The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Iron Fist
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Thank goodness Marvel felt the need to recolor the first two appearances of Iron Fist with some terrible glossy digital coloring from Andrew Crossley. Someone with time on his or her hands should do a comparison between Crossley’s “modern” colors here and the originals from Marvel Premiere. Oddly, there’s a classy opening from Fraction and…
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You know who David Lapham can’t write? Danny Rand. You know who he has as his de facto protagonist? Danny Rand. John Aman—the Prince of Orphans—is secondary to his own issue. Lapham even writes an adventure for Danny and Luke with a wacky miniature villain. I guess Aman gets the opening scene but…. Worse, it’s…
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There’s the Swierczynski I was expecting… turning in a completely useless issue. Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter gets the feature. Swierczynski’s so wrapped up in his Amazon warrior women story he neglects to mention a) the name of the Heavenly City and b) how they could possibly have an Immortal Weapon. It’s nonsensical, but also bad. Swierczynski…
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Who’s this Rick Spears guy and why have I never heard of him before? His origin of Dog Brother #1 is fantastic. He opens it in late nineteenth century Hong Kong, where Dog Brother is something of a myth. Spears’s protagonists are these two orphans, trying to navigate the gangs, the British and the poverty.…
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What a stinker. The whole thing plays like a bad Marvel horror comic from the seventies, with a team of mercenaries (they have matching outfits, of course) out to retrieve a spider. It’s not any spider, it’s one of the Bride of Nine Spiders’s spiders. There’s a bit of a continuity break, showing the Bride…
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Could this story be more depressing? Aaron does a decent job on Fat Cobra’s backstory—though he doesn’t go enough into defining Fat Cobra’s Heavenly City. He buys his way back into it at one point and buying one’s way back into a Heavenly City seems a little common. Then there’s all the retconning of Fat…
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Swierczynski’s Iron Fist goes out with a whimper. He mimics Fraction’s last issue on the title. I’m not sure Swierczynski should have gotten to close, since he was just following Brubaker and Fraction–not to say his writing wasn’t occasionally quite good, it was just never original. Foreman goes back to inking himself (I think) and…
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Oh, come on. I think Foreman’s the bigger problem, but Swierczynski really does completely fail when it comes to a good conclusion. He has a dramatic cliffhanger, but it’s a confusing one (one the previous page implies is unlikely). But worse, he fails to deal with K’un-L’un. He changes the status quo again and abandons…
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As usual, Swierczynski manages to pull the story around after a weak move. Here, he reveals the old impostor to be nothing but a temporary ruse, something to distract Danny (and the reader). Then we get the full story. Then the Immortal Weapons start kicking butt. Swierczynski is best when he utilizes the Immortal Weapons,…
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What a cheat. Swierczynski can write the fill in issues–with the past Iron Fist adventures–just fine. So how does he follow up one of his lamer issues? With a charming fill in issue with Kano art. Genocide aside, it’s delightful. This Iron Fist is a pacifist–whose pacifism eventually costs the lives of millions, so I…
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I think I’ll start with Foreman. He usually does an all right job, but he ends this issue on a terrible full-page panel of the (supposedly) first Iron Fist. He’s got this old guy warped to fit in the panel, his body proportions and perspective a complete mess. It’s terrible finish to the issue because…
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This issue features the second time Swierczynski has taken some leftover Brubaker and Fraction thread and determined everyone knew about it except Danny. The Eighth City? The Thunderer knew about it all the time–he could have told Danny about it, back when Danny told him what he was about to do. This issue Davos shows…
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This issue might be Swierczynski’s best. It’s one of the done in one other Iron Fist issues and Swierczynski does something a little different. He does a future story. It really nicely fits the mythology Brubaker and Fraction established, while some descendant of Danny’s becoming the youngest Iron Fist. But the Iron Fist of the…
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Okay, Swierczynski is finally back on track. Forgetting the special, he’s now written more good issues of The Immortal Iron Fist than mediocre or bad. This issue resolves—maybe a little too conveniently (it should have taken eight)—Danny’s possible death at thirty-three. It also gets the search for the Eighth City back underway and brings in…
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Oh, there are other Immortal Weapons? Wonder if their appearance has anything to do with the issue working. Just as Swierczynski gets out of his writing rut—well, I’m not sure if that’s an accurate description—he returns to a decent approximation of Brubaker and Fraction’s run on the title, Foreman just plummets. He goes through maybe…
