Iron Fist #3 - The City's Not For Burning!

You are Steve Does Comics. You are reviewing a tale of graphic narrative. It is Iron Fist; product of a mysterious land in the Far East, from which no man may return with his soul unchanged. But first, before you can do this, you must endure the test  of...

Oh I give up. Writing a review in the style of an Iron Fist comic is a pain in the backside. It's even worse than if you tried to do it in the style of a Shang-Chi adventure.

Anyway, Iron Fist, I have spoken before of my inherent frustration with him, that, like Popeye, he had a means to defeat any foe but, like Popeye, never bothered to use it until he'd been knocked from pillar to post, making you wonder why he didn't just use it at the start of the fight and save himself the trouble.

I did, however, generally draw pleasure from his tales, mostly because they were nicely drawn and who doesn't like to see a good dose of martial arts mayhem?

I did, therefore, in my younger days, own a couple of issues of his book. One of which was issue #3, in which all kinds of chaos broke out.

So, around forty years since I first read it, what do I make of it now?

Our hero and Misty Knight are flying into the world famous London Airport to look for their friend Colleen but don't even manage to land before their plane's blown up by an armoured villain calling himself the Ravager.

The inevitable fight breaks out between protagonist and antagonist but the villain escapes the scene, leaving Iron Fist to visit the now hospitalised Misty before having an argument with her about priorities, and then setting off in search of the villain.

By following the Ravager's radioactive footprints, Fisty tracks him down to a lab in that well-known scientific research facility the General Post Office Tower, whereupon another fight breaks out.

Finally grasping that it might be a good idea to break out the spinach, Iron Fist revs up his knuckles and delivers the coup de grâce - but that only succeeds in wrecking the armour of his foe who now reveals himself to be Radion and promptly blows up the tower, with himself and Iron Fist still in it. Radion may be named after a brand of washing powder but that doesn't stop him trying to make a mess of London.

It's certainly a tale that isn't afraid of flinging you right into the action, with carnage breaking out from almost the moment we get past the opening splash page.

But, exploding planes aside, the thing that really smashed me in the face, reading it, is it's strongly reminiscent of that early Captain Britain adventure in which the similarly armoured Hurricane smashes up a London airport. As both tales were written by Chris Claremont, it's hard to believe the boy Chris wasn't knowingly drawing on that tale when he conceived this one.

It also struck me that, as drawn by John Byrne, our hero Danny Rand looks remarkably like Captain Britain's alter-ego Brian Braddock.

Also, like Brian Braddock, he's not that interesting a person. The real star of the issue, character-wise, is Misty Knight who probably deserves her own comic more than he does.

Admittedly, she does act like a total jerk at the hospital, berating Danny because he wants to save the whole of London from destruction, rather than concentrate on finding Colleen. To be honest, wanting to save an entire city from annihilation doesn't seem an unreasonable goal for a super-hero. I can only put Misty's weird attitude down to Chris Claremont wanting to ramp up the drama levels the after-effects of her anaesthetic.

More importantly, this issue, we find out she's bionic. I mean, come on, how can they not give Genocide-Ignoring Bionic Misty Knight her own book after that revelation?

Aside from the somewhat manufactured conflict between Misty and Danny, my big reservation with the comic is there's too much human suffering in it. Not only does Misty get impaled on a big lump of metal, have to be rushed to the hospital and spend the rest of the yarn with an arm missing but half the people on the plane die, including a child who seems to be in the story just to be half set on fire and then killed. Call me a sissy but I like super-hero comics where no one actually gets hurt.

It's also quite annoying that Danny and Misty keep talking about Colleen but, as far as I could see, nowhere in the story do they tell you who Colleen is or what's supposed to have happened to her. A quick bit of back story might have been nice for newcomers.

Anyway, it's a competent story with plenty of incident and a solid but not, by his own standards, exceptional art job by Byrne but the overly melodramatic nature of Claremont's writing and the human suffering quotient are somewhat off-putting for me.

It is good, though, to see Radion show up. He was, for me, always one of Marvel's better 1970s villains and a noticeable cut above most of its wrongdoers of that era.

Your favourite comic book martial artist.

As you may know, I'm something of a master of the martial arts, able to snap street lamps in half with a single kick of the foot.

"But how did you, a humble blogger, acquire this awesome ability?" I hear you ask.

It's simple. It's because I paid very close attention to Dr Who whenever Jon Pertwee demonstrated his remarkable expertise at the little-known skill of Venusian Aikido. How I gasped as Sea Devils, Ogrons, Daleks and assorted other monsters fell before his fists of death.

Granted, when you've seen a man of advancing years cheerily beat up a horde of Sea Devils, it does tend to undermine their aura of menace but such is the fate of the Sea Devil.

Still, there were other martial artists in my childhood.

And those martial artists filled the pages of my favourite comics.

