Black Mariah was the leader of a gang of New York criminals called the Rat Pack. Their primary source of income involved using a stolen ambulance to pick up the bodies of the recently deceased and then stealing whatever valuables they had on their person.[2]
When a man named Frank Jenks was murdered in the Gem Theater, it was Black Mariah’s gang that picked up the body. When Jenks’ widow learned the truth, she would hired Luke Cage (who was at the scene of the murder) to find her husband’s body; the sympathetic Cage took the job free of charge. In spite of the bad information given to him by his informant, Flea, Luke Cage managed to find the hideout of Black Mariah.[3] This led to a clash between Mariah and her men against Cage. Luke ultimately defeated Mariah and her cohorts and turned them over to the police. However, it would prove to be a bitter victory, when Flea’s insistence for payment (in spite of giving the wrong info) in front of Jenks’ widow prompted her to get angry, thinking that Luke was going back on his offer to do the job for free.[4]
