Marvel opened up their Noir Universe with The Amazing Spider-Man, and, lo, it was good.  At the same time they put out X-Men Noir, and, lo, it was alright, but nothing special.  Wave two featured Daredevil, which was already a noir, and really didn’t need to be written.  I never got around to reading Wolverine Noir, but I assumed Marvel was going to just go down the list of properties based on what titles sold best in the canon Marvel Universe.  Thus, I was pleasantly surprised by Luke Cage Noir.

This is not a Power Man story that happens to be thrown into the noir world, the way titles like House of M Avengers, was just a bunch of characters thrown together in the House of M Universe.  This is a noir story that happens to be about Luke Cage, Power Man.  And it’s quite good.  You don’t need to know anything about Luke Cage to like this story (if you like crime stories), but if you happen to be an expert on Luke Cage, you’ll be pleased with how he’s written here.

The current Marvel color scheme actually works well with noir, Shawn Martinbrough knows exactly where to place a shadow to evoke emotion.