The Immortal Iron Fist: The Complete Collection, Vol. 2

The Immortal Iron Fist (Collected Editions) #4-6

by Duane Swierczynski (Scriptwriter), Jason Aaron (Scriptwriter), Cullen Bunn (Scriptwriter)

Although the Iron Fist's legend is immortal, Danny Rand is definitely not! Why is Danny sweating over an inescapable legacy that has haunted the Iron Fists for centuries? And what is the deeper meaning of Xao's ominous threat? As Danny and the Immortal Weapons begin another dimension-spanning adventure, they discover that the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven...might have an Eighth! COLLECTING: Immortal Iron Fist 17-27, Immortal Iron Fist: Orson Randall and the Death Queen of California 1, Immortal Weapons 1-5, Immortal Weapons Sketchbook

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Fantasy, Action, Adventure

496 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Duane Swierczynski is an American crime writer who has written a number of non-fiction books, novels and also writes for comic books.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

In preparation for Netflix's newest addition to the Marvel tv lineup, I figured it was high time I finished this run of Iron Fist. I'd thoroughly enjoyed Brubaker & Fraction's The Immortal Iron Fist: The Complete Collection Vol. 1, but since volume two was something I had to track down piece by piece on my Marvel Unlimited account, laziness won out and I'd just never gotten around to reading the rest of this thing.
Then THIS:



So, yeah. The prospect of seeing a dude with a glowing fist on television was what I needed to give me a kick in the ass. The again, I don't see how you could not freak out over it!
GLOWING FIST, PEOPLE! GLOWING FIST!



Ok, admittedly, I'm easily impressed. So, some of you may not be as interested in seeing a CGI glow-fist come to the small screen. Whatever.
I think it's badass...



Ok, well it turns out that Swierczynski's conclusion isn't quite as awesome as the last collection, but it's certainly pretty readable. My biggest complaint would be that there's just a ton of shit here that has to do with Iron Fists, but not necessarily our Iron Fist. Which is cool and all, learning about the past (and even future) Fists, but at the same time...ehhhh. I want to read about Danny, not other guys.
Danny Rand & Luke Cage kickin ass, Danny doing kung fu-y shit with the Defenders, and especially more about Danny and Misty!



But a big portion of this was Legend of Iron Fist shit. So prep yourself for a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo and folklore about people other than the main character. I'm not saying that's bad, I just wasn't expecting it.
Each Immortal Weapon (<--Iron Fist's counterparts from the other realms) gets an issue dedicated to telling either their origin story or just a cool story. Plus, Orson Randall (the previous Iron Fist) has a noir-y detective story tossed in for good measure. It has nothing to do with the main story, but it's not bad.



The art is ok, but nothing to get excited about. Which is kind of my general feeling about this whole thing. Not bad, but it didn't get me pumped up, either.
Still, I'm glad I finally finished this.
Recommended for Iron Fist Fanatics

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker moved on from this title, I really hoped that Marvel would have gone in a different direction:

Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter….and the occasional appearance of Iron Fist



Wenches in Waiting: the Complete Illustrated History

Wild West Cowgirl Hookers: The Reckoning!!

Kung Fu with Misty Knight and Colleen Wing: Naked If You Want To



But after the restraining order I can’t get within 50 miles of a Marvel employee in order to bum rush them with my great ideas.

The knee jerk reaction to this title changing hands would have been: “This is going to suck.”

Alas, True Believers, it doesn’t suck as much as one would have thought. After continuing the plot threads bequeathed to him, Duane Swiercznski has a record of 1 and 1, with the “Let’s get the hell out of Hell” storyline the lone winner and the “I’m gonna die cause I'm Iron Fist and I turned 33” the better luck next time, champ entry.

The last issue in continuity is chock full of storylines and felt rushed.

The Immortal Weapons each get a story, with only Jason Aaron’s Fat Cobra being the lone winner.



A couple of issues devoted to past and future Iron Fists, a fun, pulpy Orson Randall story and a decent coda to end the volume about Iron Fist's inability to help one of his students, round out this collection.

Don’t be a chump! Start with the Brubaker/Fraction run and if you’re feeling giddy, read this.

Bottom Line:



Me: I think this replica of Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter would look perfect on the mantle.

