How Luke Cage Season 2 Changes Nightshade From the Comics

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Marvel's Luke Cage Season 2, now streaming on Netflix.

From the moment Marvel Comics fans read Gabrielle Dennis had been cast as Tilda Johnson in the second season of Marvel's Luke Cage, speculation swirled about what role the 1970s supervillain better known as Nightshade might play in the acclaimed Netflix drama's sophomore outing. Perhaps the gifted scientist would be responsible for Misty Knight's bionic arm, or maybe she'd be another antagonist battling Luke for control of Harlem. But when the season arrived, it turned out Tilda wasn't a robotics expert, or even a villain. Well, at least not yet.

Instead, she's the estranged daughter Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) who followed in the footsteps of her late, sainted father and became a physician before discovering holistic medicine. Opening the perhaps ironically named Mother's Touch healing center in Harlem, Tilda draws the attention of both her Mariah and John McIver, aka Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir), who's in need of her services.

Introduced in 1973 in Captain America #164, the Nightshade of Marvel Comics is perhaps most notable for her twin Afro puffs and distinctly '70s sci-fi attire of leather bikini and thigh-high boots.

A criminal scientist who can secrete pheromones that allow her to control certain animals, Tilda developed a way to transform humans into obedient werewolf-like creatures, and used robots in an effort to take over Harlem's criminal underworld, which brought her into conflict with Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Nightshade later helped to create serums that turned Captain America into a woman and, on another occasion, a quasi-werewolf. She's reformed in more recent years, but that's the "classic" Nightshade in a nutshell.

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Unsurprisingly, the Tilda Johnson of Luke Cage does none of those things. She's a holistic health practitioner who resists the manipulations of her mother Mariah, knowing the source of the Stokes family's money and power. Early in Season 2 she sells nightshade to Bushmaster, which he uses as part of a ceremony to grant himself enhanced strength, speed and stamina to fight Luke Cage. However, what begins as a mere nod to Tilda's comic book alter ego becomes integral to the season's story, as Bushmaster requires more and more nightshade, which grants him superhuman abilities while also slowly killing him. Tilda becomes caught in the middle of an escalating war between her mother and Bushmaster, and ends up sympathizing with the latter, who was robbed of his family, and his birthright, by the Stokes.

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"You have to really pay attention to the medium," showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker told CBR. "Nightshade as a villain in comic books works. Nightshade as a straight adaptation on a television show, in this day and age, doesn’t work, Because her controlling dogs – like some of the stuff she did in comics that was interesting, whether it’s the mind control or using the dogs to commit crimes and the robots and the like, it doesn’t all make sense within this current dramatic context. So it was like, OK, we know this character’s really cool, we know that her look, with two Afro puffs and the jumpsuit, is really cool, but how do we build to that, and how do we incorporate this in a way that people won’t see it coming?"

Viewers definitely don't see what's coming with Tilda, who, after a conversation with Luke, thinks she finally understands the depths of Mariah's dark nature, only for her mother to reveal she feels no love for her daughter. She can hardly bear to look at Tilda, because whenever she does she sees the face of Pistol Pete, the uncle who sexually abused Mariah for years -- Tilda's true father. It's a turning point for both Mariah, who no longer has to pretend to be a doting mother, and Tilda, who's able to sever lingering emotional ties.

Although she gives aid to Bushmaster, it's Tilda who actually brings to an end her mother's reign over Harlem, and peace to John McIver. Arrested for the murder of her cousin Cornell in Season 1 and for her role in the massacre at a restaurant owned by Bushmaster's relatives in Season 2, Mariah orders the execution of everyone with ties to Harlem's Paradise who might be able to testify against her -- all but her former henchman Sugar, her attorney and Tilda. The latter proves to be a grave mistake, because Tilda pays a visit to Rikers Island wearing poison lipstick she concocted called "Kiss of the Spider." After their meeting, in which Mariah insists she's already changed by her time in prison, Tilda kisses her goodbye, saying, “I love you, mother. I hope you find peace, even though you don’t deserve it.”

The poison doesn't act immediately, instead allowing time for Mariah to talk first with her attorney, and then with Luke Cage, before she meets her bloody, violent end. Of course, Mariah being Mariah, she still has the last laugh, in the form of her will, which leaves Tilda only Cornell's keyboard.

"When we introduced Tilda Johnson, people were like, ‘How are you gonna make her Mariah’s daughter?’ and then we build this whole backstory that when we have that twist, when we reveal that Uncle Pete was her father, and that whole thing," Coker said, "and then we get to the end and she rejects her Dillard name, and then takes the adopted name, Johnson, which brings the thing full circle. When she comes to the club in Episode 13 with the Afro puffs, it all kind of comes together in a roundabout way that you can’t predict."

Streaming now on Netflix, Marvel's Luke Cage Season 2 stars Mike Colter, Simone Missick, Alfre Woodard, Theo Rossi, Mustafa Shakir, Gabrielle Dennis, Rosario Dawson and Reg E. Cathey.