'They gotta order Season Three first': Luke Cage's Season 2 changes, Bushmaster, gunning for Season 3

At a record of 56-5, boxer Muhammad Ali didn't have a perfect run. What he did have was a legendary career of pushing himself to the next level, evolving and coming back from wins and losses alike as a better fighter.

It's the same philosophy showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker applied to Luke Cage in Season 2, which aired a month ago on Netflix.

"The reason that Ali is my favorite boxer of all time is because he doesn' t have a perfect record. I think if you have a perfect record as a boxer, you didn't challenge yourself," explained Coker at a round-table interview at the first day of Asia POP Comicon on Friday.

"After a while, you didn't keep pushing the edge. Ali lost some critical fights but then he always came back and defeated whoever beat him."

Boxing metaphors dominated the thought in the writer's room for Season 2, and one adequately summarized one of Cage's biggest conundrums in the season.

"Mike Tyson said famously 'Everyone's got a plan 'til they get hit in the face,' and that was kind of the metaphor for what happened between Luke and Bushmaster," Coker said.

John McIver or Bushmaster's effective opposition of Cage challenged the character and series lead Mike Colter, who found the character played by Mustafa Shakir essential for Cage, the show, and the audience.

"That was great, that's what's fun. As an actor, you're looking for something to do," Colter remarked. "For us, we really wanna challenge the character, challenge the audience, change what people's perception of superheroes are, what it means to be tough, and how you can relate to somebody."

"It's fun, but if you can't hurt him (Luke), then what's the point? We find ways to hurt him, whether it's emotionally or physically, we have to figure ways to get to him."

Obscure to essential

Shakir could not have been more thrilled to bring the obscure character of Bushmaster to life.

"(He's) a lot of fun. It's one of my dreams to be a... comic book character, it's a joy, but to be able to take an obscure character and bring it to life, it's a once in a lifetime situation," he relayed.

"I'm really thrilled about it. Cheo gave me all the leeway to just have fun. What you see is a natural picture."

Coker called Bushmaster an anti-hero who left an "indelible mark" on the show, something which he would like to explore along with the moral dilemma Cage was left in by the end of the season.

"He really elevated the season, but at the same time, we never lose Luke Cage," he observed. "Luke Cage is always evolving, and to see his evolution the entire season, the thing that I'm really the proudest of is the fact that with all these new characters and all these new moments, we never lose Luke."

Coker later added, "Bushmaster's left an indelible mark on the show. And at the same time, the moral place that we leave Luke gives us all types of possibilities, should we get a third season."

While he would love to answer more questions about the direction Bushmaster and Luke are headed, Coker said, "First, they gotta order season three."

Maintaining excellence

Esquire to Deadline speculated that Luke Cage was the reason behind Netflix' brief outage in 2016 when the first season of the show, the highest-rated Marvel show on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, was released.

The crew hopes to maintain this level of excellence if (when) Netflix decides to order a third season.

^{L-R: Raven Metzner, Finn Jones, Cheo Hodari Coker, Mike Colter, Mustafa Shakir, Adi Shankar, Takashi Yoshizawa. Chito Photography/Netflix}

"You just have to stay good," Coker stated. "When excellence is not just a requirement, it's the norm, you can't really foocus on anything else. We just keep working, we just keep working pushing."

"It's something that we're very proud of, but we don't rest on our laurels because it's gonna be even harder to, if we get a season three, to match that. We're gonna try our best to do it." —GMA News