Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #1: "Rage, Part One"

[superboyprime]

"In the past few years, he had become this sort of billionaire playboy who taught underprivileged children kung fu and donated his wealth to charities. I can't identify with a guy like that. Who is that guy? It's like Batman without a plan and no parental angst." - Kaare Andrews

Comments

[freezer]

"In the past few years, he had become this sort of billionaire playboy who taught underprivileged children kung fu and donated his wealth to charities. I can't identify with a guy like that. Who is that guy? It's like Batman without a plan and no parental angst."

Yes, because heroes that don't carry around libraries worth of issues and gallons of angst are just boring.#DontCareIfThatsSarcasm

Not feeling this at all.

[fifthie]

Kaare Andrews should find a way to sound *more* bitter that he couldn't get a job writing Batman.

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

Ehh. Danny, you're a chill guy who's got friends. Go hang out with them and stop pretending to be angsty.

[venatosapiens]

Art is perfect. Not digging this take on the character otherwise. It's decently written if a trifle overwrought.

[tsunamiwombat]

Well, this is terrible. Call me when it's over.

Danny is, above all, a Wuxia figure - his roots are in the pulpy 60's wirefu kungfu movies, just like his longtime manfriend and platonic partner Luke Cage has his roots in 60's and 70's blacksploitation.

There is room for drama and angst in Wuxia. But it's not the self pitying, buckets of wangst the author is trying to pour onto it. It's the angst of I AM TRAPPED BY HONNOOOORR - of needing to act but being incapable of it, because of shame, because of decency, because of society. Alternatively, it's the angst of wanting no trable, but people keep attacking you in ladder factories.

It is not the angst of MY PARENTS ARE DEAAAD - well, sometimes it is, but only when that angst is rooted in "you killed my parents/master/lover now I come for revenge".

In all instances, it's an angst of motion. It commands action from the principle figure, not lethargy. They do not wallow in their self pity, they rise above it.

Moreover, these pages don't make me feel sympathy, they make me feel revulsion and disillusionment with Daniel. The way he treats this woman - like an object - is ridiculous. Maybe she doesn't really understand, hell maybe she's a gold digger, but at least she's asking. Trying to connect.

If you aren't into it, call the date off.

I am not amuse.

[arilou_skiff]

I can no longer hear the word "Honour" in any voice othr than the Zuko-player from Ember Island Players.

[ablackraptor]

I think it is over; it was a miniseries IIRC that ended a week ago, IIRC. Might be wrong though, I only got this one issue then avoided it like the plague, which is sad since I wanted to get something with Danny in.

[chrys]

No, it was announced as an ongoing and #6 is coming out in early September.

[silverhammerman]

That's pretty surprising. This series hasn't had nearly the response that some of the Marvel NOW launches have had, even besides a big fan reaction ala Miss Marvel I've heard virtually nothing since it launched, and I'd kind of assumed that it had just quietly flopped.

[chrys]

Even more surprising is when I looked at June sales to see how likely an early cancellation would be and found that #3 sold more than a whole lot of other recent launches, like Widow, Punisher, Loki, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Elektra... Though the first 2 have more issues under the belt, so more erosion. July sales aren't out yet, so it'll be interesting to see how much it dropped.

[doc_destructo]

Did someone eat Frank Miller's bibliography and vomit it back up as Iron Fist?

[mrstatham]

Andrews seems to have an unfortunate habit of that when it comes to his solo Marvel work; Spider-Man: Reign was basically 'The Dark Spider Returns', although I actually enjoyed it more than the Miller work, somehow. This? It's got no soul, I've read it a billion times before in terms of the 'hero has lost his groove which can only be found through heroing and that's his true side' nonsense, and the character isn't nearly as fun as I'd want him to be. Brubaker and Fraction at least told semi-serious stories and kept the book a lot of fun.

I also really hate the idea that the only kind of fulfillment in life Danny can get is being Iron Fist; This is trying to present him as Batman - especially obvious since Andrews invokes Batman as a parallel - which doesn't work because Danny was never a loner like Bruce. If he had problems, he'd go talk it over with Luke, not brood until being shot at is the only fulfillment he can find in life.

[halloweenjack]

Kaare Andrews:Frank Miller::Jonathan Hickman:Warren Ellis

[mrstatham]

True. But again, I'd argue that Andrews can still be enjoyable and do Miller better than Miller does Miller, given I actually thought the DKR'ing of Spidey worked well with the 'power and responsibility' theme of the character, whereas Hickman.. I've never read anything by the guy I liked.

[blueprintstyles]

As a huge fan of the previous iron fist series, this really disappointed me at first. As I kept reading it it started to grow on me. Danny's the same age as his father when he died, and his father died crazy and endangering his family. Hours later he sees his mother eaten by wolves which is a trauma that he'll relive his entire life. Add in the beneficial but still brutal lifestyle in K'un-lun, it's understandable for Danny to go through a dark period. As long as Danny moves past this story arc happier than he started, I'll continue to buy this series.

[lilacsigil]

"I love this character! Let's make him the same as ever other brooding hero!"

[starwolf_oakley]

Kaare Andrews is a Frank Miller fan. That can be good or bad, depending.

As well as the obvious Miller influence on SPIDER-MAN: REIGN, Andrews also did DAREDEVIL: BATTLIN' JACK MURDOCK. It was a four issue miniseries set during the four rounds of Jack's last boxing match with LOTS of flashbacks.

