Favorite Characters: John McIver a.k.a. Bushmaster (Luke Cage)

Luke Cage’s first season had a couple of strong villains in Cottonmouth and Mariah, as well as a not-so-good one in Diamondback, but the overall effect of juggling several villains over the season made it feel a little scattered and unfocused at times.  Season 2 also has multiple villains – with Mariah returning and a new addition in John McIver, better known as Bushmaster – and the balance this time feels a little better to me.  I really enjoy what Bushmaster brings to the mix (a few Bushmaster-related spoilers.)

When you get down to it, the Netflix branch of Marvel doesn’t have a ton of villains that lend themselves well to traditional superhero showdowns.  Characters like Fisk, Gao, Kilgrave, and, yes, Mariah, are certainly compelling, formidable adversaries for our heroes, and they’re great to watch, but they also typically prefer to work through other people, having henchmen/lieutenants/pawns handle the fighting.  This is one of the first strengths of Bushmaster as a character.

While Bushmaster’s powers come from a different source than Luke’s, he too has super strength and some healing ability.  A native of Jamaica, Bushmaster started using nightshade at a young age to help him heal and advance his strength – the first time, it was a last-ditch effort to save his life, but since then, it’s been for the power it gives him.  As such, he can withstand a lot of the same attacks that don’t phase Luke – for instance, he’s not bulletproof, but he can power through the pain of getting shot, pluck the bullets out of his skin after the fight is over, and wait a short time for the wounds to heal.  Similarly, Bushmaster may not be able to pierce Luke’s skin more than anything else can, but he packs enough of a punch that he can cause internal damage beneath Luke’s impervious outsides.

This gives Luke some real fights to take part in, and it’s a pleasure to watch Bushmaster in action.  He’s fast, sleek, and deadly, with the moves and the skill to back up the extra juice the nightshade gives him.  For once, Luke can’t just push his way through or patiently wait for the baddies to empty their magazines – Bushmaster can put him in some real danger.

A not-uncommon theme in stories about superpowers, especially when we’re talking supervillains, is the idea that their powers come at a cost.  I mean, how many mad scientists have been horribly disfigured by the accident that gave them their powers, or how many villains’ powers cause mental instability?  (There’s a fair amount of ableism in that trope, but I’m not getting into it today.)  In Bushmaster’s case, his abuse of nightshade is predictably taking its toll.  Like any other powerful substance, it grows less effective over time as his body builds a tolerance to it, but the more he takes, the bigger the comedown is as it wears off; though he’s more powerful than he’s ever been, he’s shortening his life with every dose.

Additionally, Bushmaster is just a good wildcard to throw into the proceedings.  He likes Mariah even less than he likes Luke, due to a longstanding vendetta between their families, and he causes some major shakeups in the criminal underworld.  You can never quite predict what he’s gonna do or how far he’s gonna go, which pretty much always makes for good television.

Favorite Characters: Luke Cage (Luke Cage)

Luke Cage, as a Marvel hero, is a little hard for me to pin down.  He brings a different dynamic to the table than many of the MCU’s film and TV heroes.  He’s just as damaged as many of them, just as haunted by his past as others, but the way he carries both is definitely his own (some Luke-related spoilers.)

On a cursory level, it might be tempting to compare Luke to Scott Lang or one of the Guardians, an ex-con looking to make good.  But Luke isn’t like Scott or the Guardians.  While they all committed the crimes they were imprisoned for (even if, like Scott, the law-breaking was in pursuit of a greater good,) Luke did not.  He was falsely accused, falsely convicted, and left to be forgotten.  In the eyes of everyone around him, he went from cop to criminal in barely a breath.  And unlike Cap or Bruce, both of whom similarly got their powers from scientific intervention, Luke didn’t come to it as a willing participant.  He didn’t design the experiment or even volunteer for it.  He was experimented upon, a lab rat plucked out at someone else’s whim.

There’s also the small matter of his secret identity.  Plenty of heroes conceal who they are, but in Luke’s case, that begins before you even take the powers into consideration.  He knows that he can only avoid those who exploited him as long as they think he’s dead.  For the first part of the series, he has enough double lives to worry about without being a superhero.  He’s just trying to keep his head down, live clean, and go unnoticed.  Luke is a big guy, obviously, but his quiet reserve makes him appear to take up less space than he really does.

