“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Immortal Iron Fist #6

“I want to have a few words with Netflix!”

The Immortal Iron Fist #6

Marvel Comics (July, 2007; as posted in the digital trade from comiXology)

“The Last Iron Fist Story” part 6

WRITERS: Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction

ARTIST: David Aja & Russ Heath

COLORISTS: Matt Hollingsworth & Laura Martin

LETTERER: Dave Lamphear

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Alejandro Arbona

EDITOR: Warren Simons

Danny and Orson face off against Davos and his crane sisters while Luke, Misty, and Collen face off against Hydra soldiers. There’s really not much else to summarize until Orson sacrifices himself to protect Danny and allow him to absorb his own Iron Fist power. Now there is just one Iron Fist, but he’s called away to some tournament in K’un-Lun with the other villages, meaning he has to give up his search for Jeryn, who the Heroes For Hire weren’t able to keep from getting captured. Lei Kung assures him that going to the tournament will also lead to the answers Danny seeks for all this and another fight with Davos.

What they got right: Here’s where I separate critic from reader. The body count is not my style at all, but the action is well drawn, which is important given this comic is one big fight scene. There are a few panels to nitpick mind you but overall the action is as frantic as you’d expect given the numbers. We also get to see how Orson met Danny’s father and how Danny’s father learned of K’un-Lun in the first place.

What they got wrong: I post this panel because it shows that Luke not using traditional curse words is on purpose, as well as the reason why. It’s canon (or supposed to be) that Luke doesn’t swear. And yet this comic has Luke dropping a (censored) swear into “Sweet Christmas”. That always bugs me because they’re just leaning into the tough black guy stereotype by having him use the heavier swear words rather than stay true to the character because they’re no longer making kid-friendly comics. @#$# grandma, apparently. Also, nobody is calling out Davos’ actions and not even a “sorry about your friend but as our Iron Fist this must take importance” with Danny asking “since you can’t come along can you save Jeryn and find out why Wai-Go and Hydra want my mag-trains so badly?” Since we know that’s going to tie in with whatever evil scheme Davos has.

What else is there?: I’m working from a digital trade, and there’s a few more pages of story in here that are part of other comics and not directly tied to this storyline. I’ll do a special edition of Scanning My Collection and review those hopefully tonight.

What I think overall: This is just not my kind of Iron Fist story. The body count, the blood, the darker coloring and stories…it’s not what I go to comics for, and that may seem odd given I haven’t had similar complaints with the old Ninja Turtles comics thus far. Maybe its the reduced gore or the properly used thus far humor elements but I’d rather read more Ninja Turtles than this take on Iron Fist.