Luke Cage season 2: Who is Bushmaster? Explaining the villain on the show and in the comics 

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season two has now landed on Netflix and sees him face off against a formidable new foe in the form of Bushmaster.

In the Marvel comics, there have actually been two different versions of Bushmaster since his first appearance in

#15, with the TV show taking its inspiration for the villain from the original version called John McIver, a powerful crime boss who took over the European branch of Marvel\'s fictional crime syndicate, Maggia.

We\'re about to head into major spoiler territory for how the TV version differs, so don\'t read past the trailer if you want to discover for yourself.

Before we delve into the differences between John McIver on page and screen, it\'s understandable to see why the TV show didn\'t take inspiration from the second version of Bushmaster.

#310 as John\'s younger brother Quincy, who had lost both his arms and legs in a boating accident (bit unfortunate) as he tried to escape the police, retconning John\'s original backstory. This led to the Roxxon Oil Company grafting bionic arms and a bionic snake tail onto Quincy\'s body, with this new Bushmaster becoming a founding member of the snake-themed supervillain organisation, Serpent Society.

Given the grounded nature of the TV show (even with bulletproof superheroes), it\'s easy to see why they didn\'t adapt this version of Bushmaster, but its take on the original Bushmaster differs quite drastically too.

For one, his place of birth is different. "In the comic book, he\'s from St Croix [in the Caribbean], in some places, they say specifically St Croix, other places they just say Caribbean. So if you\'re a real comic book fan, you\'re probably going to go, \'Oh, he\'s not from Jamaica [in the comic books]!\' but I think Jamaica is a better place for him to be from," Bushmaster actor Mustafa Shakir told Digital Spy.

"There\'s a history there that supports his drive. Obviously, he\'s not wearing a lot of the outfits that he wears in the [comics], he doesn\'t go to Europe – which in the comic books he does, he comes to Europe and joins the mafia, the Maggia. We don\'t see that with this Bushmaster, but who\'s to say what comes?"

In the comics, Misty Knight successfully infiltrated the Maggia as Maya Korday to get close to Bushmaster, even sharing a kiss with him. But she had to break her cover when he put out a hit on Iron Fist, forcing Bushmaster to tell her where it was going to take place.

Obviously, Bushmaster didn\'t take too kindly to this and used Luke Cage to bring Misty to him by kidnapping Claire Temple and Noah Burstein and tempting Luke with evidence that would clear his name. This led to the first meeting between Luke and Iron Fist, resulting in a big fight before Luke realised they were all on the same side and, along with Misty and Colleen Wing, the duo went to stop Bushmaster at Seagate Prison and rescue Claire and Noah.

Little did they know that Bushmaster had used Noah\'s \'Power Man\' science on him to make him even more powerful than Luke. During the ensuing fight, Luke and Bushmaster were covered in electrified chemicals and everyone was led to believe Bushmaster had died in an explosion, although he later came back after Luke and Iron Fist had some Heroes for Hire adventures.

The chemicals led to Bushmaster\'s body mutating into unliving metal and he tried to get Noah to reverse the \'Power Man\' process, using Luke as a guinea pig. Iron Fist arrived in time to stop the process and Bushmaster\'s transformation accelerated, turning him completely metal and eventually leaving only a metal skeleton.

Of course, only Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben stay dead in the comics though and it turned out that Bushmaster had a secret son called Cruz.

Like father, like son, Cruz forced Noah to again perform the \'Power Man\' process on an island fortress, which led to John taking over his son\'s body and renaming himself Power Master. This version didn\'t last long though, as Iron Fist and Luke teamed up to put a power cable into him and as he absorbed the energy, the duo escaped before the fortress exploded.

To cut a long story short, none of this happens in season two of

Despite Noah being alive in the Marvel TV universe, season two reveals that John got his powers from a random doctor giving out injections when he was younger. These led to a lot of the children dying, but John survived and was called "special and blessed". After being shot in Trench Town as a teenager, he is revived with nightshade.

It\'s made clear that nightshade doesn\'t give him his powers, it only reveals them as he was "always indestructible". In the TV show, the name Bushmaster comes from the rum his father used to create and John comes to Harlem to settle a decades-old feud with Mariah Stokes (Alfre Woodard) and her family, including her daughter Tilda Johnson (Gabrielle Dennis).

(As a side note here, the show\'s use of nightshade is a nod to Tilda\'s comic book character.)

It turns out that Mariah\'s grandfather Buggy Stokes and John\'s father were in business together, until their partnership was threatened by "Italian gangsters, Irish cops and politicians". Buggy was told he could keep Harlem\'s Paradise if he killed John\'s father, so he did, but not before his father shot Buggy, killing him five months later. John and his mother escaped to Kingston, only for Mariah\'s grandmother, Mabel Stokes, to track them down and burn their house down, killing his mother.

So Bushmaster comes to Harlem to reclaim what he feels is rightfully his (Harlem\'s Paradise) and kill Mariah. He doesn\'t even really have an issue with Luke, although he does see him as a threat to his control of Harlem, leading to some almighty bust-ups between the two.

Bushmaster is successful in taking over control of Harlem\'s Paradise after he tries to burn Mariah and her daughter Tilda alive in Mariah\'s house. Luke saves them and defeats Bushmaster, only for him to escape police custody by blowing up the van he is in. Unfortunately for him, he is being slowly poisoned by the nightshade and while Tilda is being forced to save him, Mariah carries out her vengeance by killing Bushmaster\'s uncle Anansi and everyone he cares about.

By this point, Tilda has realised that her mother is Bad News, so she helps Bushmaster with a "super shot of nightshade", although he is warned it could "destroy [his] body and [his] mind". Paying no attention, Bushmaster takes it all in one final attempt to bring down Mariah at Harlem\'s Paradise, but Luke is again in his way and after an epic battle, Bushmaster barely escapes.

The final episode of season two sees Bushmaster hide out in Tilda\'s shop as Misty searches for him. To continue his recovery, he is forced to leave Harlem behind and the last we see of him is getting into a car heading to Delaware, but not before he tells Tilda that "Mariah must burn, it\'s the only way".

This appears to be the spark that leads Tilda to fatally poisoning Mariah as she visits her in prison, with Luke finding himself having to take over Harlem\'s Paradise to maintain control in Harlem as battle rages between the rival gangs.

? We\'re going to go with potentially, yes, for now. He\'s left in pretty bad shape with the nightshade poisoning most of his internal organs, yet that doesn\'t mean death in a comic book world and with Mustafa Shakir being one of the stand-outs of season two, we hope we\'ll see more.

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