Mrs. Jeff: So would your severed head on a spike.

[Calista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the 1st collection of this was pretty good. This one felt monotonous to me. Fight after fight with little to it. At the end there is an issue for each of the 6 immortals that is actually rather interesting. I enjoyed the stories. At the end was a story about Danny and a student which didn't have good art, but it was a good story. I enjoyed that. I didn't know if I was going to make it through the first part of this story. I think this saved the collection from being a 1 star for me.

The art is high quality and what Marvel delivers. I want more to hold onto from the characters, more character development. Maybe I need another Marvel/DC break for a time is all. I do like the characters of the Iron fist and I like the Asian influences of the story and I don't feel it was the best telling in this book. It didn't hit me right.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a bit concerned about the Brubaker and Fraction-less continuation of this series, but Swierczynski did not disappoint. I am not familiar with his comic book writing so I didn't know what to expect. We find out why most Iron Fists have not survived longer than their 33rd birthday and then Danny learns about the 8th Celestial City. We also get an issue on each of the Immortal Weapons, exploring those characters for a bit; some of those issues are better than others. All in all it was a good read and I will definitely check out some more Swierczynski, since I hear he has some crime noir stuff.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, there are all sorts of snide comments to be made of "THE Complete Collection" (emphasis mine) requiring a second volume. Let's just accept that it's comic book logic and move on.

Sadly, Volume 2 mainly dilutes the impact of Volume 1, which deepened the mythology of the series and set the groundwork for new directions. Volume 2 brings in Duane Swierczynski on the writing. It's not bad, but just not as interesting as Fraction and Brubaker's work on Volume 1. Essentially they created a new background for the series, and Swierczynski plays in their sandbox, but doesn't really bring any new toys to the game. The characters exit Volume 2 pretty much the same as when they entered. Danny Rand appears to have lost most of his fortune, but does anyone really expect that to last? Comic book history is full of rich characters who lose their fortunes (and gain them back) overnight. Tony Stark, Oliver Queen ... heck, even Richie Rich and Scrooge McDuck have been through this story a time or two.

Kudos to the people who compiled this book for printing issue #21 out of sequence. It was part of some big themed event, all Marvel titles that month being set in the year 3099 or something. To reprint it in publication order would have been to interrupt the storyline for no good reason. Happy to see someone looking out for the readers.

Also included is the Immortal Weapons miniseries, focusing on the other Immortal Weapons. The Fat Cobra and Bride of Nine Spiders stories are arguably the best in this entire book.

To sum up, not bad, but definitely a bit of a letdown after Volume 1. I'm not sure I recommend it, but there are certainly far worse comics out there.

[RG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong this isnt a bad novel or collection. It just doesnt compare to Vol 1. I think if this had been a solo novel without Vol 1 it would have held up on its own. The main storyline was cool with the 8th city, a short solo story of standalone fist, and a few immortal weapon short story arcs, haha I really enjoy Fat cobra. It just didnt hit the amazing highs of Vol 1. Fraction and Brubaker just knock that Vol out of the park. Probably isnt necessary to read if you want the Vol 1 story to continue but it still holds it own. A little disappointed though it didn't carry the momentum Vol 1 ended with.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say that a writer is nothing more than an inspired reader. That certainly rings true to me, whether it’s actually true or not, I don’t know. I say that because I’ve read almost nothing inspiring to me lately. And so I'm a wannabe writer that hasn't been writing.

I did read a very good book recently about a serial killer in 1930’s Ukraine, but it wasn’t the sort of novel that made me lay awake and dream of the storytelling possibilities.

So I’ve been going where the ‘inspiring’ stuff leads me. A lot of television, which, turns out, is really good. I saw some pretty great movies recently too. There was the one about the lady who dreamed of doing voice-overs for movie trailers. There was the one about this guy who was really an alien who came to destroy the earth, but fell in love with earth music and decided to form a one man band instead.

And yes, I honestly enjoyed that second movie. He would stand on stage and talk about himself, explain who he was and where he came from, while dressed in his battle suit, and people would laugh uproariously at him and then jam to his songs.

At one point, he deadpans to the crowd, “On my planet we don’t have buckets. So on my planet, this, “ he points to the bucket he’s wearing on his head, “is just a helmet.”