Cashing-in on the early 1970s' Kung Fu craze, Marvel Comics gave us the likes of Shang-Chi, Iron Fist and the Sons of the Tiger.

But they had more martial artists than even that. They also had Mantis and Karnak. Captain America was always going on about his Judo skills. Even the distinctly non-physical Dr Strange was a martial artist, although the only times I can remember him using such skills was in one particular fight with Dormammu, and in his first meeting with Mantis. I can't help feeling that being flung around by a string of Judo throws is an indignity that no artist or writer should ever inflict upon Dormammu but, upon the receiving end of them, he nonetheless was.

Not to be left out of this high-kicking action, DC had Karate Kid, while Batman was supposed to be supreme in every fighting skill going - though I refuse to believe you can properly practise such things while wearing a cape. If I remember rightly, the revived Manhunter was a master of Ninjutsu, while I seem to recall that, during her de-powered era, Wonder Woman suddenly gained a mistressy of such skills.

Meanwhile, Charlton Comics had Yang who bore no resemblance at all to TV's Kwai Chang Caine. It was, no doubt, pure coincidence that he was a Chinese Kung-Fu expert who lived in the Wild West and kept fighting cowboys.

All of this raises the question that's obvious to anyone who's desperately trying to find something to write about on his blog on a Sunday evening - and that's who, of this power-punching pantheon, was my favourite?

Well, Yang was indeed too similar to Kwai Chang Caine for comfort. He also liked fighting far too much. We all know that a true martial artist only fights when he has to, whereas Yang clearly couldn't wait to get stuck in. Mantis was annoying. So was Moondragon. Although I read plenty of Legion of Super-Heroes tales as a youth, I can't remember Karate Kid ever actually doing anything. I refuse to believe that the likes of Batman and Dr Strange were as good at the martial arts as they claimed to be. Meanwhile, if the Sons of the Tiger were really any good at fighting, they wouldn't have had to gang up on foes in order to beat them. Therefore I have to put it down to a choice between Shang-Chi and Iron Fist.

The fact that Iron Fist never seemed to be able to beat anyone without using his Iron Fist power suggests he can't have been that good at fighting. Therefore, I have to go for Shang-Chi who never needed to resort to such cheating in order to triumph over all odds. Not only that but he did it while wearing his pyjamas and he'd always make sure to give us a good chunk of home-grown philosophy while he was doing it.

But that's just my verdict. Who was your favourite comic book martial artist of your childhood, and why?

The origin of Iron Fist - Marvel Premiere #15.

 I did always feel that Iron Fist had more than a hint of Popeye about him; in the sense that Popeye would always wait until he'd been battered from pillar to post before it occurred to him to eat his spinach. Likewise, Iron Fist always seemed to wait until he'd been half killed before he thought to use the thing that actually gave him his name.

As for his iron fist, it was basically him thinking about his hand so much that it practically caught fire.

I'm not sure that the ability to almost set your own body parts on fire is a good thing but it did at least enable him to beat up people who'd spent twenty pages stomping all over him like he had all the fighting skills of a dead sheep.

And, of course, it all started in Marvel Premiere #15, in which we first meet our martial arts maestro as he seeks to pass some test or other by bashing up various people, in a room, in order to gain the approval of a man in a mysterious hood.

I do generally feel that doing anything purely to gain the approval of a man in a hood is rarely likely to lead to a happy outcome but that's probably my natural scepticism showing through.

Sandwiched in among all this non-stop action is a flashback sequence in which we discover that he's Danny Rand whose parents had dragged him off in search of Marvel's answer to Shangri-La when he was a child and, when it had all gone wrong, he'd found himself taken in by the locals and taught to be a human killing machine.

Anyway, the tale climaxes with him beating up a seemingly unstoppable robot as we're promised even more thrills and spills next issue.

Exactly where the rulers of a lost city in the Himalayas got a robot from is anyone's guess but it was certainly an action-packed debut and a lot less thoughtful than we were getting from Shang-Chi at the time.

A lack of inner composure wasn't the only thing that set Iron Fist apart from Shang-Chi. While Shang-Chi's captions were in the First Person, Iron Fist's were in the not-often-used Second Person, which means we got a lot of, "You are Iron Fist. You are angry. You hit him with your feet." Quite who this person was who was doing the narration, and why they felt a need to keep telling him things he already knew, was never clear.

It has to be said his origin does bear noticeable similarities to that of television's The Champions who were likewise incapacitated in the Himalayas before being rescued by locals who taught them to make the maximum possible use of their natural abilities before unleashing them once more upon the world. Whether this resemblance was coincidental or not, I have no idea.

Somehow, you never got the feeling that Iron Fist was as good at the martial arts as Shang-Chi, judging by the fact that the latter always managed to defeat his foes without having to have an iron fist to fall back on.