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So Swierczynski’s take on Orson Randall is basically to take a big steamy crap all over the work Brubaker and Fraction did on the character. Either Swierczynski didn’t read their comics or he just didn’t understand them. I’m sort of leaning toward the latter, just because it’s a meaner sentiment and this comic put me…
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Okay, either Swierczynski is covering for Foreman or Foreman is covering for Swierczynski here. There simply is not enough story this issue. It’s not so much a pacing question, it’s just… almost no story. Luke, Colleen and Misty rescue Danny from the guy who’s out to get him (a demon, I think), Danny recuperates, cliffhanger…
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Swierczynski’s approach to Iron Fist is to continue the Brubaker and Fraction format. We even get Heath doing the flashback art. There’s one big difference. First is how Swierczynski structures the villain in the issue. He’s not mysterious. We get his story right away. And his motivation is pretty straightforward. He’s the guy who kills…
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So as Fraction departs–he leaves the next team with a lovely pickle. All the work he and Brubaker did leading up to this issue, the establishing of the Iron Fist history and all… it equals all Iron Fists dying at thirty-three? Did I mention this issue is a birthday issue? Aja’s back and he does…
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Fraction does another of those untold tales of a previous Iron Fist stories this issue and it works pretty well. He’s got a lot to get in here–he has to establish the Iron Fist (this one uses the power to expand his tactical thinking), set the ground situation (he’s fighting the British in China in…
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This issue basically brings Brubaker and Fraction’s story to its finish (Brubaker leaves after this one, Fraction hangs around for a little coda then is off). It’s an outstanding issue, both fantastic on its own and as a conclusion to the story arc. Brubaker and Fraction have more pages here and the issue shows they…
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It’s not the deepest issue, it’s probably not the best written, but it’s completely awesome. Everything comes together here (with the promise of a big fight next issue). Unfortunately, Aja’s not along for the ride. Instead, it’s Zonjic doing most of the art. He’s a lot like Javier Pulido. He’s fine, but I was used…
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Fraction takes on the writing chores here solo but since it’s an Orson Randall story set in the thirties and forties, it’s kind of hard to tell what not having Brubaker around does to it. The majority of the story feels like it takes place in Germany, when Orson shows up at Frankenstein’s castle. I…
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Is there even a fight this issue? Wait, yes. Davos gets beat up for being a tool last issue. The art chores are apparently getting to be too much for Aja, as Javier Pulido fills in on some of the pages. Pulido covers the stuff with Luke, Misty and Colleen, but also some of the…
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I feel like I’m missing something. It seems like Yu-Ti (the “mayor” of K’un-L’un) is secretly bad, but I’m not sure if it’s in the comic or if I’m just remembering it. I mean, he seems really bad. But he could just be a sexist jerk too. Some more great Kano art for the flashback,…
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It’s nice Danny gets the cover, because he’s not in the issue at all. The intrigue really starts coming together here, with the Thunderer revealed to be in some secret society with Orson’s daughter, terror priests (guessing priest has a different connotation in K’un-L’un) sent out into the world to hunt for Danny, the Hydra…
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Are there really enough Howard Chaykin fans out there to make getting him to fill in desirable? His work has gotten so shoddy over the last ten years, it’s stunning. But even with Chaykin on the modern stuff, this issue is just fantastic. It’s very hopeful and glorious–Brubaker and Fraction reveal Orson Randall had a…
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Koblish’s flashback pages start all right, but in the second set, he draws Wendall Rand rapidly punching and it looks like he’s got eight arms. It really drags one out of the narrative. The principal story, with Danny losing his match in the competition so he can go out and save the world, moves a…
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The big Enter the Dragon fight competition starts off here… only there’s not a matched fight. Instead, we get to see Danny in K’un-L’un. It’s interesting, sort of, to see Danny trying to acclimate. But he’s mostly trying to figure out what’s happened to Jeryn (his mix of Alfred and Lucius Fox). Turns out Jeryn’s…
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Fraction and Brubaker take a break here to focus on one of the previous Iron Fists. They present the story like a fable and get really cute with it. I don’t think the cuteness necessarily has to do with the Iron Fist in question being female, but because she’s got a goofy, sweet but stupid…
The Stop Button 