With Avengers: Infinity War bringing the Marvel Cinematic Universe's profile to new heights, other MCU movies and shows are trying to capitalize. Ant-Man & The Wasp put out their trailer less than 48 hours after Infinity War broke box office records and shocked audiences into knowing what comes next. Now, over on Netflix, Luke Cage is following suit, arriving with a Monday trailer after Infinity War crossed the $1 billion box office line in record time. The Luke Cage Season 2 trailer is the first we've seen of Harlem's hero since the events of The Defenders last summer, and it seems like he's been busy since viewers last saw him.
Luke Cage Season 2 is Netflix's second release this year after Jessica Jones Season 2 arrived in March. Unlike Jessica Jones Season 1, Luke didn't have a cameo crossover this year into Jessica's world, and it looks like she won't be coming to visit either unless the series is trying to keep things under wraps.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of Luke Cage favorites who will be making an appearance this coming season, including Misty Knight, who was last seen losing her arm in The Defenders.
Check out the trailer to see who else is back:
Here are some of the details you might have missed:
In the Luke Cage comics, "The Bushmaster" was actually a moniker given to two different men, both European crime bosses. The first had "unliving metal skin” a mutation brought on by exposure to Cage and whatever was done to him. The mutation killed him though. The second Bushmaster, his brother, had bionic limbs.
Here it looks like the show has simplified things down. This Bushmaster (played by Mustafa Shakir) seems to be a mirror image of Cage, perhaps made by the same people who made Cage into what he is. Either way, ESPN is clearly hoping for the rights to broadcast the showdown.
I think most fans knew this was coming, but in case there was still anyone out there holding out hope for any sort of crossover between the Netflix TV shows and the movies, sorry. At least, it's not happening in Luke Cage Season 2. Misty Knight will not be sporting a bionic arm created by Stark Enterprises and paid for by Rand.
Instead, Rand is doing his own in-house design work, as fans can see from the signature block on what looks to be a bit of a childlike drawing. Thankfully the real deal she's wearing seems adult enough.
Claire Temple used to be the connective characters between the four shows, leading up to The Defenders crossover. At least in Daredevil and Jessica Jones, her appearance made sense. In Iron Fist she was shoehorned in.
But the place she made the most sense was Luke Cage, and it seems that Netflix, having crossed over their shows once with no current plans for a sequel, is done with connecting the dots. Temple wasn't in Jessica Jones 2 at all but she is here in Luke Cage 2. Good to see her where she belongs.
Last season Luke Cage defeated Mariah and her sidekick Shades (Theo Rossi), but they're not gone and forgotten. How exactly these two connect to the Bushmaster (if at all) is still a mystery.
Perhaps they don't. Perhaps dealing with them is Luke Cage's permanent side hustle between taking down antagonists. But their existence in Luke Cage's world does mean fans can look forward to some excellent musical cameos and performances throughout Season 2 the same way they got in Season 1.
Possibly the most interesting development is Luke performing for the camera, and being reported on in the national news scene. At one point he refers to this as "his show" a fun meta moment in the trailer, but probably not actually a meta one in the series.
So what's that about? It seems that after The Defenders, Cage's fame has moved outside of Harlem and gone country-wide. Cage is having too much fun playing into that, which would account for why the Bushmaster knocks him off his feet so spectacularly.
Cage's inability to handle things alone seems to be the theme of the season, especially since we know Iron Fist will eventually turn up. Does this season lead to Cage forming his own team in Heroes For Hire?
