By many & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3848-8
Once upon a time little Danny Rand travelled with his parents and uncle to the chilly Himalayas, searching for the “lost city of K’un Lun†which only appears once every ten years. Within spitting distance of their goal, the boy’s father Wendell was murdered by the uncle and Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save her child. Alone in the wilderness, the city found him and he spent the next decade mastering all forms of martial arts.
As soon he was able, Danny returned to the real world intent on vengeance, further armed with a mystic punch gained by killing the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying. When Iron Fist eventually achieved his goal the lad was at a loose end and – by default – a billionaire, as his murderous uncle had turned the family business into a multi-national megalith.
Iron Fist sprang out whole-heartedly out of the 1970s Kung Fu Craze, by way of a heartfelt tribute to Bill Everett’s golden Age super-hero Amazing Man (who appeared from 1939-1945 in Centaur Comics) from character originators Roy Thomas and Gil Kane.
The series ran hot and cold in Marvel Premier (#15-25; May 1974 – October 1975), before Chris Claremont & John Byrne steadied the ship and went on to produce a superb run of issues in his own title (Iron Fist #1-15, November 1975 – September 1977) which you can enjoy in the blockbusting, board-breaking Essential Iron Fist volume 1.
After cancellation the character drifted until paired with street-tough hero-for-hire Luke Cage. Power Man & Iron Fist ran from #51 until the book ended in 1986 (#125). The K’un Lun Kid has died, come back and cropped up all over the Marvel universe as guest star, co-star and even in a few of his own miniseries.
Recently revived and somewhat re-imagined as The Immortal Iron Fist, the new series revealed that there has been a steady progression of warriors bearing the title for centuries – if not millennia – and that K’un L’un was not the only magic city. In fact there were at least six others and each had its own supreme martial arts wonder warrior…
There are in fact seven mystical cities in this universe and every 88 years their celestial inter-dimensional orbits coincide to permit a grand martial arts tournament. In the course of the most recent contest we were introduced to a bunch of bizarre and baroque battlers who proved interesting enough to warrant their own shot at stardom…
This spin-off collection concentrates on those alternative champions whilst extemporising on differing aspects of Chinese kung fu culture in popular arts such as cinema, gathering the 5-issue miniseries Immortal Weapons from 2010. The all out action begins with the tempestuous and overbearing ‘Fat Cobra: the Book of the Cobra’ by Jason Aaron & artists Mico Suayan, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Roberto de La Torre, Khari Evans, Victor Olazaba & Arturo Lozzi, and finds the burly braggart enjoying wine, women and song – especially women and extra-especially wine – when writer Carmichael appears. Although the very old and very drunk warrior has forgotten, in a more sober moment he commissioned the research to find out everything about the bombastic champion of Peng Lai. Not just because a mighty warrior needs his life recorded, but because after so many years of combat, copulation and booze, Fat Cobra has forgotten.
The petrifiedCarmichaelknows his sponsor won’t like what he has discovered…
‘Bride of Nine Spiders: The Spider’s Song’ (by Cullen Bunn & Dan Brereton, inked by Tom Palmer, Gaudiano & Mark Pennington) also examines the origins of the sinister siren, but links it to a terse tale of terror as one of the demi-divine warrior’s arcane arachnids is trapped on Earth in 1935 and becomes the most coveted eldritch artefact in the world.
When the spider passes to debauched billionaire Desmond Guille, a rival collector hires the infallible Jason Krieg and his team to steal it, but by the time the thieves invade Guille’s island fortress, the Queen of Spiders has at last returned to reclaim her lost love and the mercenaries are trapped in an uncanny nest of appallingly horror…
The oppressive bustling urban nightmare of Colonial Hong Kong is the setting for ‘Dog Brother: Urban Legend’ (by Rick Spears & Tim Green II) as starving foundlings struggle to stay alive in an underworld of ruthless savagery and horrifying depravity, buoyed up only by legends of the mythic champion of the Under-City who only fights for the most weak, lost, abandoned and forgotten.
But just how much must brutalised, emaciated Sihing and Sidai endure before they have fallen far enough for Dog Brother to notice them…?
The next offering examines the nature of an unconquerable Amazon tribe betrayed and enslaved by their own men.
Gulled by the heroic Tiger, a slave nation is only saved when his own cosseted, pampered child rejects the honeyed lies which have kept women in silken bondage. Listening to the clarion call of her own body, the indomitable child recovers not just her honour and power but the destiny of her defeated broken people in ‘Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter: All this Useless Beauty’ by Duane Swierczynski, Khari Evans, Victor Olazaba & Allen Martinez.
‘Prince of Orphans: The Loyal Ten Thousand Dead’ is a spectacular Chinese ghost story from David Lapham, & Arturo Lozzi, as Iron Fist is summoned by the spectral champion John Aman to counter the threat of a legion of vengeful warrior spirits cheated by a false Emperor two millennia past. If they can’t have him, the innocents living in one of the most populous cities on Earth will just have to do, so Danny and the Prince are in for one hell of a fight. At least there’s a dragon on their side – if it doesn’t eat or fry them first…
Each original issue also contained a brief episode starring the controversial Champion of K’un L’un. ‘The Immortal Iron Fist: Caretakers’ was written by Duane Swierczynski with the first two chapters illustrated by Travel Foreman & Gaudiano and the concluding three by Hatuey Diaz.
When Jada Frey got home one night, drug-pushers looking for her older brother murdered their dad and kidnapped her baby brother to force their target out of hiding. Luckily for Jada her kung fu sensei Danny Rand wouldn’t take “leave me alone†for an answer…
Comfortably mixing traditional costume-capers with the best of movie martial arts fantasy, horror movies and urban gangster thrillers, this terrific tome blends compellingly exotic action with supernatural thrills and trenchant, mordant laughs for an explosively visceral time that should appeal equally to superhero fans and martial arts mavens alike.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.