The irony of suggesting Luke Cage is too strong while your icon is the most overpowered super hero of all time.
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He's only "too strong" if it affects the plot by removing all the risks of conflict.
For me the essence of the character has always been that while he is physically invulnerable, he is conscious of the tremendous damage done to those around him who are not. The drama is less about whether he can out-punch his opponents, but whether he can get through the week without having his friends and neighborhood blown to smithereens. For all his strength, he can't always protect the people he loves, and just being around him actually puts people's lives in jeopardy. I think the series actually did a pretty good job of conveying this.
In the comics, Luke Cage does occasionally team up with "major league" heroes and fights big league bad guys just fine. But in a universe populated by the Hulk, the Thing, Thor, and Groot and we don't really need one more strong guy. What makes him more interesting than the muscleman of the week is the sense of responsibility he feels for his neighborhood, and the difficulties he has keeping it safe.

Somewhat. It all depends on the villains he's facing. And you don't need a huge villain set on global domination to make an interesting story.
In terms of strength, he's not really any different than Ironman, only Ironman has a suit. Which became ridiculously more and more powerful.

Black Widow is not going to get raped and Black Panther is not getting pulled over by the police but Jessica and Luke are.

Street level
is about
marketing
to differentiate the Defenders from the Avengers.
And the difference is subject matter not about power
(any of the Netflix heroes are equal or superior to Hawkeye, Widow and even Capt Amer)
Would you rather have have Falcon's wing suit or Luke Cage's abilities?
Black Widow is not going to get raped and Black Panther is not getting pulled over by the police but Jessica and Luke are.

Ahh, well if you're going by in that kind of brawl it would be different. I could argue that all Black Widow or Hawkeye have to do is get poison into his mouth, but hell they'd still need to have it on them, and I'm not sure they have any non-lethal poisons prepped.
Still War Machine and Iron Man should be able to take him out with their sonics. Since those attack his nervous system through his hearing.
Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared

Pretty sure War Machine and Iron Man could take him out with sonics like they did with the Scarlet Witch in Civil War. They could always go the crowd control gas or nerve agent route. Pretty sure Falcon could get that upgrade too.
Black Widow would never fight him head on. Same way you never see her using her scissor technique on Thor or the Hulk. That isn't he way she'd go about defeating him. Pretty sure she's just poison his ass if she was trying to kill him. Otherwise she's blackmail and/or seduce him.
Hawkeye gets no real love in the MCU. But he does have some tricks. He's known to use rocket assisted arrows in the comics. Along with Adamantium and Vibranium arrows in emergency situations. So he can do some damage.
In most cases it all depends on how well these people are prepared. Even in the case of Luke against them.
I was talking about in a fight, like if Luke was at the airport in Civil War - not any prep time craziness, so no, Black Widow doesn't get time to seduce and poison Luke Cage lol. Nor does Falcon get upgrades to go against him. If Black Widow was such an expert on how to fight people stronger than her then I doubt she would've gotten power-bombed and almost strangled to death by Bucky. She couldn't beat him in a fight, she'd have no shot against Luke. She would be dead if Black Panther didn't save her. Hawkeye couldn't do anything either and we're talking about the movies/shows here, not comics.
I never saved anything for the swim back.

Pretty sure War Machine and Iron Man could take him out with sonics like they did with the Scarlet Witch in Civil War. They could always go the crowd control gas or nerve agent route. Pretty sure Falcon could get that upgrade too.
Black Widow would never fight him head on. Same way you never see her using her scissor technique on Thor or the Hulk. That isn't he way she'd go about defeating him. Pretty sure she's just poison his ass if she was trying to kill him. Otherwise she's blackmail and/or seduce him.
Hawkeye gets no real love in the MCU. But he does have some tricks. He's known to use rocket assisted arrows in the comics. Along with Adamantium and Vibranium arrows in emergency situations. So he can do some damage.
In most cases it all depends on how well these people are prepared. Even in the case of Luke against them.
Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared

Story wise he brings a lot to the table, since he would've been with Cap in Civil War due to his lack of trust in the system since he's a black man that has been setup and seen how bad prison guards/cops/government can be. Falcon and War Machine are military guys and don't come at it from that point of view. In Avengers 1 they kinda had different roles, but that was a long time ago. If I was in any fight, particularly against aliens, machines, and so on I'd rather have Luke with me than Black Widow, Hawkeye, or Falcon.
I never saved anything for the swim back.

Tbh he probably is stronger but what I like about Avengers (in the first film anyway) is that they all have their roles.
I can't see LC doing anything unique. He'd just be the heavy hitter along with Hulk which is a bit boring.
Although yeah, strength wise capt sign him up!

Luke Cage could probably easily beat Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon. I'm not sure what War Machine could do to him since he just uses bullets and rockets. Iron Man won't be that effective unless his lasers can cut him. Luke Cage can beat or at least put up a good fight against any Avenger besides the top 4 (Hulk, Thor, Scarlet Witch, and Vision).
I never saved anything for the swim back.

You think he'd hold his own against the Avengers in civil war?
I don't think so. I mean yeah he's strong but it's like the whole "big fish small pond" if he joins avengers he's a pretty big fish in an ocean surrounded by sharks.
I will be intrigued in how they balance the heroes in defenders though. Because I've heard IF is pretty strong too and it seems like they're going to overwhelm JJ and DDs (to a lesser extent) usefulness.

Basicly Batman started out as a street level hero, he fought bandits, muggers, drug dealers and mafia not super-beings
He did fight vampires very early on though. Superman started out that way though before the Ultra-Humanite entered the picture, if I'm not mistaken.
He is just wasting his time with his current level of work, he should be taking global threats and not play catch me with some mid-level gangster.
No one "should" be doing anyhing and there is no wasting of time. We spend it the way we spend it. Mankind has been around for 4.3 million years.
For the better part of the series we see basicly a god smacking down criminals with one hand, it is a bit like watching Superman or Thor spending his time on fighting crime in one relativly small place.
Luke Cage is not a god, he's a bulletproof man who can lift a car over his head and will smack a wifebeater. That's what Superman started out as (except of course he could run faster than a locomotive, leap tall buildings and hold his breath for I-don't-know-how-long).
He should be resilient to small caliber weapons but assault rifles? I do not think so.
Your thoughts?
No one "should" be anything. I like Luke Cage the way he is. A shotgun to the face will give him a concussion that could potentially kill him but he's super-tough, superstrong and heals quickly.
"Need" is just a fiction. As is "should", "must", "value" and "importance".