Hello, and welcome to another great character spotlight right here in Marvel Snapshot! This week, I’ll be presenting a great character that in my opinion doesn’t get enough love from the comic book community in Iron Fist! Yes, that’s right, Danny Rand will be front and center in this column, and we’ll see his days from yester-year, and also his more recent activities.
OK, so, first things first. Danny Rand is not your typical rich kid. True, his father was very wealthy and he did inherit his company worth millions when he came of age, but he didn’t grow up pampered. He did however watch his father plunge to his death in the Himalayas, and then soon after his mother die protecting him from wolves so he could escape. He spent many years of his youth being trained in the mystical city of K’un-Lun by Lei Kung the Thunderer. Once Danny became old enough, he had to fight a crazy dragon and defeat him to earn the power of the Iron Fist. He did so, and then decided to leave K’un-Lun to go to America and seek revenge for his father’s murder at the hands of his business partner, Harold Meachum. Once he found him though, he pitied him, and let him go without punishment.
After all that craziness, eventually Danny became involved with Misty Knight. The two eventually, along with the assistance of Luke Cage, founded the group Heroes for Hire. They took on security jobs and detective work, but after Danny was kidnapped by aliens, the business shut down. It was during this time that he was cloned, and while he was imprisoned on another planet, his clone lived his life. The clone was actually killed on a mission and Luke Cage was blamed for his death. Cage’s innocence was eventually proved, but the question remained: Where was the real Danny Rand? After searching for him, the team of Dr. Strange and Namor freed him and he returned to Earth.
In more recent times, Iron Fist was caught in the middle of the Civil War like most heroes. He decided to be on the side of Captain America and be part of the resistance movement. He even went so far as to dress up as Daredevil to help his friend Matt Murdoch throw people off his trail as the 
real Daredevil. This worked for a while, but he was eventually apprehended by Tony Stark and sent to the Negative Zone. He was soon freed though, and began using his Iron Fist persona again alongside Luke Cage and the other resistance heroes.
In his last series, The Immortal Iron Fist, Danny was having problems with his powers, and quickly found out why. Another dude, the Iron Fist before him, was still using his abilities and it pulled away some of the power from Danny. He ended up fighting alongside the other Iron Fist (Orson Randall), but eventually the two were summoned to K’un-Lun for a tournament of champions. Randall gave Danny a book of the Iron Fist that contains all the knowledge of previous Iron Fists, and told him that he will need the information if he is to succeed in the tournament. Danny learned that there is a lot of corruption in the Cities of Heaven and became determined to stop it. Orson Randall fights first in the tournament though, and just when he was about to be killed, he gave his Chi to Danny to fight against the rest of the field and make things right. I won’t give away the rest of the story, but rest assured, it’s great! It really is a great story with lots of action as you can imagine, as well. We even see Misty and Danny get engaged, and they conceive a love child.
I really only got interested in Iron Fist during Civil War and then Secret Invasion. I must admit, I like the charcter more and more as I read his books. This latest series was phenomenal. It featured Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction with the writing duties. If you can pick it up, do it, you won’t be disappointed! Iron Fist was created in 1974 by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. It has also been rumored that a new Iron Fist series is coming in the near future, so keep an eye out for a preview right here on ComicAttack.net!
Recommended Reading
Essential Iron Fist – vol. 1
Essential Power Man and Iron Fist – vol.’s 1 & 2
Immortal Iron Fist – vol.’s 1-5
New Avengers – vol. 1 (sporadically)
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
Awesome, Billy! Iron Fist is the man! I agree, he does need to be around more. I bet he gets real busy in the upcoming SHADOWLAND!
There’s still SO MANY questions left over from the Immortal Iron Fist series that Marvel was supposed to bring back a while ago. That was probably the best Iron Fist series written in quite some time Brubaker and Fraction did a damn good job
@Aron- Fist is awesome! I really thought his New Avengers stuff was cool, but his Immortal series was way better.
@Speech- Absolutely. I almost have that entire series but I need to pick up the Immortal weapons series.
The issue I reviewed here was the BEST one out of the entire thing. Seriously.
@Speech- I’ll have to go back and check that out. My memory is terrible. lol
The first issue actually sets you up for what you HOPE will be high quality stories for the series but that’s just my opinion. I did think the Dog Brother story was pretty good, too bad that series isn’t in trade yet.
After reading this a few days ago I decided to check out the Immortal Iron Fist series. I’ve always thought of Iron Fist as a lame character, for no particular reason, I just did. But now, after reading the first few issues of that series, I love it.
Yes, I see now that Iron Fist is the man! He’s cool, rich, cool friends, hot super-hero girlfriend, and totally awesome kung-fu action, and the Iron Fist! I agree, he should be around more.
Thanks Billy!
@Eli- I read the first couple of issues of IIF in Marvel: Your Universe. I loved, so I went out and bought a few of the issues and thought they were great. I think I need 8-10 more to finish the run. I really hope Marvel gives him his own series again.
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Went down a Iron Fist rabbit hole from that Correct Opinion article and will now be looking for the Immortal IF trade books now!
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