Issue(s): Power Man & Iron Fist #58
Cover Date: Aug 79
Title: "El Aguila has landed!"
Credits:
Mary Jo Duffy - Writer
Trevor Von Eeden - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker

Review/plot:
Power Man and Iron Fist have an encounter with a Zorro type hero called El Aguila.

He can focus an energy attack. At first it seems the attack comes from his sword, but he later reveals that it comes from him; he just likes to use a sword.

He's going up against a corrupt landlord that happens to be a client of Heroes For Hire, thanks to Jeryn Hogarth. Luke and Danny fight him for a while but more or less let him do what he wants despite their contract.

I think this is really setting things up for later issues. As it stands it leaves a few things unresolved, such as the fact that Hogarth is setting up HFH with clients that Luke, at least, would not willingly accept. As a Hispanic vigilante-hero, El Aguila is a bit of a cliche (clearly a Zoro clone), which is disappointing.

Cage has been dating Harmony Young, but we haven't learned too much about her yet except that she's a bit frivolous and Luke doesn't have much to talk to her about.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first El Aguila

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The title refers to a quotation from the 1969 Moon landing: "The Eagle has landed".

For those of you who are fans of The Aguila, this is your comic...and if not, i have to say this is the best "Marvel" Comin i have read in a long time.
http://elall-newaguila.blogspot.com.es/

sorry, i meant "comic" and not "comin"

one of the things that i liked about Duffy's PM/IF issues was the way that Luke Cage and Misty Knight didnt really like each other much. I mean they helped and respected each other but also did a lot of arguing and rarely saw eye to eye.

This is good because its nice that the two black characters not automatically be friends due to skin colour. but more than that, Misty was an ex-police officer and tended to see things from that perspective while Luke had learnt through experience to mistrust the police. So it felt natural.

It also had the added element of giving Iron Fist the very realistic and very common problem of having a best friend and a girlfriend who didnt like each other. He obviously felt trapped in the middle and couldnt really get them to get along.

The appearance of El Aguila is the start of a common theme (and problem) in Duffy's run, and that is the appearance of superfluous heroes who distract from IF & PM. Besides El Aguila we have Thunderbolt, the Daughters of the Dragon (kind of hard to avoid this one), and Bob Diamond (not really a hero, but yet another martial artist!) They really eat up space that could be spent on better action or intrigue involving the title characters or setting up new villains to expand their rogues gallery.

Anything heroic should be done by the title's heroes. I do like Misty Knight and Colleen Wing as characters in and of themselves, but the Heroes for Hire really needs some "normal" supporting cast.

Chris, I think you might underestimate the PM/IF cast since they combined the books and tried to take on both heroes supporting cast, many of whom are not heroes.
You had Detective Scarfe and Bill Hao with DA tower from Misty Knight, along with Professor Wing. From Luke's book you had DW Griffith, along with his street contacts: Toby, Gadget and Big Ben, along with Claire Temple and Dr Burnstein, and more fom IF's cast with the former IRA agent, Cavenagh, as well as the Halwani Princess Azir and their lawyer Jeryn Hogarth and his secretary Joyce. That's a fairly robust non-powered cast.
Most of these characters got some air time in certain issues and often served as story engines.

"The Eagle Has Landed" was also the name of a WW2-era thriller from 1976 directed by John Sturges ("The Magnificent Seven", The Great Escape and "Ice Station Zebra") and starring Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland and Michael Caine about a Nazi plot to kill Winston Churchill. Of course, the title was more likely inspired by the Apollo 11 quote from Neil Armstrong.