Willis Stryker and Carl Lucas grew up best friends, joining the local street gang, the Bloods, together, and eventually becoming its leaders. Fights against rival gangs such as the Diablos honed Willis’ knife-fighting skills. Lucas eventually quit the gangs, but Willis’ involvement deepened, and he tried to cut into the Syndicate’s territory.
Then both men became rivals for the affections of Lucas’ work colleague Reva Connors. At first Willis’ money impressed Reva, but witnessing Syndicate heavies ambush Willis demonstrated to her his lifestyle’s brutality. Reva fled for help, returning with Lucas in time to save Willis’ life. Despite this, an enraged Willis blamed Lucas when Reva dumped him.
Willis stole two kilos of uncut heroin from his rival Cornell Cottonmouth’s gang, and used it to frame Lucas, who was imprisoned, allowing Willis to move in on Reva, falsely promising to help prove Lucas’ innocence. She was in Willis’ car when it was forced off the road in retaliation for the theft; he survived, but she did not.
Over the next few years Willis won his place in the Syndicate, known as Diamondback, because of his speed with his blades. However Lucas gained superpowers and escaped prison; as “Luke Cage”, he returned to New York, and targeted Willis’ gang. Warned the Syndicate would drop him if he didn’t deal with Cage, Willis lured Cage into an ambush…
Some time later…
From: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #2 (1972)
Artist: George Tsuka
Writer: Archie Goodwin
Inker: Billy Graham
Editor: Stan Lee
Author: lowbrowcomics
Greetings!
Hello! Welcome to my blog page! This is a page dedicated to comic books, comic book movies, pop culture news and other stuff that I find interesting. I will try to update this page as much as possible with the junk I find interesting. I hope you find it interesting too.
Why the name Lowbrowcomics?
Well, while comic books can be compelling, imaginative and extremely well written, they aren’t exactly Shakespeare. Even though I love reading them, the title of the blog serves as a reminder to just have fun with them.
Ok, cool. So what about you? Who are you?
I’m glad you asked!
I’ve been reading comics for more than 35 years! I remember the day I started pretty clearly. When I was about 3 or 4, my dad came home from work and among the little treats he usually brought home, he brought an issue of the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Power-Man and Iron Fist. It was all over after that. All night long we laid on the floor, reading these comics and even though I was too young to read them myself, I listened intently while he discussed and explained Daredevil’s powers, what happens when Hulk gets mad and Iron Fist’s prodigious use of Kung-Fu.
From then on out, I wanted to read as much as I could (not limited to comics of course) everything from the Marvel and DC universe. From then on out it was Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends on Saturday morning, Batman birthday cakes, Fantastic Four bed sheets, watching Superman movies and on and on and on.
At age 7 in 1984, I was at a birthday party and while most of the kids were playing with toys with the birthday boy, I noticed a TV on in the other room. I poked my head in to see what was on and noticed something strange on the tube. Something I had never seen before. Strange machines were walking across a frozen wasteland shooting lasers at peculiar looking ships, a man clad in all black with a deep raspy voice strode through frozen hallways looking for someone called “The princess”. Yep, you guessed it. The Empire Strikes Back. Thus began my second great love affair.
So there you have it, I’m not going to go through all my major milestones with comics, there just isn’t enough bandwidth available :) I just hope you enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy making it!
Hit me up on Twitter @lowbrowent.
Fin.
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