Open Mike Night: Power Man & Iron Fist (2016) #1/ Iron Fist (1976) #14

Power Man and Iron Fist (2016) #1

Written by: David Walker
Art by: Sanford Greene
Colored by: Lee Loughridge
Lettered by: VC’s Clayton Cowles

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99

Mike Weaver: Power Man and Iron Fist reunite to greet their former secretary Jennie after she gets out of prison for a murder she did while possessed.  Luke insists that this is not going to be a long term thing, it’s just for this one matter.  Once they pick Jennie up, she asks them to get a necklace that used to be her grandmother’s which her ex-boyfriend gave to Tombstone to pay off a debt.  Luke clearly wants to go it alone, but takes Danny along, with the stipulation that Danny not talk.  Tombstone disagrees with the chain of ownership of the necklace, and eventually the situation turns violent.  Danny grabs the necklace to return to Jennie.

Tombstone knows the necklace has magical powers and doesn’t take kindly to it being taken, meanwhile, after Danny drops the necklace off to its supposed rightful owner, we discover that it was all a ruse to get the magical pendant, spearheaded by Black Mariah.

Mike Maillaro: You know..I was kind of hoping I didn’t like this comic just so I can call it a steaming pile of fiddle-faddle (Luke Cage has sworn off swearing because of his wife Jessica Jones...which is real ironic in itself knowing Jessica).  But I’d be lying. It seems quite a few Marvel books are using this particular formula lately.  Takes some “smaller” heroes, put them in more street level situations, keep it light and fun, have them dealing with their past but trying to avoid being defined only by their past.  It’s a real winning formula to be honest.  Power Man and Iron Fist have always been a great combination.  Luke doesn’t seem to want to be stuck as being “just” Danny’s partner, but Danny seems pretty eager to start calling themselves Heroes For Hire again.

Weaver: What the fiddle faddle was up with the art, though?  The art almost killed this book for me.  The portrayals of the main characters were inconsistent, the depth was hard to decipher in the frames, and we even had a panel of poorly placed word balloons.

I think I read this slightly differently than you.  I feel like Luke wants to devote his time to being a father, and not get pulled back into crimefighting.  Danny, being the single rich guy with no responsibilities that he is, really wants the band back together.  You can see that Luke tries to put some insulation between his wife and Danny, clearly he feels the two worlds can’t coexist.

Maillaro: I might just be putting my own spin on things, mostly because of Luke Cage’s appearances in books like Mighty Avengers.  He seems to be thinking on a much bigger scale these days.  Though he really hasn’t appeared since Secret Wars as far as I can tell, so you might be dead on.  

I loved that this book used a lot of their history, including Jennie, Tombstone, and Black Mariah.  David Walker definitely seems to understand these characters, and wants to build something new, but still respect their history.  This is my third Walker book (Cyborg and Shaft), and he continues to impress me with his ability to take something old and make it into something fresh and entertaining.

Oh, the art on this book was awful.  I actually expected that from the cover, especially when I checked the credits and saw that it was the same artist doing the interiors. Most of the interiors were better than than horrifying cover (WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS GOING TO SELL A BOOK?), but it still was not good at all. It sort of made the book look a little unprofessional.  Especially with a book with a 4 buck cover price.  

Weaver: I hadn’t read any of Walker’s previous books, but he does a great job heading right into the areas of continuity that basically no series but Power Man and Iron Fist dealt with.  It’s clear he has a lot of respect for the first run.

I’m glad I’m not alone in disliking the art.  I honestly wondered if it was some new style that I was unfamiliar with but that people really enjoyed.  Legitimately, I would like to hear from anyone who liked the art on this book, because I feel like it’s possible that I just “don’t get it.”

With bad art on the cover and relatively minor characters, I’m forced to wonder if this is a book Marvel doesn’t expect to succeed, but wants to test the waters with.  If it does take off, they’ll likely correct the art problem and go from there, but if it doesn’t, at least they didn’t waste money on a talented artist.

