Issue(s): Iron Fist #5, Iron Fist #6, Iron Fist #7
Published Date: Jun-Sep 76
Title: "When slays the Scimitar!" / "Death match!" / "Iron Fist must die!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
Frank Chiaramonte - Inker

Review/plot:
Hunting down a lead on Colleen in London, Danny bumps into a former IRA agent named Alan Cavenaugh.

The two of them stumble into a trap set by a warrior named the Scimitar.

Iron Fist manages to defeat the Scimitar after a drawn out fight while seemingly preserving his secret identity, but Alan is badly injured and needs to be taken to the hospital.

Fist then meets back up with Misty, who is out of the hospital and has two arms again. He infiltrates Master Kahn's base and finds himself fighting both Colleen, who had been brainwashed by Angar the Screamer to hate Iron Fist.

He uses his chi to merge minds with Colleen, undoing the brainwashing but also violating her memories (and forcing his onto her).

She doesn't like it but it frees her from Angar's control, and while she attacks Angar and Master Kahn's goons (she seemingly kills Angar, and i don't see how you could argue that she didn't: slicing his gut open with her samurai sword)...

...Iron Fist goes after Master Kahn.

While Iron Fist is raiding Master Kahn's base, Misty Knight recovers from her injury and talks with the Rand Corporation business manager, Jeryn Hogarth. It turns out that Danny is very wealthy due to owning his father's half of Rand-Meachum, and Misty is suspicious of Jeryn's motives, thinking that he might be after the money.

After defeating Khumbala Bey again, Danny catches up with Master Kahn, a powerful wizard who uses spells familiar to Dr. Strange readers like the Flames of Faltine and the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.

The power of the Iron Fist seems to have the ability to absorb or cancel some of those spell effects. Kahn reveals to Iron Fist that the August Personage in Jade, Danny's uncle, actually manipulated events so that Danny's father, who should have been the leader of K'un-Lun, was killed. Kahn offers Iron Fist the chance to return to K'un-Lun and extract vengeance. Fist is confused, torn by his love of his new friends on Earth, and not sure if Kahn is telling the truth (although it seems that he is based on his own thought bubbles and the fact that Lei Kung the Thunderer is suspicious of him as well).

He smashes the portal to K'un-Lun, which has the unintended side-effect of sucking Kahn into the dissipating portal, seemingly killing him.

Master Kahn's story is just that he was a court wizard whose daughter was killed by Princess Azir's father, and he intended to kill her in response. It's not clear why he spent so much time going after Iron Fist, then.

Other than that, the writing is very good, with great fight scenes and good characterization. The art, while good to begin with, is improving. We start to see the trademark Byrne grins and grimaces.

    

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 3

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after Master of Kung Fu annual #1.

References:

• Iron Fist fights the Scimitar on a street named Golladay Mews, which was "made notorious by a strain of unsolved vampire murders barely two years gone" - in Giant-Size Tomb of Dracula #3. That's a weird and irrelevant footnote.
  
• Colleen Wing was kidnapped in Marvel Premiere #25.
  
• When changing into his Iron Fist outfit, Danny Rand wonders how Spider-Man manages, with a reference to his encounter with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #31 (indicating that Iron Fist, at least, remembers that encounter, and without the aid of a tape recorder).
  
• The August Personage in Jade watches everything Iron Fist does, and reveals that all of the foes that Iron Fist has fought recently, including Iron Man, were due to Master Kahn's machinations: The Monstroid, Angar the Screamer, Iron Man, and Scimitar. The references are to Marvel Premiere #24-25 and Iron Fist #1-2.
  
• Khumbala Bey, Princess Azir's bodyguard from Marvel Premiere #25, was also secretly working for Kahn.
  
• Khan reasons that Iron Fist has no reason to want to remain on Earth since his father's death was avenged by the Ninja in Marvel Premiere #18.

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: Essential Iron Fist vol. 1

The strangest thing is that nowhere in Marvel Premiere or Iron Fist does anyone ever explain why Danny Rand's father, a native of K'un-Lun, would be named "Wendell".

The Dracula footnote may have been stuck in there because Claremont wrote that story.