Luke Cage Goes South — S.A. Cosby Talks ‘Truth To Power: A Luke Cage Marvel Crime Novel’

Marvel may be best known for its comics, but the company has also branched out into novels. One of the current lines is Marvel Crime. This past week, the third book, Truth to Power: A Luke Cage Marvel Crime Novel, was released. At New York Comic Con, we spoke with author S.A. Cosby to learn more about the title. 

Cosby described the basic concept of the book. He said, “I thought it would be really cool to take Luke out of New York. I know he’s known as Harlem’s Hero. He’s an iconic New York character. I thought it would be really interesting to see him come down South. Come to where the home of the Great Migration of African-American history in America. Let him absorb that and see how he acts. Also, I thought it’d be cool to have him come down south and beat up rednecks for 300 pages.”

Luke Cage occupies a special place within Cosby. The author spoke about what he finds most interesting about the superhero and what he wanted to explore in Truth to Power. 

“I’ve been a comic book fan for a long time, mostly all my life as a kid,” he explained. “So I remember Luke Cage when he was Power Man. He’s sort of a blaxploitation character. I remember when [Brian Michael] Bendis changed him in the ’90s and made him more contemporary. The thing I love about Luke is he has very interesting villains. I wasn’t able to use any of those in the book, but to see how he interacts with Viper and how he interacts with Bushmaster. I remember one of his villains from the ’90s was the martial artist Hardcore. I loved how he never tried to kill his villains. He always tried to temper his interactions with them. Temper his strength.”

“So I use that in the book where he’s dealing with a lot of really nasty people in the South,” he continued. “Rednecks, racists, so on and so forth. He just always sort of tries to find the peaceful way out. You know, it’s the idea of another great Marvel character: With great power comes great responsibility. That great strength, he’s almost overly gentle. I liked taking that from the comics and putting it in the book.”

The novel’s main setting is Virginia, which is also where Cosby is from. He thought the change in scenery for the protagonist would be intriguing new place to interact in.

“I think the South, especially Virginia, has a rich deep African-American culture and deep history that Luke, as an African-American man, can’t help but find himself being drawn into that. There are scenes in the book where his grandma’s cooking really good food. There’s a history of incredible cuisine and culinary history in the South. He’s eating, this is going to make me sound real country, but he’s eating cornbread and baked chicken and meatloaf and fried okra and things of that nature. He’s drinking moonshine. He’s sort of immersed himself in this culture in this world while not ever letting go of his New Yorkerness. He is a New Yorker, obviously. Seeing him in that world would be really cool and sort of put him in a different circumstance, different atmosphere. But the atmosphere that he can grow into and maybe learn to accept.”

Cosby hopes readers take more from Truth to Power than just another entertaining superhero tale after reading the novel. 

“I hope people enjoy the story but I also hope people are able to read the subtext. The story is full of action and drama and excitement. But the subtext is, Luke, as a person who’s incredibly powerful and incredibly strong, maybe learning to walk that path of peace.

“I think it’s really cool for people to see the modern South. This book takes place in modern times. There’s this idea among some people that the modern South is the sole provenance of neo-Confederate apologists. Nothing can be further from the truth,” he said. “The South is full of multiplicity of cultures and Luke gets to see a lot of that while he’s visiting. Not just the good food.”

Truth to Power: A Luke Cage Marvel Crime Novel is out now.