Maillaro: Marvel has done quite a few artist swaps lately.  Hell, look at Scarlet Witch.  We reviewed the first two issues, and they looked like two different comics entirely.  It’s pretty strange, especially since Power Man and Iron Fist should probably be a fairly high profile book with their connection to Marvel’s Netflix series.

Tombstone has long been one of my favorite D-List villains, and I thought he was used well here.  I am kind of hoping his daughter (the new Beetle) shows up in later issues of this series.  She’s a pretty awesome character and would fit the tone of this book really well.  

Weaver: They really treated Tombstone well.  He’s a mob boss that’s willing to have Luke Cage walk in to talk to him, a very Godfather feel.  And Luke Cage is nervous enough about him that he wants to make sure Danny doesn’t make trouble.  Of course, Danny does make trouble, but mostly in a reactionary way. Even a guy like Luke Cage doesn’t want to piss off Tombstone if he doesn’t need to, and Tombstone feels the same way.

I know that ever since he was used in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon the tendency has been to make Danny basically an ADHD teenager, and I don’t like that for someone that has trained in K’un Lun as long as he did, and in the ways he did.  Yet, that’s the larger universe interpretation of him too, so I can’t fault this book too much for it.

With the scores, I’m going to give the art a 1.5, because at least it isn’t stick figures.  Seriously, I have seen worse art than this which keeps it from being a 1, but not a lot.  The writing I’ll give a 4.5 to, docking a half point for Danny Rand being a little odd for me (although, like I said, not really the writer’s fault).

Maillaro: Yeah, Danny did feel a little strange to me, but Cage even commented on it.  I think like you said, a big part of it is that in their attempt to modernize Iron Fist, they ended up making him a slightly more annoying and less interesting character.  

I think I will go a 2 for the art.  I didn’t like it, BUT, at least it was fairly clean.  I never had to struggle to figure out what I was looking at.  I don’t particularly like the style they went for, but it was never detrimental to the storytelling.  For the most part, the art just stayed out of the way of the story, which was a good thing since the art was not that appealing to me.

I will stick with your 4.5 for the writing.  It was close to perfect, but there is some room to grow.  I think this is Walker’s first Marvel book, and if it’s a sign of things to come, I hope he does more.

Iron Fist (1976) #14

Written by: Chris Claremont
Penciled by: John Byrne
Inked by: Dan Green
Colored by: Janice Cohen
Lettered by: Annette Kawecki

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: 30 cents

Maillaro: The issue starts with Iron Fist and Colleen Wing arriving in Calgary, they came under attack from a group of thugs led by a “modern-day pirate” named Sabretooth.  They are looking for Jeryn Hogarth, who pissed off “their employer.”  They manage to surprise Sabretooth and make their escape into the woods.  Colleen is shot. They stumble across a cabin to use as shelter from the storm.  Our heroes ambush some of Sabretooth’s men, and they steal their outfits and weapons. They head towards Hogarth’s Chalet.  Sabretooth sees through their disguises and they fight.  Sabertooth is not only lethal, but damn clever.  He tricks Iron Fist into getting snowblind, allowing him to take the advantage.  Iron Fist remembers his martial arts training and is able to use his other senses to compensate and manages to defeat Sabretooth.  

Man, so much I want to talk about here.  I think I have to start with the fact that I loved that Colleen Wing was even more of a badass than Danny here.  That is something I have always loved about Claremont’s writing, he sees no difference between male heroes and female heroes.  I actually laughed out loud reading this issue when Sabretooth was genuinely surprised that Danny was a threat to him, as he was far more concerned about Colleen Wing.  I also loved that Colleen was able to rally together a bunch of Hogarth’s female staff to fight back against Sabretooth’s men.  This is equality, baby!

