I'm working on Marvel's Spider-Man in American comics.

Chapter 115 The Story of Luke Cage (Part 1)
Luke Cage sat nervously in the reception room of the Nelson-Murdoch law firm, glancing around anxiously. He wasn't sure if it was safe, so he kept looking around. When the door opened, he immediately turned around and saw the lawyer wearing sunglasses smiling and leaning on his guide cane as he walked in.

"Oh, excuse me, you are..."

“Yes, I am blind.” Matt smiled and sat down, placing his guide cane on the table. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not a good lawyer, Mr. Cage.”

“That’s not what I meant.” The burly man named Luke Cage placed his hands on his lap. Matt sensed his movement and knew it was a habitual gesture. This man had developed the habit of not placing his hands on the table while in prison, perhaps because there was no room or because he wasn’t allowed to.

However, Cage's words still surprised Matt quite a bit.

“What I mean is, you really exist. The low-ranking inmates at Rikers Island always talk about, the blind angel lawyer, a good person who acts on moral grounds.”

Matt exclaimed "Ah!" with a slightly surprised expression, then realized what was going on: "That's why you came to me; you think I can help you."

“Yes, I mean, you might be the only one who can help me.” Luke sighed. “How should I put it…start from scratch?”

"Let's start with how you got into prison. You claim you're innocent, so how did you get there?"

Luke Cage sighed and began to tell his story.
-
As a typical Black man in New York, Carl Lucas, like most Black people, joined a gang at a young age. Young thugs couldn't accomplish much, and with Kingpin already rising in power at that time, Carl Lucas and his gang mainly collected protection money in a few neighborhoods. He was tall and strong from a young age; just standing there, without lifting a finger, was enough to make most people obediently hand over their money.

Within the gang, Carl Lucas met a friend who brought him in and taught him the rules. This man was Willis Stryker, a Black man from a poor background like Carl, who had also been involved in gangs since childhood.

It was within the gang that Carl learned driving skills and other abilities. Later, with Willis's help, he successfully left the gang and became a truck driver at the docks. Although the income was low, he escaped the gang's lifestyle. Because of his gang background, Carl was not questioned by others. However, Carl, who was indeed determined to leave gang life, also refused the offer to transport smuggled goods for his former gang.

until that day.

That day, Willis Stryker, still in the gang, called Carl, saying he'd accidentally gotten involved in a big deal, been shot, and was about to die. Carl hesitated for a moment, then drove to find his friend. But instead of getting in the car, the friend frantically threw a box into Carl's vehicle, saying that even if the police caught him, he wouldn't die, but if the box was lost, he would be dead. So Carl had to protect the box and wait for his return.

“At the next intersection, I was caught by the police. They opened the box and found a whole box of highly concentrated addictive drugs inside. Since I knew a lot of people in the gang, they charged me with aiding and abetting smuggling.”

Luke Cage couldn't help but laugh. He thought he was a good brother, that he was just helping his brother escape. But what happened? In the end, it was gang retaliation. Because Cage refused to help them smuggle, they put him in jail.

Matt frowned after hearing about the first half of Cage's life when he was still called Carl Lucas. Luke Cage was simply Carl Lucas's name reversed—simple and convenient. He also quickly realized the problem. "And...you probably didn't have the money to hire a lawyer, so the court must have appointed one for you?"

"Yeah, what else can I say? All the smuggling by the entire gang over the past few years has been pinned on me. Thank goodness our gang isn't very capable, otherwise I could have gotten a share of the corpse-moving, corpse-stealing, and human trafficking too."

“The problem here is that the police have witnesses and physical evidence. You don’t, and Willis is not going to stand up for you.” Matt quickly understood the first troublesome aspect of Cage’s case: there was almost no evidence to overturn it, the police had caught him red-handed, and Willis wouldn’t voluntarily stand up for Cage.

"We haven't even been able to find any new evidence to request a reversal of the verdict."

Matt first explained the first problem, then reminded Cage, "And... that's not the only problem. Regardless of whether you committed a crime before, escaping from prison is a serious crime, and you won't escape punishment just because you're innocent, Mr. Cage. Even if your smuggling case is dropped, you'll still have to face charges of escaping from prison."

“But I am innocent!” Luke Cage said angrily, and Matt, who had seen all kinds of clients, knew very well how the other party felt. Moreover, from the sound of his heartbeat, he could tell that the other party was not lying.

This is someone who is innocent, or at least believes he is innocent.

“What I’m telling you isn’t the truth, it’s the law, Mr. Cage. I hope you understand that. From a factual standpoint, I believe the only situation that would involve you in guilt is that you wanted to help your friend, you wanted to take him to the hospital, and he might have been being pursued by the police at the time. And that… undoubtedly exceeds the sentence you would be sentenced to.” Matt’s smile faded, but his tone remained quite gentle: “I believe we can agree on this, right?”

Luke Cage sighed, then nodded. "You're right, lawyer."

“Very good.” Matt laughed, then continued his previous statement: “And it’s also a fact that you escaped from Rikers Island prison, isn’t it? That’s what you need to face now.”

“I…” Cage sighed heavily, “I have to do this, or I will die.”

“Very good, that’s the key point. What’s happening in prison seriously threatens your life.”

Matt's unfocused eyes looked at Cage as he stated his final strategy: "And what we need to do is prove that escaping is your only way to protect your life, and that requires you to tell us what happened next."

(End of this chapter)