Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5022
EAN num: 9780785115465
ISBN number: 0785115463
Label: Marvel Comics
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 584
Printing Date: October 01, 2004
Publishing house: Marvel Comics
Sale Popularity Level: 598415
Studio: Marvel Comics
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Product Description:
Collects Marvel Premiere #15-25, Iron Fist #1-15, Marvel Team-Up #63-64, and Power Man & Iron Fist #48-50.
Amazon.com Review:
Essential Iron Fist is another good use of Marvel's budget-priced Essentials series. Iron Fist was a second-tier character intended to capitalize on the '70s kung-fu craze who ended up occupying a middle ground between conventional super-heroes and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Iron Fist was raised as a martial-arts master in the fabled city of K'un-Lun, but gave up an immortal life in that paradise in order to return to the United States in pursuit of revenge. Essential Iron Fist Vol. 1 collects his opening run in Marvel Premiere 15-25 followed by his own book, Iron Fist 1-15. The book floundered a bit once the initial story arc was over, but was distinguished by the team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, who were also working on their historic run on the X-Men (there's some character overlap). But even so, Iron Fist only lasted 15 issues until some of the loose ends had to be tied up in two issues of Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man. The volume concludes with Power Man 48-50, in which Iron Fist meets his eventual partner Luke Cage, the former Hero for Hire. --David Horiuchi
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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...of course it helps that by the time Iron Fist finally got his own series, it only lasted 15 issues. But those 15 issues are great. Once Chris Claremont and John Byrne got a hold of this character, the book soared. Great art, great stories, great characters -- and the very first interracial love story in comics history!
While many of the Marvel Essential series are culled from second-rate 70's books, this one is a classic. It's not about Kung Fu or the martial arts -- it's about great adventures and characters. A superior series finally immortalized in book form (albeit in grey and white).
Rated by buyers 
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Lost Horizon meets Kung Fu by way of the Marvel Universe. Iron Fist is a blast. Definitely one of the better Essentials. This is top of the line superhero and martial arts and other craziness. There is also corporate conspiracy and intrigue, and dodgy looking ballet booties on his costume, according to some writers! A definite bargain.
Rated by buyers -
This is why the Essentials series is handy-- it takes someone with a excellent comics collection and a good cross-referencing system to put all these books together in one place.
Iron Fist was part of the Marvel 70's move to try anything non-superheroic. A bit more super-heroish than Shang-Chi, Iron Fits had trouble finding its feet as a feature. Sometimes a bit derivative (with an origin tale that echoed both Ka-Zar and Scott Summers) and sometimes bizarre (okay, so the magic city is guarded by...um...homicidal plants), the feature was bounced between a few different teams until it was handed over to Chris Claremont and John Byrne, who were just about to team up on the fabulously successful X-Men revival.
With their teamwork, the book acquired the touches for which they would both be famous. Strong women characters using brains instead of boobs. Strong supporting casts. Ties to other characters in their stable (a lead in thsi feature became Jean Grey's room-mate). Byrne's fluid line and Claremont's long-range story arcs.
Unfortunately, the book was bi-monthly, making the long story arcs tough to follow, and after moving from Marvel Premiere to his own book, Iron First was canceled, with several plot threads hanging.
However, Claremont was at that time also writing the Spidey team-up book, which in his tenure became the Marvel Loose Ends Clearing House-- so Fist made a two-part appearance there to pick up most of the loose ends.
Then someone in the House of Ideas decided to prop up the sagging Luke Cage, Power Man book by teaming him up with Fist-- a rather inspired choice to team up Marvel's street-smart grey character and a guy from a mystical somewhat asianish city (like the Rush Hour movies...? nah--). Byrne and Claremont were brought in to oversee the "wedding" of the two features, and it's there that there run on Fist ends, and that's where this collection takes you
So here you get one of the better Marvel B-listers, many good cameos, and the early teaming of two comic industry giants. Well worth your time and money!
Rated by buyers -
The 1960s and `70s were a simpler time in comic book writing and art, but simpler but does not mean dumber, merely less complicated (the comics of yesterday tend to be more complex which has its own pluses and minuses). Marvel has been reprinting many of the comics from this period in their "Essentials" series. Having read quite a few of these Essentials volumes over the past couple of years, I can confidently say that not all are equally good; some, in fact, are pretty poor. Happily, the Essential Iron Fist is one of the best in the bunch.
Iron Fist is the superhero name for Daniel Rand. As a young boy, Rand was hiking in the Himalayas with his parents and a family friend in search of the mythical kingdom of K'un-Lun. The friend turned out to actually be an enemy, and his betrayal would cost Rand's parents their lives. Danny, however, survived and made it to K'un-Lun where he was trained in the martial arts. A special quest would result in his obtaining the power of the Iron Fist, which allowed him to focus energy into his fist and make it super-strong. There were other benefits to this power (including self-healing), but he could only use this energy sporadically.
Rand returns to New York City seeking revenge against the family "friend" but finds that it is not easy to achieve. Even as that plot line is resolved, he finds new adversaries, probably none as formidable as Khan. Along the way, he gets allies and friends, notably Colleen Wing and Misty Knight who together form a security company; Misty and Danny also have an evolving romantic interest. Of course, the most notable friend would be Luke Cage, who is only introduced at the end of this volume. Together, the two will become Power Man and Iron Fist, Heroes for Hire.
The strength of this Essentials edition is clearly due to the writer and artist who were responsible for most of the issues within: respectively Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Shortly after their Iron Fist run, they would take over X-Men and transform that comic from a second-string book to the biggest in the Marvel Universe.
I've always had a mixed view on Claremont - he's a good writer, but his storylines sometimes get so intricate they seem to go on forever without any real resolutions. This would be a bigger issue with his X-Men comics, but there are shades of it even in Iron Fist. Claremont could pull it off, but I think his prominence in the industry helped make this sort of convoluted plotting the norm rather than the exception; as a result, there seemed to be less one-issue stories and more that took years to finish. I'm not sure that this was a good trend. Byrne, on the other hand, I have a more positive view of, and this book reaffirms why: his art is top-notch, and is evidence as to why he has been one of the top artists in his field for decades (he's also a decent writer himself). It is not merely the way he illustrates people but his wonderful depiction of action that makes Byrne great.
There are now a lot of "Essential" volumes out there. Iron Fist may not be the big name that Spiderman, Captain America, X-Men or the Fantastic Four is, but that shouldn't keep you from reading this volume. This was Marvel at its 1970s best.
Rated by buyers -
If you want to see John Byrne's art before his run on X-Men; this is the book to see. You get to see a lot of Kung Fu moves and poses that show Byrne's versatility with the genre. I wonder if he studied the moves in any Bruce Lee movies? You don't even have to like Kung Fu to appreciate the book. It's super hero action with all the stars from the 70's. If you like seventies Marvel comics, this is the collection to purchase!
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