Marvel’s Luke Cage has superhuman strength and bulletproof, unbreakable skin, and that’s way too overpowered to be a “street-level” hero. What makes characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil “fun” is the fact that they are vigilantes who can be hurt; they can be shot or stabbed, and their friends worry about them because they aren’t indestructible. But when you have a character that’s indestructible, then all that danger goes away. Also normal thugs aren’t a threat to you.

  • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    20 hours ago

    OK, let’s put it this way.

    The street heroes the OP compares Cage to are Spider-Man and Daredevil.

    We’ve already talked about Spider-Man. He’s stronger than most characters in the Marvel universe whose main power isn’t strength, has better mobility than most characters in the Marvel universe whose main power isn’t mobility, his spider sense makes it almost impossible to surprise him, when it comes to smarts he’s on the same league as Richards, Stark, or Pym, he’s got his own personal multiverse, and so on.

    As for Daredevil? He’s a master ninja easily capable of winning against dozens of Hand goons at once, if we’re talking physical prowess. Cage would probably have a hard time with that, even with his invulnerability.

    Not all powers have to be physical, though. One of his main antagonists is Mephisto himself. And he’s one of the few people on the whole Marvel universe who can resist the Purple Man’s control on willpower alone (the only other one that comes to mind is Victor von fucking Doom).