Marvel Comic Conjecture: Iron Fist
Hey there Intrepid Readers!
With the dismal showing of the Netflix series and struggling direction of the past few series, this installment of Comic Conjecture will be tackling the Immortal Iron Fist. I’ll be using as much of the last three major Iron Fist series here, but there is just nothing Iron Fist related worth using in Powerman and Iron Fist, so alas, I’ll be brushing over it. At the end of Iron Fist the Living Weapon, Danny was left with a young Iron Fist to train, a martial arts dojo to run, and 65 Shua Lao dragons unaccounted for across the world. Kun Lun lies mostly in ruin. With no living tree of immortality, his former Thunderer dead, no clear winner from the previous series, and the book of Iron Fist from the latest series makes the building of a changing Kun Lun, a city that was immortal and largely changeless, falls squarely on his lap.
Major Story Archs
This is where I would start. The main focus of the series would be Danny training a bunch of students in New York. He has several dojos and he works with all of them, but every week he works specifically with an advanced class. This roster would include both returning and original characters: a French-Asian boy obsessed with Kabuki and the legend sof the Immortal Weapons, Pei the newest youngest Iron Fist with her infant dragon Gurk, Luke Cage’s daughter, a hard knock kid from the streets, Molly from the Runaways, Sandman’s surrogate daughter, Boulder from the Initiative series, the son of Detective Li which is the policeman who dealt with the whole event in Iron Fist: the Living Weapon, Honey Badger which is a cute and popular character, and Brahma an original character that is the third son of Yama, the former god of death.
Your B storyline would be a world hopping Dragon round up. Under the guise of outreach programs Danny, with the support of Misty Knight and her Heroes for Hire (see Heroes for Hire: Control for what I mean), is trying to collect the resurrected Shua Laos both to protect
them from people and vice versa. He has some specific enemies he is trying to beat to these creatures: Kraven the Hunter and his family, Davos the Steel Serpent, Chi Lin the demon who hungers for Shua Lao Eggs, Nu-on the former Yu-Ti of Kun Lun, Brenda Meechum who both loves and hates Danny, Miranda Rand his resurrected half sister, and a desperate but rugged immortal from Kun Lun.
Your C story line would be that Kun Lun has a whole generation of children who don’t have access to a tree of immortality. Women are being treated like equals which is a massive change from the old ways which means there is a group of male purists who want to change it back lead by Chang Ming, the betrayed and first Iron Fist. Since there was no technical winner of the tournament of the seven celestial cities there is a crisis where all of the cities are trying to fill the same space. There are incursions of one city trying to take another, mostly Crane Mother, rumors of evil science showing up in the cities, and a new kind of drug/drink made from fermented immortal tree fruit.
The Twists
As you can see, this soil is fertile as can be for epic stories. The school of thunder stories would reveal that the Kabuki kid would be one of Fat Cobra’s kids training under Iron Fist to kill him. Jessica Jones disagreeing with Luke Cage about their daughter learning kung fu, the street wise kid being an agent for Davos, and tied into the major story line, Brahma is judging Danny.
The hunting of Shua Lao would have intruige, a building rivalry between Davos and Danny, and a sort of deadliest game race with the Kraven Family. Also that rugged Kun Lunian would reveal his altruistic desire to find one of the dragons.
Rebuilding Kun Lun would also be dealing with the return of the members of Liu Shi, the island of separatist Kun Lunians revealed in the most recent Iron Fist Series. Major stories would include Davos raiding the Crane Mother’s harem of daughters, the rekindled relationship between shuhu, the One, and Chang Ming and their disagreements over the changes in Kun Lun, and the civil changes in the city dealing with a mortal generation of citizens.
The overall story would include Danny, over his various adventures, gaining larger understanding and unlocking more of the Book of Iron Fist, but his abilities working strangely and new techniques slipping out of him several times. He is getting stronger and more dangerous, even getting what should be mortal wounds on more than one occasion and almost shaking them off with know idea why.
Alongside this, Davos is hunting dragons, raiding Crane Mother, and then junkie-like hunting down this strange technology in the celestial cities. He keeps crossing lines, slipping farther and farther from the man with the second chance he had become at the end of the Immortal Iron Fist series.
Also Chang Ming and Shuhu become bitter enemies trying to decide the fate of Kun Lun. During a conflict, Danny returns to try and end it. Both Shuhu and Ching Ming are close to if not completely his equal in combat. During this conflict, Brahma decides to reveal himself to Danny, explaining that as he has become death, he must take up the mantle of Yama in the underworld. Simultaneously, Davos assembles too much tech into his robot hand, and is possessed by the Fatherfist Onebot that was the main antagonist in Iron Fist: the Living Weapon.
Climax
I see this culminating in this gorgeous scene where Brahma is speaking over one on one combat between this augmented Steel Serpent possessed by the Onebot and Death God Danny Rand. Danny strikes with his right fist, and Davos catches it, the steel hand encloses the fist and it begins drinking his chi. Danny, looking around sees the cords attached to the other fallen heroes, the other immortal weapons, dozens of daughters of the Crane Mother, and hearing what Brahma is saying, makes a choice. He closes his eyes, hastily meditates and forces all of his good Karma into the hand, and grabs Davos’ forehead pulling the bad kharma out of him. In a moment Davos realizes what is happening and full of honor begins to fight the Onebot.
Just as Brahma prepares to take Danny away, he strikes the steel fist, shattering it. This is such an awesome image in my head, from above the fight, the purple chi of Davos making a ying yang with the green or gold chi of Danny.
Brahma finished by saying “Zhu Rong has decreed that you can lead the underworld or be enslaved in it.” The bad Kharma, greed, rage, etc leads him to say yes as he would rather lead. Brahma takes him away after Danny asks Davos to protect their city.
Davos stands there once more with only one hand, the chi from the greatest warriors the cities have ever known flowing through him, reaches down with his left hand and grabs all of the severed cords that he used to steal their chi and gives it back giving them back their life.
Purged of all of his bad karma and evil deeds, Davos is returned to his original honorable state.
This would obviously lead into a series that has been a successful trend at least twice. Superior Iron Man was awesome, Superior Spiderman was genius at work. And at the end of this series we would have the Superior Steel Phoenix.
Don’t worry, my next article will be on exactly this development.
Did you like the idea? What would you change or what loose threads would you want brought in? Hit me with your thoughts in the Comments!