Whoops! No, he didn't. That was Carmine di Giandomenico, whose art is similar to Kaare Andrews.

[rainspirit]

I really don't need to think of Danny Rand as some form of Jason Bateman, thanks. I like Danny when he's funny and naive!

[grumman]

"In the past few years, he had become this sort of billionaire playboy who taught underprivileged children kung fu and donated his wealth to charities. I can't identify with a guy like that. Who is that guy? It's like Batman without a plan and no parental angst." - Kaare Andrews

The perfect summary for this comic - it tells you exactly how terrible it's going to be. If you like the source material but think it could benefit from some refinement, sure, that can work. But if you're writing things like this, you really need to be kept the hell away from the IP.

[akodo_rokku]

The amount that this book shit all over the amazing Immortal Iron Fist IMMEDIATELY took it from just a bad book to a truly tragic one.

[big_daddy_d]

seriously? I've seen Iron Fist get pretty dark but angsty and brooding? It just doesn't fit. At all.

[writeofway]

"I am the masochist. I am the narcissist."

I am Jack's over-reliance on angst, daddy issues and superheroism-as-sex BS

Way to miss the point of a character, buddy. And I don't mean just Iron Fist, I mean Batman. It isn't all angst and brooding and parental issues. It's about doing good for the sake of no one else going through what he went through as a kid.

[drtechnobabel]

How is it possible that despite knowing next to nothing about Iron Fist, I can still tell that this is a complete bastardization of the character?

[q99]

Even the next to nothing you do know doesn't seem to quite fit this?

Plus, well, the opening statement from the writer!

[q99]

" I can't identify with a guy like that. "

Funny, I can't identify with your guy, but I can identify with a guy using what he has to help out how he can.

[ap0cryphal]

kaare "MARY JANE DIED OF RADIOACTIVE JIZZ" andrews does good art, but goddamn if the writing isn't polished turds

maybe i'm being a bit hyperbolic, but why don't you have a look at spider man reign and tell me i'm wrong

[panthyr]

OK, I had to stop and laugh for a minute.

[leoboiko]

To be generous, I do kinda agree that the Iron Fist could use some more depth. The problem is that this is just as shallow as the billionaire charity worker action hero, and further, a great deal less fun. You can't just throw angst and tragedy at a story and hope that it will grow deep – and anyway there are a lot other, brighter ways of making a character more interesting.

[hybrid2]

I got all of the last serie in TPB.
Who is that guy?

I hate,how Marvel just ignore stuff that JUST happened to the characters.
Like the Hulk.Planet Hulk and now buddy buddy with Iron man?And all the wierd stuff that happened,one right after another.

[lieut_kettch]

Reporter Girl is just looking for a beating from a certain 'fro-sporting bionic P.I.

[silverhammerman]

I gave this series two issues before dropping it, though come to think of it I'm not sure I even bothered to read the second one. It is Not Very Good.

Didn't Immortal Iron Fist also start either the main character Kung fu fighting a bunch of dudes outside a high rise before K'un Lun got attacked by modern forces? Because this is reading like a worse version of that series so far.

And yeah, That Kaare Andrews quote is not encouraging at all. Apparently he can't relate to a good dude who just wants to help people, but he can totally relate to a totally cool billionaire who mopes all the time and has lots of cool empty sex and treats women as objects. Sounds like a swell writer.

A guess that's the risk that companies run when they let an ideosyncratic creator just do their own thing. Sometimes you get great stuff like Hawkeye, sometimes you get garbage like this.

At least it looks pretty. Now if only they'd shackled Andrews to a writer who knows what they're doing.

Kind of baffled that Marvel gave the job to a dude who basically said "Hey, you know that acclaimed take on the character that raised him from a forgotten D-list artifact to a character prominent enough to spend years on the Avengers and get a Netflix series? Fuck all that."

[md84]

So Andrews can't identify with a well-adjusted superhero, but he can identify with...with THIS?

This, this is a travesty. An abomination. Worse, it's cliche. I'm not even a fan of Iron Fist and I feel insulted on the character's behalf.

If the writer wants to write about a superhero with psychological problems, why not write Moon Knight? Or the Hulk? Or the Punisher? Or just about every other Marvel hero?

[aperturedreams]

Jesus, what kind of person takes iron fist and comes up with this? I'm concerned about Kaare Andrews mental state after this and spider man reign.

[theflames]

Kaare makes great art... but thats how far that goes.

[ablackraptor]

Everyone else has basically said it, but yeah, I read this one issue then stopped because it was so bad and cliché.

It really rubbed me the wrong way, especially the way he treats the woman and the way it makes it appear he treats women in general; if it was designed to make him look cool, it doesn't, it makes him look like a misogynistic tool, and with that being played seriously, it makes him unlikeable. Hell, Tony Stark has more respect for women than Danny does in this page.

And that quote really just paints a horrible picture of the writer. 'This guy is cool and does good things for people with what he has; that's totally boring and I can't identify with that at all!'

The worst part is I don't really know that much about Danny and I got this to try and get more familiar with his character; its good to realize how much of a bastardization this is because it does not paint a good impression.

[fifthie]

This is tryhard as hell, god damn

[auggie18]