>>83330382
We've got to the end of Luke Cage's pre-team up stories, so now it's time to see the other side of one of the biggest double-acts in all of Marvel, Iron Fist!
And here we're introduced to Wendell Rand, who's origin is almost infuriatingly vague origin, as we find out later on.
>>83366110
Good?
>>83366136
I mean good start.
Anyone else interested in the introduction by Roy Thomas (writer of this story and editor-in-chief at the time) in the Marvel Masterwork?
Man, Momma Rand is fucking bloodthirsty for a marvel woman in the early 70's.
Shouting that she'd rather die than be with the guy who killed her husband, and then diving into the mouths of wolves to save her kid without a thought. She's fucking metal.
>>83366231
Sure
>Normal blows can't even hurt the robot
>Iron Fist blows can take off clean hits
>The first villain he fights is just some dude with a scythe
Yeah, as much as I love Iron Fist, he didn't start off with the best rouge's gallery.
>Writer
>Len "Swamp Thing" Wein
It's the stereotypical "hero fights street thugs" scene in every movie. All we're missing is a woman about to be raped.
>>83366776
Len is one of the heroes of the Bronze Age
Meet Yu-Ti. Unlike Luke Cage, most of Iron Fist's supporting cast sticks around, in one form or another.
Man, they didn't try hard to figure out this first villain.
>Daniel's father was Yu-Ti's brother
Yet another big of Wendell's backstory that gets convoluted later on.
>INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THE BIG GIANT HEAD
Gotta love how casually Iron Fist walks through this major office building in full costume.
>>83365778
Still catching up on the Cage.
It was a lot less I wanna say fly? than I was expecting.
A lot of it felt like a superpowered version of the Rockford Files or something of that type. Light serial detective fiction.
Man, can you imagine if he set this trap off early? Someone comes up expecting they'll be fired, and suddenly SPIKES TO THE FACE!
>>83367525
If you go in expecting Dolomite you'll be dissapointed, unfortunately. How far are you, if I can ask?
>>83367585
Oh, in the last thread. I was just conking out and can't stay up until like 4 AM my time to finish these threads and still work the next day.
Okay, I finally typed up the Masterwork introduction, I'll get to it.
>Kung Fu kinda crept up on me in the early '70's... while some other people it hit like a ton of bricks.
>When the Kung Fu TV series with David Carradine debuted in 1972, Marvel writer Steve Englehart quickly became one of its biggest fans. Before I'd even seen an episode, he and artist Jim S tarlin had come up with the concept for Master of Kung Fu, starring Shang-Chi. As Marvel's editor-in-chief, I made a couple of adjustments to their notion (lose the young hero's mustache, and add the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu as his father), then turned that enthusiastic pair loose on it and contented myself mostly to being an appreciative reader.
>Not long afterward, my then-wife Jeanie and I went t see our first kung fu movie, in our Manhattan neighborhood. It was The Five Fingers of Death, which pre-dated Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. I was moderately enthusiastic about the film, and I was intrigued by its "Ceremony of the Iron Fist," in which the hero gains the ability to wipe out his enemies with his bare hands.
>Walking back home, I recall telling my wife that I liked that phrase "Iron Fist"--and that it'd make a good name fo a Marvel hero, if we didn't already have this guy called Iron Man.
>By the time we reached our apartment building, I had convinced myself that two heroes with the word "Iron" in their monikers wasn't really too much of a stretch for a creative company like Marvel to handle.
>So, next workday, I broached publisher Stan Lee in his den. It took him maybe to seconds to agree that it'd be a good thing to add a second kung fu stalwart to Marvel's expanding lineup, and that I should get to work on it at once.
>Actually, I wasn't eager to take time away from scripting Conan the Barbarian and straight super-hero features, on top of my editorial duties, to write a kung fu series. But, once I'd decided that my friend Gil Kane would be the perfect artist for it, I changed my mind. Gil and I had worked together every chance we got since we first collaborated on revamping the company's moribund Captain Marvel a few years earlier. Gil drew gymnastics rather than weightlifts, and a lithe, not overly muscular body was precisely what a kung fu hero required.
>Gil was enthusiastic, and--before I could tell him the few nascent thoughts I'd had about Iron Fist (except that, unlike Shang-Chi, he'd be a Caucasian who adopted the martial arts)--he spieled out how, since the origin story was to be set in "the Orient" he'd love to do a riff on a favorite Golden Age feature of his as a youngster: Amazing-Man, created by Bill Everett in 1939, at roughly the same time he developed a far longer-lasting character, Prince Namr, the Sub-Mariner, fo Marvel Comics #1. The Amazing-Man concept had been heavily influenced by James Hilton's bestselling 1933 novel Lost Horizon, which had introduced the timeless lamasery known as Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas. John Aman (the real name of Everett's hero) had been rescued and trained by the secret order that dwelt there, then gone out into the world--but not before he'd made an enemy of The Great Question, who ruled the sanctuary.
>From that springboard, Gil and I began to kick ideas back and forth. We worked out a backstory for Daniel Rang that contained some vartiant touches. Influnced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's 1950's Western feature Bulls-Eye, in which the hero has a target literally branded onto his chest, I had Gil give our protagionist a similiar mark. K'un-Lun came out of a book I owned on Chinese mythology, merged with the Shangri-La concept. Gil, aided (and perhaps hindered) by my kibitzing, designed the costume. I had a few misgivings about those tights ending at the calf, but hey, it was a different culture from ours, right? I believe we even chose the green-and-yellow color scheme together.
