The Secrets of Luke Cage, Straight From Its Showrunner

Sweet Christmas! After months of teasers, trailers, and WIRED cover stories, Marvel’s new Netflix series, Luke Cage, finally comes out today. And if you need to break up your binge-watching, we’ve got a special edition of The Monitor just for the occasion. In honor of our favorite bulletproof superhero, we caught up with Cheo Hodari Coker, Luke’s showrunner, who conceived of and led the transition from pulpy blaxploitation comic book to streaming-TV star. In this special edition of the WIRED Culture podcast, we talk with Coker about how he got the gig, what it’s like to work with Marvel, how superhero movies are different from superhero TV shows, and how he shaped his hero’s journey. “I said [to Marvel], ‘Look, I want to take a hip hop approach, but at the same time have a hero that is very conscious of who he is, knowing that because he’s black and he’s not wearing a mask, he’s going to have to do this hero thing a little differently,’” Coker says. “And they dug that.” Listen to more of Coker’s thoughts in the new Monitor podcast here.