Writers: Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker
Artists: David Aja, Dan Brereton, Howard Chaykin, Kevic Djurdjevic
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99/$3.99
If you’d have said a year ago that Iron Fist was going to be the best book Marvel put out people would have laughed at you. Even the name provokes ridicule and that costume – yellow and green with slippers. Nice! This was a character that had resisted relaunch on many occasions. Then to spin a new book for him out of Civil War and some guest starring in Daredevil, well it just seemed like madness.
Flash forward to now and with not just the latest issue, but the first annual for the new book as well, people can now loudly shout out “Why are you not reading the best monthly that Marvel publish?”
Iron Fist is the tale of a fantastical martial artist who trained in a mystical city and is also a multi-millionaire. The character has always suffered from never really fitting in anywhere and that has been compounded by his costume. What the new writers, Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, have done is rebranded Iron Fist. They realised that the character setup was perfect for a Pulp book and set about making use of all these elements to tell a story of how Iron Fist can operate in Marvel’s world. The closest previous reinvention like this was DC’s Starman,/em> and if you’ve read any of my writing before then you’ll know what a compliment that is. They’ve taken the lineage of the Iron Fist and made it tangible. Brilliantly this opens up the scope of the series immeasurably. No longer are we just telling stories of the here and now, but they can dip back into this history and tell a story from throughout history in all sorts of styles.
This creation of a legacy as a set up also allows the main series artist, David Aja, to not have to produce a full monthly issue as the flashbacks are built in to the narrative. It also allows them to have specific flashback issues with other artists. It is the Starman Times Past idea done properly as it accounts for the slowness of the main artist on an ongoing basis and factors in the stories of past Iron Fists to help deliver the story, rather than wander off on a tangent to cover the schedule.
The latest releases for the series are the second part of the second story arc and the annual which links into it. Following events in the first story Daniel Rand, the current Iron Fist, is now competing in a tournament against representatives of various mystical cities. He’s been made blatantly aware of his heritage as Iron Fist and is slowly starting to unearth new techniques that he never imagined. Cleverly Fraction and Brubaker undercut the whole tournament by linking it straight back to that heritage which the previous arc introduced. Here Danny is offered information on this history and so has to choose between competing in the competition or going off after the information. The annual deals with the search and fits seamlessly between issues 9 and 10 of the main title. It works well in terms of delivering a stand alone story, giving new information, but not being such that those on a tight budget will be penalised for not picking it up. The annual is largely focused on the last Iron Fist, Orson Randall, who set all the current events in motion. It expands on his history and throws out tons of mad Pulp-ish concepts that can just be left to simmer in the background, but help sell the idea that this is a vibrant real history with tales untold. Where it falls down is on adding a whole swathe of supporting characters, who - with one exception - are pretty superfluous to the story and really don’t get to shine. True, this may all be setup to allow even more different stories to be told, but as it currently stands it is the first misstep for the book.
The art on the main book continues to be superb. David Aja brilliantly uses the comic page, delivering action and talkie scenes in visually exciting ways. He’s managed to turn the Iron Fist costume from something to be embarrassed about into a very cool and very appropriate design with minimal changes. Basically his contribution to the book cannot be overlooked. The flashback artists have also been highly effective. I think it may well be down to a good choice of artist and Matt Hollingsworth’s colouring that has helped this not be jarring in the flow of the normal issues.
For the annual the framing artist is Howard Chaykin, who draws like Howard Chaykin. His style is either one you love or hate, but I’ve never found him particularly great for dialogue scenes where his idiosyncrasies show through more. The other two artists are Dan Brereton and Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic. Two different painted styles, but both beautiful to look at and very evocative. Brereton was the one who had me excited about this annual and he delivers his usual style, but Djurdjevic is a revelation and one I will certainly look for more work by. Extremely nice use of light throughout the sequence and another great use of the comic format.
The annual is not as good as the main series, but with a series as good as this they are allowed a misstep every so often. That said the annual is a fun read and could open up more stories. If you are not reading The Immortal Iron Fist regularly then you are simply missing out on one of the best books on the market, never mind from Marvel.
Mark Peyton – has a MA in History and Research from the University of Hull specialising in the Hundred Years War. In a complete departure from that he now runs communications and membership for a UK based Trade Union as well as being a part time writer/journalist.
He is a founding member of Millarworld acting as a moderator and as an editor for Fractal Matter.