>As per usual, Gil did a terrific penciling job. I was particularly impressed by those frozen vistas, amid jagged rocks jutting up out of the Earth--the latter a Kane trademark--and if the August Personage in Jade was a dead-ringer for Evertt's villainous Great Question except for the lack of a question mark emblazoned on his hood... well, sometimes when you get started with an homage, it's hard to stop. Wild Bill himself had only passed away in Febuary of '73, but I doubt he'd have minded our little borrowing, as long as he could make wry comments about it. (After all, earlier, he'd given me his blessing to name a character Amazing-Man...though I had to wait till I was writing a World War II mag for DC Comics. I wouldn't have dared try introducing a guy with that name at Marvel, figuring Stan Lee would've considered it way too corny.)
>I don't recall precisely why we turned to Dick Giodano to ink that first try... but he was a perfect choice, and, by my lights, one of Gil's best inkers.
>Gil and I "affectionately dedicated" the story to "the best memory of Bill Everett...a most amaing man!" Gil always felt that Bill had been one of the best writers in early comic books...and we didn't want old-time readers to think we were trying to disguise our debt to his earlier creation.
>Even so, for reasons I no longer remember, both Gil and I departed after that single story in Marvel Premiere #15. I turned the reigns over to the very capable Len Wein, along with a few thoughts about where Gil and I had been heading; newcomer Larry Hama became the penciler. Of the initial team, only Dick remainds, his inks helping to keep the feature's look fairly consistent with what Gil had done.
>After one issue, though, Len was gone--you'd have to ask HIM why--replaced by Doug Moench, who actually stuck around for three whole issues before he and Larry Hama were replaced by scripter Tony Isabella and penciler Arvell Jones, That team too, lasted three issues. Then in came Chris Claremont. He and penciler Pat Broderick did a couple of issues together. The one constant through all this was the covers, all of which were penciled by Gil Kane. I'm sure that, if on some "Earth-22" Len or Doug or tony or I had stuck around longer as writer, in each case the feature wou;d've read considerable different a few issues in--but we'll never know. Chris, however, is the one who stuck around and became one of the major shapers of Iron Fist.
>The other, sarting with Marvel Premiere #25 was John Byrne, a young Canadian artist recieving one of his first pro assingments. The very next month, Iron Fist was tapped to make the leap into his own monthyl title, and the talented tandem of Claremont and Byrne were destined to become the creative team on Iron Fist for the remainder of its run! Moreover, a couple of years down the line, they'd become the twosome who'd turn a resuscitated and redinfed X-Men into the most ppular Marvel group of all.
And it all began with a high-kicking hell-raiser named Iron Fist...!
Wow, that was a lot.
Fist of Murder!
Here we go, one more murder for the road!
>"Okay, but why do you have no legs?"
>"Oh, THAT'S why you lost your legs."
For any Editanons, that last panel is ripe for edits.
>"They believe, in fact, that he may be the first to succesfully face Shou-Lao... to become the unconquerable Iron Fist"
A statement which will be famously retconned come Brubaker/Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist.
What, because shooting yourself was too much work?
>I'm the daughter of Harold Machum and, despite all of your claims to the contrary, I will blame you for murdering my father and make your life miserable for it!
Remember this character when we get to The Living Weapon in... I dunno, a month? Maybe longer?
>>83366018
is he inhuman
>>83368498I'm actually more familiar with Danny in the 70's and 80's than in modern stuff.
And that's it for the night, Anons. See you tomorrow night for more Iron Fist!
>>83365778
I never got the hate the kung fu shoes got, they're way better than the generic superhero boots. Is it because they're bright yellow?
>>83366474
>If I die, let me die punching a wolf!
>>83366742
It's not even like, a magic scythe. I mean, chain sickles are cool, but this is kind of a superhero comic.
>>83366999
>What would you like for Christmas?
>REVENGE
>...How about a football instead?
>>83367016
Is that snake with a tiny crown supposed to look adorable? Because it does.
>>83367840
The legacy of Amazing Man is actually very long reaching.
>>83367840
>>83367855
I think Ninja Janitor is a more interesting villain concept than The Scythe.
>>83368852
>why not both?
iron bump
>>83365907
Despite their fly masks, the dragon kings never come up ever again.
Hell, Yu-ti had an interesting dynamic as a quasi villain.
>>83365951
He kicked that motherfucker so hard it gave him epilepsy.
>>83366474
Well, her look at her kid.
>>83366605
>Buy Crazy
Well, that's oddly fitting for the page.
>>83366999
You know, the people of Kun Lun see pretty nice if they aren't trying to kung fury.
>>83367016
That thing is adorable.
>>83367197
Well, he is worth only ten grand.
I bet you need twenty just to get someone like taskmaster to roll out of bed. Of course that's with today's prices.
>>83373633
>Despite their fly masks, the dragon kings never come up ever again.Actually, they do.
>>83367798
>>83367743
>Door to nowhere
>A fucking wolf.
You can tell when Meachim was getting to the bottom of the list in those death traps.
>>83368301
Man, that monk has some swagger. I love that hat and his expressions.
>>83368498
>>83368440
Wait, how did she get passed all the death traps? Did she have like an express elavator?
>>83368498
Thanks for storytimes, OP!
vump
Bumpin to be readin this later
>>83365907
Does anybody know what the second-person narration ("You are Iron Fist") is supposed to be referencing/ripping off?
It's such a weird convention but it has been part of Iron Fist lore ever since (even Fraction/Brubaker used it occasionally).
