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start out as one. Coker went back to work and developed a new story about an unfairly arrested prison escapee living anonymously in Harlem — until he finds himself unable to resist the responsibility to help his community that his superpowers impose on him. Coker packed his story with colorful characters and midseason plot twists. And he suggested a soundscape that leaned heavily on early ’90s hip hop. The resulting series is many things. A comic-book adventure. A neo- blaxploitation epic. An urban drama. An addition to the Marvel metaverse. But it also looks suspiciously like the product of a personal fever dream, a synthesis of Coker’s many obsessions, woven into one narrative. It’s not hard to picture a teenage Coker poring over comic books while listening to hip hop and talking to his grandfather about Harlem, imagining the series he would finally create decades later. At least that’s how Coker sees it. “I finally have these heroes,” he says, “these images that have been in my head for the past 20 years.” OUTSIDE A STARBUCKS in Studio City, California, Mike Colter is eating a grilled chicken salad out of a Tupperware container and plotting out his plans to survive Comic-Con. Colter will head there in two weeks to promote Cage, and while he’s not exactly looking forward to the onslaught of superfans, he’s trying to stay optimistic. “If I were going to be there for four days, it’d be a bigger deal, but if you don’t go to the parties and if you’re not there for that long it’s OK,” he says. “I can eat room service for 36 hours. That’s fine.” Like the man he portrays, Colter is a reluctant superhero. Unlike Coker, when he heard about the opportunity to audition for the role of Luke Cage, he wasn’t instantly enthusiastic. Colter, who built a career playing solid 32 DIMENSION
supporting roles in shows like American Horror Story and The Good Wife, worried that helming a Marvel franchise would destroy what remained of his personal life. He wasn’t much encouraged when he picked up copies of the 1970s comic to find Cage decked out in a tiara and bright yellow shirt unbuttoned to the navel, spouting lines like “Step aside, jive-mouth!” and “Sweet Christmas!” It was only after reading early versions of Rosenberg’s Jessica Jones scripts that he started warming to the idea. This version of Luke Cage wasn’t just a jive-talking caricature but a flawed, nuanced, fully fleshed character. He wore street clothes, not garish costumes. The screenplay was filled with long, pensive silences and expressions of remorse. “He doesn’t profess to know everything,” Colter says. “He’s a work in progress.” Once he started seriously considering the role, Colter says, he sat in front of a mirror, staring at his own face, trying to find the vulnerable hero inside himself that would allow him to connect with the character. After finally accepting the part, Colter sat down with Loeb and Marvel’s chief creative officer, Joe Quesada, who impressed upon him the importance of bringing their first black superhero to the A black man in a hoodie isn’t necessarily a threat. He might just be a hero. screen. “He means more to his fans than some young man who was bitten by a radioactive spider,” Loeb says. “We have a responsibility, more so than with any other character we’ve had so far, to make sure that we get it right.” Even before shooting began, Colter says, people began stopping him on the street to tell him how important Cage was to them. “They didn’t have any other character they could relate to, an American black guy from the streets,” Colter says. “That became important to me.” So did the opportunity to work with a team of black producers and to address — even symbolically — issues of importance to the black community. At several points during the series, including during some of his most heroic moments, Cage can be seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt. To some extent, this makes sense for the character, who is on the run and trying to lie low. But it is also, Colter says, a nod to Trayvon Martin and the Black Lives Matter movement — and the idea that a black man in a hoodie isn’t necessarily a threat. He might just be a hero. As Colter tells me this, it’s less than 48 hours since the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, making them the 116th and 117th black men to die at the hands of police so far this year. In the national mourning that has followed, it’s naive to think that Luke Cage will do much to change that grim trajectory. But that’s not to say it can’t be meaningful in its own way. When I spoke with Coker, he told me about the first time he saw the trailer for Captain America: Civil War with his twin sons. “It was the first moment they saw Falcon” — another African American character — “and I looked at how they reacted. I still get emotional about it. When you come from the culture that you see onscreen, it inspires you in different ways. I grew up loving Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones and Rocky. But they don’t look anything like me. They’re universal, and you get past that, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to be Italian and see Rocky. And when I saw my sons’ reaction to Falcon, that’s when I realized the importance of what we’re doing.” Back in Studio City, Colter and I are wrapping up our conversation. We talk about Game of Thrones and ’90s hip hop — like Coker, he’s a fan, and he was thrilled to learn that a pivotal scene in an early Luke Cage episode would be set to a Wu-Tang Clan song. (A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad scored the series, along with composer Adrian Younge.) “As soon as he told me about the sounds he wanted to use,” Colter says, “I was like, ‘I’m in.’” Then he gets up and heads into the Starbucks to pick up a coffee for his wife before heading home. The place is full, but nobody bothers Colter. Perhaps they’re being polite, but it seems more likely that they don’t recognize him, don’t realize that, beneath the mirrored shades and Under Armour workout gear, Marvel’s newest superhero walks among them. At least they don’t yet. But, with any luck, it’s just a matter of time. 33
Page 2 and 3: A NEW CURVED SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY
Page 5 and 6: Contents Fall 2016 20 No, The TV Bu
Page 7 and 8: 5:55 PM An earthquake struck China
Page 10 and 11: Nope, the TV Business Isn’t Dead
Page 13 and 14: Meet Symphony the Company That Trac
Page 16 and 17: HELLO,
Page 18 and 19: WHAT I’M ABOUT TO TELL YOU IS TOP
Page 20 and 21: MR. ROBOT IS DESIGNED TO FORCE US T
Page 23 and 24: Sense8 and the failure of the globa
Page 25 and 26: about these other cultures through
Page 27 and 28: worldview, situate the character in
Page 30: modern marvel why netflix’s Luke
Page 33: quirk than a defining characteristi
Page 38 and 39: When monitors become fully aware of
Page 40 and 41: offering Helena up for yet more inv
Page 44 and 45: Black-ish Photography: ABC Studios
Page 46 and 47: cleverman Photography: ABC Australi
Page 48 and 49: transparent Photography: Amazon Stu
Page 51 and 52: DVD Theater Panasonic. The quality
Page 53: under represented by a factor of ne

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