Luke Cage's cancelation isn't that disappointing because it wasn't black enough, and its quality suffered in trying to appeal to everybody

VICE

The Netflix version of the Marvel character was specially built not to alienate non-white audiences, says Noel Ransome. Or as Mike Colter put it, he was supposed to be superhero, not a black superhero. "Interestingly enough, it’s that stance that made Luke Cage, the character, the worst part of his own show," says Ransome. "He was the principled, sullen and reluctant vigilante that felt disappointingly wooden. He was the Old Navy mannequin experiencing sentiency through a script. Through season one, his main pathos and character conflicts stood outside of himself; Luke Cage vs. Cottonmouth...Luke Cage Vs. Bushmaster. Beyond that, he was altruistic to the point of feeling stale. Characters Daredevil and Jessica Jones felt comparatively honest because their internal conflicts were real and severely broken in a, I’m-not-trusting-these-fools-with-my-life sort of way. Sure, there was a play Luke's humanity through an animosity driven arc with his father and his anger; but he was still engrained to be a flawless presentation for both white and black viewers; the complete antidote to the negative arguments against black communities as a whole." The Netflix version of Luke Cage, Ransome adds, was a "watered-down Kool-Aid interpretation, dipped in high-fructose corn syrup, with the blandness of an on-duty mall cop. And over the course of two seasons, I noticed the strain of disease Luke Cage was suffering from; the same conundrum TV shows and films designed for black audiences tolerate in a marketable woke culture."

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• Luke Cage's cancelation is complicated: It had an uninteresting lead and sporadic quality, but it's curious that Jessica Jones and Daredevil were renewed despite their sophomore slumps
• It's time to cancel Netflix's Marvel franchise because it's become “diminishing returns"