Black Mariah

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. 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.

After some time in prison, Black Mariah was released and would start a new enterprise: drug dealing. She became the primary distributor of a drug called Acid Z, a potent drug that would eventually make its users become crazy and often times suicidal. When some of the drug got into the hands of Luke Cage's friend D.W. Griffith, Cage went looking for his old friend while his partner Iron Fist tracked down the primary distributor and shut them down. Iron Fist found Black Mariah's hideout, however, he found that she had hired a special enforcer as protection: Iron Fist's old foe Scimitar. Iron Fist was soon joined in battle by his partner Power Man after Luke learned of his old foes involvement in the drug distribution, and the Heroes for Hire made short work of Mariah and Scimitar, crushing their drug operation and turning both crooks over to the police.

Mariah had Jennie Royce trick Luke Cage and Iron Fist into recovering the Supersoul Stone telling them it was necklace which belonged to her grandmother and had been taken, and that she'd like their help in recovering it from the current owner, Tombstone (Lonnie Lincoln). Now staying at the Sisters of Mercy House, the two happily returned her necklace. She gave the necklace to Black Mariah who gleefully saw the artifact as the first step towards their takeover of Tombstone's soon-to-be-crumbling criminal empire.