Because of these extreme extenuating circumstances, Luke has a lot more to lose when he dons the hoodie and goes after Cottonmouth’s operation.  It’s a huge risk to put himself on any type of radar, but he does it anyway.  Initially, he’s drawn out of the shadows because of what happened to Pops, looking to make things right – shades of both Spider-Man (feeling guilty over what he could’ve done to save Uncle Ben) and Iron Man (at first using the suit solely to go after the terrorists who bought his weapons illegally.)  But as soon as he pushes, Cottonmouth pushes back, and it’s not Luke that Cottonmouth pushes at directly; it’s the neighborhood.  Luke, seeing the people on his block being put to the knife over his actions, wrestles with whether it’d be better for them if he bowed out or fought back against those looking to hurt them.  No surprise which one he chooses.

I like that he’s such a local hero, that he mostly stays on the street level looking out for ordinary people.  It’s a strong motivation for him, and it drives him farther than concerns for his own well-being do (not that he’s selfless or never has to deal with his own stuff, but I like that most of his time is spent protecting people that no one else notices from bad guys without comic-book powers.)  Things get more elevated and embroiled in personal drama toward the end of season 1, and I know that any comic-book show needs some stuff like that, but I hope that his journey going forward always keeps the day-to-day safety of Harlem’s residents in view.

Favorite Characters: Cornell Stokes a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Luke Cage)

Luke Cage fits the overall Marvel trend of the TV shows generally having better villains than the movies.  Now, I wouldn’t put this show quite up there with Jessica Jones or Agent Carter, since Diamondback doesn’t really work for me, but fortunately, the show spreads the villain love between a few different characters.  Like his cousin Mariah, Cottonmouth makes an excellent baddie, albeit for very different reasons (some Cottonmouth-related spoilers.)

This is the type of story that lends itself well to a suave crime lord, and Cottonmouth fits the bill quite nicely.  On the (very ostensible) surface, he’s a wealthy club owner who oversees the happening Harlem’s Paradise, the place to be with live music to die for.  However, he’s so notorious that his position running a vast criminal enterprise isn’t even an open secret.  Everyone knows exactly what sort of business he gets up to – from extortion to drugs to guns – and he’s the type who manages to stay just far enough out of the muck that the police can’t pin anything to him.

Cottonmouth is all about power.  He runs his operation with icy determination, and everyone in his employ know they cross him at their own risk.  The “everybody wants to be the king” speech in his office is a masterful bit of acting, and I love how it’s filmed, with him delivering it straight into the camera where his unseen lackey is tied up just offscreen.  His words are calm, eloquent, all business – and then he beats his lackey so hard, the blood spatters onto his clothes.  He means what he says, he can turn on a dime, and he does not stand for anything less than what he ordered.

And yet, he has a pull that’s about more than just intimidation and power.  Most people in Harlem live in fear of getting on his bad side, but he’s so compelling, so charismatic, that he’s capable of making them, for just a moment, almost forget that.  When he speaks at Pop’s funeral, he suddenly rallies the people, moving them with this words, and in that instant, they stop being afraid.

This is partially because, unlike the other villains we see in Luke Cage, Cottonmouth does have a sort of code that he follows.  He knows the unwritten rules of the neighborhood, like Pop’s barber shop being neutral ground, and so, despite his general unpredictability, people know where he stands on things like that and can trust him to honor the code.  His stance on these matters are absolute, and he has no mercy for any of his goons who color outside these lines against his orders.  Yes, this severity ties back into his need for power and control – he won’t brook disobedience under any circumstances – but it also shows what principles he’s maintained throughout his criminal enterprises.  That always makes for good drama, because even though he’s definitely a villain first and foremost, it can’t be said that he’s only one thing, and when is that not a plus?

Relationship Spotlight: Mariah Dillard & Cornell Stokes a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Luke Cage)

There a number of different adages you could probably apply to Cottonmouth and Mariah if you wanted to.  “Blood is thicker than water.”  “You can’t choose your family.”  Even stuff along the lines of tigers not changing their stripes and apples falling within reach of their trees.  But though the relationship obviously has its roots in these different ideas, it doesn’t feel clichéd or tropey.  Instead, it’s a fascinating, fraught connection that keeps both characters entangled in one another (a few spoilers for Cottonmouth-Mariah.)

At first glance, these cousins appear to be positioned as polar opposites – the crime boss and the councilwoman.  Really, though, they have much more in common.  Having grown up surrounded by the family business, both carry it on in their own way, and both have identities that are not what they seem.  Mariah, although she presents herself as the respectable politician, plays a shell game with official funds to help bankroll Cottonmouth’s criminal ventures.  Her illegal activities are much more of a secret than her cousin’s; Cottonmouth is the sort of man who’s widely known to be a crime boss, and his front as a legitimate businessman/club owner is more cover-by-rote than anything else.

