Immortal Iron Fist

Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction are two very fortunate men.

They are also incredibly talented writers of comic books. But their great fortune came in finding a wide, gaping, open hole in the tapestry of the Marvel Universe, and deciding to fill it.

That hole is the legacy and the history of the Immortal Iron Fist. In their first arc on this title, Brubaker and Fraction began the enviable task of constructing the backstory of the Iron Fist from virtual scratch. The character who is today the Iron Fist, Danny Rand, has a pretty detailed history; the past details of his powers, and the legacy they represent, is what Brubaker and Fraction hoped to mine.

With issue 7, they dive head-first into the legacy of the Immortal Iron Fist, with a stand-alone tale of Wu Ao-Shi, one of the sixty-six men and women who have held the mantle of Iron Fist.

The fact that it's a look back that suggests all kinds of funky history and cool trivia, the kind that makes nerds the world over twitter with glee, isn't what makes this book a great comic. Instead, it's the fact that you get all that, plus great writing. Brubaker and Fraction manage to keep their sense of humor throughout the proceedings, which by itself is a relief, since this kind of comic book history-making is more often quite dry and ponderous.

The tale in issue 7, "The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay," is light on its feet, sharp and sweet at the same time. There's a love story, much burning of flesh and kicking of ass, and of course, pirates. On the art side, things are slightly uneven, solely because of the use of multiple pencilers; this issue would have been perfection with a single artist, preferably series penciler David Aja, handling the duties. As it stands, it's damn near close to perfect anyway. An ideal jumping-on point for new readers, or just anyone who REALLY wants their $2.99 worth from their floppies.

This could be the best comic in print. Nuff said.

This is the only Marvel comic I read these days because (1) It won't desecrate my childhood memories (It's hard to do Spider-Man better than in days of yore, but I was never a big fan of the Fist in the 70s and 80s) and (2) It avoids gimmicky stuff happening in the rest of the universe.

This is like Green Lantern to the nth degree - a wonderful universe of different people connected by a power and a tradition. The flashbacks to the different Iron Fists are wonderful. Always great art. Also, they have found a way to make an old hero adapt and learn new tricks without it looking like a cheesy "everything you know is wrong/everything you know didn't happen" reboot.