Written by Brandon Duck
Big props to Brandon for being the first person to submit an article to be posted on SAV Mega Crash! Without further ado, here’s his brief introduction to the character Iron Fist.
With the upcoming release of Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, a lot of people have been scratching their heads at who some of these new characters are. I mean, not everyone reads through comics like a starving man at a buffet like I do, so it’s quite possible that folks may not know some of these guys — So, lets take a look at Iron Fist.
Iron Fist was created to cash in on the Kung Fu explosion of the 1970’s. Bruce Lee was all the craze and Marvel knew it, thus they created the character. Also known as Daniel Rand, Iron Fist is a wealthy businessman who’s father discovered the mystical city of K’un L’un. His father, who was trained in the ways of martial arts, later left the mystical city to return to New York. When Danny turned nine his father decided to take his family out on an expidition to the areas around the mystical city and it didn’t end well for them.
His parents were killed due to a mishap — Danny slipped and their guide refused to help them for he wished death on Danny’s father. Danny was then taken to the K’un L’un by Yu-Ti, ruler of the mystical city. Yu-Ti decides to teach Danny Kung Fu and gets him assigned to Lei Keng, the Thunderer. Naturally Danny is very adept at Kung Fu, otherwise it’d be a pretty bad story. He was taught to train his fist “To be unto like Iron” and is chosen to undertake the final task — Defeating the dragon Shou-Lao. Danny plunged his hand into the dragons heart, making his fist the true Iron Fist.
Danny finds that his parents killer is back in New York and he leaves to seek vengeance only to find it unworthy due to the man losing both of his leg to frostbite. He then builds up his fathers business to a multi-million dollar corporation and helped establish the Heroes for Hire with Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing — All underground heroes with various powers or abilities. They sought to help those who couldn’t afford it, usually taking jobs for little-to-no money. Luke Cage and Iron Fist did this for years. Eventually, Danny succumbed to cancer and died –But, as this is a comic series, his death was not permanent. It was later revealed that the Iron Fist that died was not Danny at all, but a doppleganger.
Really, a lot of the 90’s Iron Fist material wasn’t good and often proved confusing, so we’re going to skip a bit to where he becomes more interesting.
In the Immortal Iron Fist book (which is definately worth picking up,) Danny finds out that he isn’t the only one with the power of the Iron Fist and that the city of K’un L’un has a tournament to find out who controls the great city. Danny is, of course, chosen to fight for the city and ends up fighting some really impressive martial artists. (Really, the whole book is like a love letter to 1970’s Kung Fu.) It’s revealed that the whole thing is part of a Hydra plot to take over the great city and their magics — Fortunately Danny and the other Immortal Weapons are there to defeat them.
Iron Fist is currently a member of the New Avengers and was actually a key character in not only the Civil War storyline but also the Dark Reign and Seige storylines. It seems that Marvel is really pushing for him to be more of an A-lister by giving him a much more relatable story in The Immortal Iron Fist, as well as making him a stable member of the Avengers. He has really grown from pretty much a gimmick to a full, complex character — And with him making an appearance in UMvC3, he’ll be getting even more attention.
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