Next up for this month of butt-kicking is someone who people
like a lot: Iron Fist. I think he’s alright. I think his costume has mostly
turned me off. It’s not horrible but I can’t get behind a man in yellow and
green. I don’t care if he knows kung fu. At least he tries to make it work. I
do like that Marvel has tried to retool his costume without removing what makes
him Iron Fist. I know they did get rid of his big collar which should only be
on one superhero: Nightwing. I’ve only read a couple of stuff featuring him
like some of Ed Brubaker’s stuff, New Avengers, and this issue. I don’t know
how he is on Ultimate Spider-Man since I still haven’t watched it yet.
I guess mentioning the Wall-Crawler is perfect in talking
about today’s issue, Spider-Man #41 from 1993. Iron Fist plays heavily in the
issue. I found this issue in the cheap bins where I actually met someone kind
of interesting. Hopefully, I’ll see her
again. Anyway, the issue was written by Terry Kavanaugh. The pencils and inks
were handled by a much younger Jae Lee. I know more Lee for his stuff today
like his artwork on Dark Tower, some DC work, and his other Marvel work.
Spider-Man #41
Writer: Terry Kavanaugh
Artist: Jae Lee
Colors: Kevin Tinsley
Letters: Joe Rosen
Editor: Danny Fingeroth
“Storm Warnings: Part One”
We start the issue with Peter in the depths of the Daily
Bugle archives researching some dark stuff. Apparently, there are rumors about
someone developing A.R.M.S. (Alternative Resources Munitions Supply) and Rand Research
and Development is involved. Before Peter can learn more, he gets called away.
While he’s away, Danny Rand (Iron Fist) himself sneaks into the office and gets
the information from the archives. After he purges the info from the archives,
he decides to screw stealth and punch him a way out the building. Peter notices
the damage when he comes back and that the info has been stolen. He tries to
get some more information from Katie, a reporter working on this story. When
that doesn’t work out, he heads off to Rand as Spider-Man.
Woah... it looks like that fist almost broke something...
Spider-Man: Man of Dumb Decisions... seriously, you think he would have gotten smarter by "Civil War," but nope!
After a bunch of needless damage, Iron Fist lets up on the
big secret he’s held since the beginning of the fight. One wonders why he never
told Spidey outright, but then the creative team couldn’t stretch this
story-arc out for three issues. Ever since he returned (apparently, he was
“dead”), he’s been trying to help his company stay out of trouble. Apparently,
there is someone who’s a part of the company trying to sell illegal arms. The
article the Bugle’s working on could do some damage to the company. The two get
the required information they need from the stolen archives and head to a
sub-basement in the building. After they run into a few traps, they find
Platoon, an armor-clad soldier who’s ready to kill.
……………………………………………………………………………
This was kind of lackluster. It only amounts to a pretty
extended fight between Spidey and Iron Fist. The story felt really padded with
that fight since it lasted most of the issue. It was just them going back
and forth with moves and such. I guess if someone wanted to see these two throw
down, they might get their money’s worth. As for me, I would have been just
fine if the fight was much shorter and not spread out over the issue. Danny’s
reason for keeping Spidey in the dark really made no sense and felt like an
excuse to keep the fight going. The dialogue was also not that great at points.
I’m a little mixed with the artwork as well. There are
points where Lee’s artwork does look good. Unfortunately, it kind of reeks of
the 1990’s and not in a good way either. Bodies look weird at points and our
two combatants had their nice amounts of steroids earlier that morning. I will
say that I did like most of the shading at points. It made the issue look dark
and moody. While I’m curious on how this 3-parter continued, I’m not ready to
go out and look for those issues.
Overall, this wasn’t really good. Still, if you’re a fan of
Iron Fist, you might get more from it than I did. These days, the character is
doing pretty good for himself. There’s an Iron Fist TV series for Netflix that
should be coming out in the next year. I’m curious on how that would look. It
actually has a little controversy with it already because of the character’s
race. Personally, I don’t care what his race ends up being as long as they put
out a good series. I’m all for diversity but this is one thing I don’t care
much about. Anyway, that’s all I got for today. Next time, I’ll either look at
that other white guy who knows kung fu or a game franchise. Until then, Peace,
God Bless, and don’t hold back secrets for dumb reasons.
NEXT TIME: RICHARD DRAGON… YEAH, I’M WONDERING WHO HE IS
MYSELF TOO! ALSO, MORTAL KOMBAT!
No comments:
Post a Comment