Then again, if Iron Fist had only had the sense to use his iron fist at the start of a fight, it wouldn't have mattered.

Random comics I have owned. Part Five.

A far wiser man than me once said, "Shut up!" But I don't listen to wise men. That's what's made me the man I am today. Therefore, here's the latest instalment in the stunning new feature that's inducing catatonia on a scale never before seen in the history of the World Wide Web, as I take another random look at the covers of comics I once owned.

A crack team of hunters demonstrate the exact qualities you need if you're to catch your prey. Stealth, intelligence and razor-sharp alertness.

I acquired this comic on a Sunday morning. No comic acquired on a Sunday morning can ever be bad.

It's the third of the Black Orchid's original three appearances in Adventure Comics.  Sadly, it's another tale I can't remember that much about.

For those who've never read any of her original tales; blessed with invulnerability, super-strength and the ability to fly, she was basically like Supergirl but, for some reason, kept using a mastery of disguise to defeat her foes, when you would've thought she could have saved herself the trouble and just given them a punch in the bracket.

The Justice League come up against an alien called Nekron. I don't recall exactly what he was about but I do recall he was up to no good.

I'm not totally convinced Wonder Woman actually died in this tale.

If I remember right, this was the last issue before the X-Men all got dragged off into outer space for the trial of the Phoenix.

Needless to say, it was all cracking stuff and a highlight of its era.

The last issue of Conan I ever had.

From what I recall, Conan wanders into a village and it's not long before he's up against a deadly menace from the sea.

Poor old Conan, even a trip to the seaside turns into a life or death battle for him. I bet he couldn't even attempt to eat a toffee apple without it trying to kill him.

I always remember this issue as having great artwork but I can't remember who it was by.

Our third cover that involves a man carrying an insensate female.

One of my childhood faves, as our, "hero," finds himself up against a skeleton on a mission of revenge.

If you don't love that cover, there's probably no hope for you.

Then again, if you don't want to be a skeleton on a mission of revenge, there's probably no hope for you.

I really don't remember anything about this issue at all. I have no doubt though that it was all very strange.

Having blown up half of London, Iron Fist is still having trouble with his nuclear-powered foe.

Is this the issue where Misty Knight gets her bionic arm, or did she already have it by this point?

Random comics I have owned. Part Four.

When it comes to the National Lottery, a wise man once said, "It could be you."

Sadly, he was wrong. It couldn't be me. Why? Because I've never entered it.

Happily, there's another lottery. A better lottery. One that brings far more joy into people's lives than winning ten million pounds could ever do.

And that's the lottery that is, "Random comics I have owned."

Just what magic will it fling at us tonight?

I don't know.

But one thing's for sure.

I'm not going to let it change my life.

At one point, I had every one of the Black Orchid's original Adventure Comics appearances. All three of them. Sadly, it wasn't long after her debut before she was booted off the book, to be replaced by the Spectre.

Happily, for fans of women with flower obsessions, she was soon back, in the pages of The Phantom Stranger.

As for this tale, I have no recall at all of what happened in it but I gather that sailors and boats were involved.

It's one of my childhood faves, as Superboy finds himself turned into a merboy.

And if that's not one of the greatest comic book covers of all time, I'm a seahorse.

The X-Men come up against the Hellfire Club who seem to be an awful bunch of bounders and not at all inspired by a notorious but celebrated episode of TV's Avengers.

Batroc and Mr Hyde come up with a plan to blow up New York, with a boat, unless they get zillions.

Needless to say, Captain America soon puts a stop to their devilish plans.

Is it my imagination or is, "Batroc," misspelled on that cover?

It's the only original issue of the Hulk comic that I ever owned as a kid but I loved it, as, now residing in Canada, the Mimic is in danger of draining all our hero's life energy from him

This was the firs time I ever encountered the blue furry version of the Beast and was initially most confused as to whether he was meant to be the same character as the one from the X-Men.

I got this from a newsagents in a place called Heeley Green. This fact will mean nothing to 99.9% of the people reading this post but, somehow, that memory adds a certain charm to it all.

I seem to recall that an alien robot tyrant takes a fancy to the female member of the Metal Men and decides to bombard Earth with loads of missile-shaped robots because of it. How this was supposed to win her heart, I have no idea.

With their sharply defined personalities, I did find the Metal Men quite charming at the time.

It's the comic that gave us America's first teenage president.

More to the point, thanks to its unfeasibly visaged bad guy, it was the first time I ever encountered the smiley-face symbol with which all internetters are now so familiar.

I also learned from it that Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Who says comics aren't educational?

Iron Fist comes to London and immediately gets into a punch-up with Radion the atomic man.

Sadly, it turns out to be curtains for the Post Office Tower, which meets an explosive fate.

Whisper it quietly but I do believe this strip featured John Byrne's finest artwork.