When comic book characters make their way to the world of TV, it’s understandable that not everything from the page gets adapted for live-action. But when we’re talking about a relatively simple costume choice, it shouldn’t be that difficult to port it over, right? In the case of Netflix’s upcoming Marvel series Luke Cage and the hero’s signature yellow shirt and boots, we will probably see it, but star Mike Colter was being…cagey…when asked if the costume wasn’t shown on Jessica Jones because it was being saved for later.
Jessica is her series. Anything that’s primarily Luke Cage we want to save for Luke Cage’s series. I’m not saying that you’re going to see the yellow shirt, but if you’re going to see it, it’ll be in Luke Cage’s series.
An interesting answer, even if it seems like he’s just beating around the bush for secrecy’s sake. I mean, it’s easy to get why Daredevil was weird about unveiling costume news, considering Matt Murdock stuck with his black duds until donning the actual comic costume for the Season 1 finale. And it also makes sense why the same thing happened for Jessica Jones, since she just basically wore street clothes the whole time, only pulling out the comic costume for a quick Easter egg.
So will Luke Cage do something similar to those shows? Will he go to a clothing store and try on a yellow shirt and boots, only to dismiss them for something that fits in more with the street-level grittiness of Netflix’s Marvel shows? Will he wear his usual clothes until later in the season when he makes the decision to wear a specified costume? I can’t imagine the creative team would just leave it out altogether, and Colter also cryptically explained to the L.A. Times how the writers are handling things.
The writers have been very clever and very on point with the way they allowed this to be grounded in realism while paying homage to the comic book and what comic book fans know to be their world…To try and not give the fans what they want would be a mistake; that being said, it’s going to be a unique way of delivering it. But they’re going to get what they want eventually.
Maybe he’s talking about the costume in that last part, or maybe he’s talking about flashbacks to his past. Or maybe he’s talking about just walking around shirtless all the time, as I’m sure a large section of the fanbase would be perfectly fine with that.
Costumed or not, Luke Cage will be hitting Netflix and some villains’ faces at some point in 2016.
