Issue(s): Hero For Hire #10, Hero For Hire #11
Cover Date: Jun-Jul 73
Title: "The lucky... and the dead!" / "Where there's life...!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
George Tuska - Penciler
Billy Graham - Inker

Review/plot:
This story picks up on the plot that i felt was dropped back in issue #5. Cage is at the home of Mrs. Jenks, the wife of Frank, who was killed in that issue. We learn that Mrs. Jenks has expensive, modern tastes...

...and apparently didn't think much of her husband. But Cage insists that she take him to Frank's safe deposit box where (after he breaks up a bank robbery) he finds a matchbook.

The matchbook leads him to a restaurant that has just been burned down. Eventually we learn that the restaurant was part of a gambling operation run by a Senor Suerte

Luke Cage fights a guy named Senor Muerte or Senor Suerte.

Suerte (Spanish for luck) is apparently unnaturally lucky, and also has a sixth sense that tells him that someone is on his trail. And when Suerte has the need, he becomes Senor Muerte (Spanish for death).

Even as "Mr. Death", he relies on luck to a degree. That dial on his chest charges up one of his hands with a lethal voltage, and then he allows his victim to pick a hand. One hand kills them, the other doesn't.

Obviously an eccentric character, and pretty corny. Not the type of thing you'd expect from Marvel and especially this title. The gambling angle makes sense, but the rest of it is pure camp.

Suerte had been sending goons to Cage's office, and at the end of this issue he arrives in person to deliver his electric shock.

The blast doesn't kill Cage, but it does knock him out. Suerte/Muerte chains Cage up in a sewer tunnel where he expects Cage to drown to death...

...but of course Cage escapes. Suerte is tipped off about Cage's escape by Flea, the stoolie that Cage got into an argument with back in issue #5.

The rematch battle with Suerte/Muerte gets even more into Adam West territory.

Suerte/Muerte winds up electrocuting himself. Note the double "Christmas" epithets from Luke; this may be the first of those from Luke, and they are not Sweet yet.

This is the death of the original Senor Suerte, but we'll eventually learn that he's got two brothers.

We learn that the reason Frank Jenks was killed is because he was running up a gambling debt and was going to blow the whistle on Suerte's operation.

And reporter Phil Fox breaks into Dr. Burstein's office and gets his files on Cage, learning that he's an escaped convict.

I almost thought we were going to get a Sweet Christmas in issue #10. Here's the first panel.

Turn the page... two pages of ads... turn the page again:

Nope!

Tuska's art is getting increasingly sketchy.

Ah well, Luke Cage is still pretty good, right?

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Senor Suerte. Moves things along for Cage's escaped convict plot.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Frank Jenks was killed in Hero For Hire #5, but we didn't find out why.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This story's another counter-example to the idea that Cage had high strength and just pulled his punches. When in Senior Suerte's trap, Cage wasn't able to pull hard enough to outright break the chains or the concrete they were moored in. That would've been cake to the Thing.

It's a good escape sequence, though, really sells Cage's determination.

Senor Suerte for the Netflix show!