Cover your shame, Danny!

Just as the first Marvel Team-Up issue I read with him made Yellowjacket cool forever, the first MTU issue I saw with Iron Fist cemented my opinion of him: he wasn't at full strength and got beat down by Steel Serpent. Pretty sure that was a Claremont/Byrne issue.

Similarly to that one, Iron Fist #1, "Into the Fold" (written by Dan Jurgens, pencils by Jackson Guice, finishes by Scott Koblish) opens with Fist not at his full fighting power. Which seems to happen quite a bit, but that's less a blemish on Danny than a testament to how hard it is to maintain his technique. Also, it's because at full power Danny could probably punch a Grand Canyon sized hole into just about anything. From a writing standpoint I figure it's easier and more fun to handicap the Iron Fist at least a little, and make him have to work harder.

I seem to find the issues where Fist ends up with egg on his face more easily, which is too bad. Anyway, the rest of this series features recurring Iron Fist bad guys Scimitar (lazy!) and evil plants the H'ylthri, in a scheme that involves blackmailing Fist into stealing the Scorpio Key from S.H.I.E.L.D. It also refers back to Iron Fist #5 from who knows when in the seventies, and Danny's little known and perhaps not real sister. Oh, and Wisconsinite super-villain Sidewinder is killed in the first issue, which is a bit of a waste: he's jobbed out to show how tough stealing the Key is going to be for Fist. (Actually, it's a scab Sidewinder, the original having retired and passed on his gear. The original, Seth Voelker, was from Wisconsin like his co-creator Mark Gruenwald. Man alive, I would love to be able to create some super-villains from my home state. Y'know, that were neither cowboys nor indians, and didn't have "Montana" in their name...)