They play the same game with the actual illegal activities they conduct and their respective attitudes toward the family business/desire for power.  Cottonmouth’s is much more out in the open.  He’s the one sending his lieutenants out to “deliver messages” or bring gun deals to fruition, while Mariah is eager to say that she’s “just” the money, that she doesn’t even fully want to know what Cottonmouth is up to as long as he takes care of it quickly and discreetly.  But when push comes to shove, Mariah has a much greater capacity for crime and power plays than she lets on.  When she takes over partway through the season, even as she insists that she’s just tying up loose ends so they can never come back to bite her, there’s also that little piece of her that takes pride in improving on Cottonmouth’s – by her estimation – sloppy operation.

It’s such a messed-up relationship.  Mariah wants nothing to do with Cottonmouth (even though, deep down so far that it takes her a good chunk of the season to admit it to herself, she kind of does,) but she still can’t turn him down when he needs something from her.  She knows how her dealings with him could mess with her career if they come out, but she does it anyway.  Cottonmouth is beholden to Mariah for the money she’s given him, and yet (maybe because he’s seen how she can’t tell him no?), he still acts like he has all the power. 

Both went through very different iterations of the same trauma, and both kind of blame the other for it, especially now that the actual people who traumatized them are dead and can no longer be confronted about it.  Cottonmouth resents Mariah because, while she was sent away to school and put on the path to her current highly-respected career, he was forced to join the family business as a teenager.  As he was made to commit horrific acts at Mama Mabel’s behest, his impression of events is that Mariah abandoned him by allowing herself to be sent away.  Meanwhile, Mariah loathes the way Cottonmouth remembers their Uncle Pete as the one person who tried to look out for him and wanted to nurture his musical talent instead of pushing him toward crime, because Uncle Pete’s abuse of her was the real reason she was sent away.  Hate and love and need and anger get all jumbled up between them, and it’s only a matter of time before all those fomenting emotions bring them to a crisis point.

Favorite Characters: Mariah Dillard (Luke Cage)

(Spoilers ahead.)

One thing I appreciate about Marvel’s TV properties is that there are often so many female characters and characters of color that there’s room for a wider range of roles within the story.  In the films, the ratio is drastic enough that all the women and PoC pretty much need to be firmly on the side of the good guys, but on TV, we have a plentiful enough selection that, in addition to the heroes running around being awesome, we’ve also had female villains and villains of color.  And even, as here – gasp! – female villains of color. 

Councilwoman Mariah Dillard is all about reinvention.  She works tirelessly toward a new Harlem Renaissance, giving the neighborhood a revamped image and showing the rest of New York what Harlem can be.  She wants people thinking about urban development and community initiatives, not crime and violence.  She’s about power, yes, but she’s also really, genuinely about helping the people of her city.

But for Mariah, that crime and violence is never far away.  She was raised by the notorious crime boss Mama Mabel, and her cousin Cottonmouth carries on the family business to this day.  Despite Mariah’s desire to be the respectable face of Harlem, willing the public to forget about her ignoble background, she’s also fiercely loyal to family and continually agrees to lend Cottonmouth a hand in his criminal enterprises.  She lets him launder his money through her real estate projects, and though she’s well aware that any carelessness on his part risks everything she’s worked for in a major way, she can’t bring herself to cut ties with him.  Both because he’s family and because she’s knows she’s gotten in deep enough that she can’t untangle her fate from his, she can’t wash her hands of him.

Mariah likes to think that she’s the responsible, ethical one cleaning up Cottonmouth’s messes, but he’s not the only one who chooses to go down dark roads.  Mariah’s drive – to succeed for the sake of Harlem’s residents, to seize the power she wants – leads her to plenty of sketchy decisions on her own that Cottonmouth has nothing to do with.  Her actions get darker and darker over the course of the series.  Whether she’s trying to cover the tracks of her past sins, create a rallying point to make the people follow her, or hold her own against the family’s rivals, Mariah proves ruthless in her ambition and ingenuity.

While Mariah has many talents, her greatest one is perhaps her ability to create a narrative.  It’s a gift that’s served her well in politics and long helped her maintain the appearance of distance from her unsavory connections, but she employs it to excellent effect as a weapon against Luke.  In her hands, Luke becomes a symbol of all the problems that have emerged in the world since Tony Stark revealed himself as Iron Man.  He’s the powered freak wreaking havoc on the lives of the good, hard-working people of Harlem.  Look at the police who are so powerless to stop this monster, profiling honest citizens in their bungled attempts to bring him down.  Mariah’s the only one who can effectively neutralize the threat of this superpowered menace, while at the same time taking on the police who’d rather harass Harlem’s people than keep them safe.  (And if it just so happens that Luke is the man who’s been trying to disrupt her family’s operation, what of it?)  This is what people mean when they say “mastermind.”