Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the comics posted so far!

Sweet Christmas! We continue the Cool Christmas Comic Countdown with a decidedly offbeat Christmas tale from Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #7 by Steve Englehart, George Tuska and Billy Graham...

Enjoy!

I must imagine that after he finished writing this story, Steve Englehart's eye must have been quite sore. You know, from all the winking that goes on in the telling of this tale.

During this story set on Christmas Eve, Luke Cage encounters three "different" men. First, he sees a man dressed like he's living in the past whipping on a delivery boy...



Dude's name is "Marley."

Later, after a strong sequence with Luke and his then-girlfriend...





Luke has a confrontation with a man showing us the problems of the present...



Later on, Luke is accosted by a man from the future...





As you might imagine, all these guys are the same person. This fellow believes that humanity needs to be nuked away, but he was shocked to see Luke Cage continually risk his life to help others.

Even with this, the bad guy decides to detonate a nuke anyways, but someone distracts him...



This being Steve Englehart writing Luke Cage, I think you'll know the twist that's coming from the chimney, but I'll leave it for you to read on your own. The art by Tuska and Graham was strong and Englehart tells a charming enough story that it makes up for the fact that it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to frame your narrative around a guy continually testing Cage and then having those tests not matter to the plot of the book.