Twelve Days of Comic Book Christmas: Day Eleven

Closer, my friends! Closer!

Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #7

"Jingle Bombs!"

March 1973

Writer: Steve Englehart

Artist: George Tuska

 

This is another oddball Christmas story from Marvel.

 

Basically, Luke Cage encounters and fights three different bad guys, each of which loosely represents the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. They all turn out to be one guy and all he wanted was to find one decent person in the world and it turns out to be our favorite 70's jive-talker, Luke Cage.

 

So, dressed as Santa Claus, he knocks Luke out and kidnaps him. Later, at the secret hideout, it turns out the villain managed to steal a computer and an atomic bomb from the U.S. Army. He hates the current world and wants to decimate it, so this is how he's gonna do it!

 

Our villain, whose name I don't even know, gloats and gloats and gloats until a sound is heard from the chimney behind him! Who is it? Santa? It doesn't matter because it gives Luke just enough time to attack the distracted idiot and take him down.

 

So, no really, who was in the chimney?

 

Oh, just some criminal that got stuck up there while trying to case the joint for burglary. We end the story with Luke having destroyed the computer controlling the bomb, beaten up the villain and watching the sunrise with the chimney burglar.

 

I love Steve Englehart's work and George Tuska's art is great, but this one doesn't hold up entirely well if you don't enjoy it on its level as a product of its era. Luke Cage has become a well-loved character, but these are his comic book roots. He's a street level hero, like Daredevil, whose book initially struggled to justify its existence. Fortunately, it went on to join with Iron Fist and things were great after that, but this is just a weird Christmas tale, but cool enough to make it to my list!

Note: I've had to jump through hoops to get scans onto this blog. For some reason I'm having issues with blogger AND my scanner. I'll post better pics when possible.