He was the first black superhero to get his own comic book. Now, Luke Cage is the first black superhero with his own TV show. Its star Mike Colter on tiaras, talking jive – and why America is beyond help

‘Every day I look in the paper – always someone getting gunned down, unarmed,” says Mike Colter. “It’s too close to home for me because it doesn’t seem as though it’s getting any better … As much as we like to think we are helping, I don’t know how much our series can really change the narrative of America.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The original Luke Cage from 1972 … complete with steel tiara. Photograph: Marvel

The 40-year-old actor is discussing the significance of playing an African-American man with bulletproof skin in the age of Black Lives Matter. It was Luke Cage’s showrunner, Cheo Hodari Coker, who first hinted at the heavy symbolism in the latest Netflix show about “street-level” superheroes, when he announced at Comic-Con that “the world is ready for a bulletproof black man”. It’s no coincidence that Marvel’s latest TV superhero wears a plain old hoodie, just as Trayvon Martin did, rather than a colourful cape, nor that the show is set in Harlem, often considered the heartland of black America.

In 1972, Cage became Marvel’s first black superhero to get his own comic-book. Back then he was classic Blaxploitation – all open-chested yellow jacket, chain belt and steel tiara (its purpose never explained). Now he’s the first African-American superhero with his own show, after appearing as the paramour of Jessica Jones in last year’s hit Netflix series of the same name.

And the 2016 Luke Cage may just be the most subversive TV superhero yet. He’s a warm-hearted symbol of black power, a public rebuke to those who judge by skin colour. When we first meet him, Cage is struggling to pay the rent in menial jobs at his local barbershop and a nightclub, living hand-to-mouth in gentrifying Harlem. But the death of an innocent loved one, the avuncular barbershop owner Pops, sees him find his inner hero. Soon, he becomes the scourge of the district’s dealers, thugs and crooked politicians.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Penniless superhero … when we meet him, Cage is struggling to pay the rent, living hand-to-mouth in gentrifying Harlem. Photograph: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix

Colter, whose big break came in 2004 as the boxer “Big” Willie Little alongside Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, says he was initially suspicious of the role. Having won praise for humanising Chicago drug lord Lemond Bishop in The Good Wife, he was concerned the character was no more than a stereotype. “I understood from the history of Luke Cage that he was going to talk jive and be something more cliched. But when I saw in Jessica Jones how he was soft-spoken, thoughtful, vulnerable emotionally, that was something I could identify with.”

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It’s not until several episodes in that we see how Cage picked up his powers (he has super-strength and super-endurance as well as unbreakable skin). But the show’s strength lies in that slow-burn intrigue, as well as its soulful vision of African-American culture. Every time the camera visits villain Cottonmouth’s slick nightclub, Paradise, there’s another legend on stage, from Charles Bradley and Faith Evans to Raphael Saadiq.

It’s no surprise that this is where Cage meets supercool cop Misty Knight (newcomer Simone Missick), a staple of the comics who could well be the show’s breakout character. She may have lost her bionic arm in the 2016 update, but it’s made up for with a superpower that allows her to mentally rearrange crime scenes in real time. Other transfers from the comics include “Shades” Alvarez (Sons of Anarchy’s Theo Rossi), a devious criminal operator who never takes his sunglasses off, and Cottonmouth himself (Mahershala Ali), a super-smooth Biggie Smalls-obsessed drug lord.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Across 110th street … everyone in Luke Cage’s Harlem is unutterably cool. Photograph: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix

It seems that anyone who crosses Manhattan’s 110th Street becomes unutterably cool. Coker admits that the district is the show’s secret weapon. “When Marvel suggested Harlem, I knew right then I could tell a story with deep cultural resonance. By setting the story there you can include music, history, gentrification, and do it in a way that makes the show feel like it’s taking place in the real world.”

There are comic moments too, many pitched around Cage’s near-invincibility, bulk (Colter is 6ft 3” and 17 stone) and need for a new outfit every time he goes up against gun-wielding thugs. In one scene, Cage marches into a local hoodlum’s hideout to destroy a stash of weapons. As he’s about to leave, the penniless superhero spots a brand new hoodie lying in the corner and politely asks the shellshocked victims of his vigilante activity if they happen to have one in his size.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mr Invincible … it’s the mix of crime drama and comic-book silliness that makes Luke Cage must-view TV. Photograph: Myles Aronowitz/Netflix

It’s this mix of comic-book silliness and crime drama that makes Luke Cage must-view TV. But Coker has also woven a deeper sense of history into the show’s architecture. Poke your head inside Pop’s barbershop and you might find yourself party to conversations about local luminaries like Geoffrey Canada or Percy Sutton, civil-rights activist heroes who lifted up Harlem long before Luke Cage came to town.

The show also features a largely black cast, which is a rarity for comic book-based material. And while Colter may be reticent about the idea his bulletproof black hero can bring societal change, Missick who plays Misty is more optimistic.“If you look at the civil rights movement in the 1960s and Black Lives Matter right now, the discussion going on about police brutality in America … change came from people outside that community identifying it was a problem and creating legislation,” she says. “This show highlights a lot of the issues in the black community, and it will, perhaps, enact change in unlikely places. It plants a seed.”

Luke Cage is available on Netflix now.