![]() | |||||||||
Iron Fist #5-7Issue(s): Iron Fist #5, Iron Fist #6, Iron Fist #7 Review/plot: 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 Khan's base and finds himself fighting 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 Khan'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 Khan. While Iron Fist is raiding Master Khan's base, Misty Knight recovers from her injury and talks with the Rand Corporation lawyer, 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 Khan, 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. Khan 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. Khan 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 Khan 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 Khan into the dissipating portal, seemingly killing him. Master Khan'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. But we also saw in the Ninja's origin that he has a longstanding rivalry with all things K'un Lun. 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 Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after Master of Kung Fu annual #1. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: Essential Iron Fist vol. 1 Inbound References (11): show 1976 / Box 11 / EiC Upheaval CommentsThe 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". Posted by: Mark Drummond | July 11, 2011 6:04 AM The Dracula footnote may have been stuck in there because Claremont wrote that story. Posted by: Mark Drummond | August 21, 2011 6:17 PM Byrne himself has said over on his message board that, with IF #5, his art style truly came into it's own. Posted by: karlos | October 7, 2013 11:39 AM IRON FIST #7 contains (in page 11, panels 3-5) the visual pun of Misty's Colt .357 Python with "Monty" written along the barrel. Also, the lettercol admits that having Danny remember meeting Spidey was a goof-up. Posted by: Matthew Bradley | July 3, 2015 9:52 AM I think Scimitar would have made a good replacement in Batroc's Brigade for Machete after that villain's death, rather than creating an infinite number of Machete clone brothers. Posted by: kveto | January 9, 2016 7:54 PM In Iron Fist #6 a caption notes mountains in Halwan being hit by winds off the Hindu Kush which would suggest Claremont intended to place the kingdom in the region of Afghanistan. Then recall in X-Treme X-Men #44 that Claremont later revealed Tessa/ Sage to have been living in the war-ravaged Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Claremont also revealed in that series that Sage had been in a harem but had managed to escape. Given Sage lived in the Hindu Kush by herself at the time she was telepathically summoned by Charles Xavier to help him out of the cave where he had his legs crushed by Lucifer, might she have been hiding out there following her escape from the harem? If so, this would seem to suggest the harem was not that far away since if escaping such a place she would not have been able to with much more than the clothes on her back. As for where she obtained the clothing, guns and weapons she was shown with at the time of rescuing Charles, while X-Treme X-Men #44 revealed she tried to keep out of the conflicts between the rebels and the government this doesn't mean she couldn't have scavenged what was left behind by the fallen on both sides. As for the harem being necessarily close by, recall Claremont suggesting Halwan to be in the region of Afghanistan, and his further flashback in Iron Fist #7 which revealed the king who sat on Halwan's Lion Throne there to be an utter tyrant. That is, he had taken the youth who would become Master Khan's family hostage, and tortured Khan's youngest daughter – who was disabled – to death to show he meant business if the young father refused to be his court sorcerer. I'd therefore posit that this was the kingdom Sage had been enslaved in, and had subsequently escaped from. I might even go a step further and suggest that Sage was perhaps one of the other children of Khan's that survived, the king placing her in his harem following Khan's own escape to develop his sorcerous skills further so he could return and unseat the tyrant. In the meantime, Sage being resourceful like her father managed to escape under her own steam before Khan returned and he went on to presume the king had killed her in his absence whereas she believed her father had abandoned her and found somewhat of a replacement father figure in Xavier, and then Sebastian Shaw. Posted by: Nathan Adler | April 15, 2016 11:08 PM Comments are now closed. |
|||||||||
![]() |
|||||||||
SuperMegaMonkey home | Comics Chronology home |