Weaver: To be fair, Sabretooth was expecting Colleen Wing...though how you can deal with someone linked to the Rand Corporation and not expect Iron Fist...not even KNOW Iron Fist...is kind of sketchy.  Colleen takes a bullet to the head and returns to lead a revolt, meanwhile Danny got beat up in an alley last issue and has issues with fighting.  Clearly Colleen is the better hero.  It seems like Hogarth has an all-female staff that specializes in self-defense to some degree, I had to wonder what that says about Hogarth.

There’s a lot of unevenness to this issue.   When they go to the weather station, fleeing Sabretooth, it’s been stripped of everything, including insulation, but they’re positive that the people they leave there will be discovered by the Mounties checking it out in the morning.  Also, they tie them up in sleeping bags, theoretically from the snowmobiles they’re going around in, but I have no idea why they’d have the sleeping bags.  The narration goes from second person to third person several times, which was something I specifically wanted to pull out an old Iron Fist issue for.  Second person isn’t used very often in fiction, and it’s pretty sloppily implemented here.

Maillaro: Yeah, the constant shift in narration was real distracting.  I will say, I can’t think of many times second-person ever works, but it was definitely extra painful here.  Honestly, about halfway through this issue, I was thinking it was going to be a bad comic, but it mostly redeemed itself by the end.  Once Colleen and Iron Fist catch up to Sabretooth and company, the book switches to pure action, and it seems to be a much better fit.  I guess with a book like Iron Fist, they felt they had to try and import some “Kung Fu” like flashbacks and lessons into the book, but it does feel a little awkward at times.  

One thing that really surprised me was how different a character Sabretooth was back then.  This was his first appearance, and he sort of still has that “evil Wolvie” feel to him, but since Claremont and Bryne were the creative team here, that isn’t all that surprising.  But he seems far more civilized than Sabretooth is often written as.  In this book, he seems to be more of a cold-blooded mercenary who just happened to like a Sabretooth Tiger theme.

Weaver: He also says bub a lot, to make him more Wolverine-y.  There’s several pages where Iron Fist remarks that Sabretooth does not know how to fight and is all strength and speed...apparently, he gets that addressed before killing Morlocks.  But it does kind of lead into...how does one become a ridiculously successful and rich assassin with no fighting technique in a superpowered world?  You’d imagine that if that were your vocation, you’d want to at least be ready for Daredevil level heroes.

Maillaro: To be fair, Sabretooth has rarely shown any real “technique.”  He kind of is all tooth and claw. I thought it was kind of cool that he did so well against Iron Fist to be honest.  His speed and strength seemed to make him more than a match for Iron Fist, even if Iron Fist is a superior martial artist.  Too often fiction treats fighting skill as a trump card, but typically someone who is bigger and stronger can be a match for a smaller fighter who happens to have some skill...even if that dude is the fiddle-faddlin’ Iron Fist!

Scores for this one.  I thought it had an off start, but mostly made up for it.  I would give it a 3.  As for the art, while happen to be a moderate fan of John Bryne’s writing.  BUT, I love, love, love John Bryne’s art.  It is never complicated, but there is always a surprising amount of clarity and beauty to it.  It is very rare I would rate a book drawn by Bryne any less than a 5.  

Weaver: Clearly Byrne had some say in the plotting, as we can infer from it taking place near Calgary (Byrne uses Calgary a lot since he lived there for a while).  I do agree with the scores on this, and the premise that Byrne art is brilliant, Byrne writing is a mixed bag.

Maillaro: Yeah...that is a good way of describing it.  Often in the same issue, you get great Bryne writing and questionable Bryne writing...

Maillaro: Dynamite was cool enough to send us over the first issue of the new Vampirella series way early.  I loved Nancy Collin’s work on Vampirella, and I’m curious what Kate Leth can do with the new “fully clothed” Vampirella hanging out in Los Angeles.  Game?

Weaver: That sounds like a winner.  I had a few older comics ideas, I’m thinking another female-led comic.  There’s a few different ones I’m looking at and I’ll get back to you.

Final Scores