly and casts them as prostitutes and tools to be maimed. I realize the story takes place in a certain time period, and sex is a pretty common theme in classic noir, but I wish a lot of these tropes stayed in the past. So far this is my least favorite of the Marvel Noir series.