Then the crowd laughs some more, and he plays some excellent banjo music at the bar.

Anyway, I’ve been reading graphic novels as much as I can too. This one, Iron Fist, is the second collection I’ve read since its reboot several years ago. Or maybe it was just a ‘boot’ since I don’t recall much about the old comics. I did have several issues of Power Man AND Iron Fist, where the two went on these wacky adventures together. For a brief time it was one of my favorite comics as a kid. I seem to remember Iron Fist constantly having to correct Power Man on his misconceptions about physics (“How come I can’t catch up to this dude when I jumped off a building right after him? I’m heavier”) or economics (“Luke, we don’t follow the gold standard anymore.”)

Luke Cage kinda had the Worf problem from Star Trek. His first response to any situation was to try to punch it until the crisis was averted. But Danny was the wiser partner, and typically right about most things.

But it seems like there was an Iron Fist comic before Power Man came along. Not sure about that though. It’s just how I feel about it. And if there is anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that unless lives are on the line, how I ‘feel’ about something is accurate enough for me. And it is way more convenient that me actually looking stuff up. But if there was an Iron Fist comic way back in the day, then I don’t know if it was any good. I kind of doubt it. When I read those older books… um… anything before the mid 80’s, well, I don’t think many of them were that epic.

Of course, I could be wrong, but again. I’m going by my ‘feels’ on the topic.

Where was I?

Funny how I refuse to go back and reread what I’ve already written. I’m really dedicated to this stream-of-consciousness thing for this review.

Iron Fist, he’s this guy with amazing kung-fu. He also sucked the Chi from a dragon once (not as sexual as I make it sound) and can channel it into a single punch. It tends to be pretty badass.

This collection was pretty awesome. In it, he uses said kung-fu skills to be badass, and to fight for his other pals in his adopted magic city in the mountains of Himalaya (I have no idea if that’s where the city is, but again… feels right). Through this collection he beats ass… has his ass beat… and also philosophizes about kung-fuey things.

Also, there is a collection of comics about other super warriors of the kung-fu tradition added here. Including one set in the future on a colony world in orbit around alpha centauri where a little kid version of the Iron Fist (remember people, it’s a mantle, a title, so when Danny Rand dies, another will take his place- you would know this if you read the comics).

I’m reading it, loving it, and thinking the whole time, ‘why did they have to use a real star?’ All I could think of is that this is part of a trinary star system, would a planet in orbit around alpha centauri be stable enough to support human colonies? I mean, I could imagine a complicated orbit there. Also, I could look it up, but for the fifth time (or third, I don’t know)… feels.

Regardless, I loved it. That particular story, and the overall Iron Fist universe. Thumbs up from me.

But like the last collection. The art is a little uneven. Most of it is either fine, or good, but there is one or two comics in this collection that has some of the shittiest art I’ve ever seen in comic book form.

Still, I think this was great overall.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection started off strong, following up from the previous volume with the search for the mysterious Eighth City. This whole arc is really pretty good and occupies about half the matter of the book. It is a good conclusion to the story from the previous volume and ties together nicely. However, the second half of the book is somewhat patchier.

For a start, the artwork starts going all over the place again - which I had a problem with in the previous volume. For the most part, the change in style is not too jarring, as the subject matter tends more towards a side story set some time in the past (or in one case the future) and often enough does not actually involve Danny Rand himself. However, in a couple of places the artwork is frankly shockingly ugly - in particular in the final Caretakers story, which has some of the most dreadful artwork I have ever seen in a graphic novel. Its position as the final story sadly left a bad taste in my mouth.

Luckily for the most part, the art is a lot better than this final barrel-scraping offering, and for most of the better stories the art matches. It did seem that the poorer stories were often accompanied by the lower standard artwork, so perhaps these were issues where the editors took a holiday, or handed off oversight to someone else. While I really enjoyed the asides into the lives of the past Iron Fists in the previous volume, and the felt like a great counterpoint to the main story and added to it, here they felt generally irrelevant and distracting, and in the case of the future story 3099, somewhat stupid.

Yet some of the extra 'additional content' is really very good. In particular the Fat Cobra story is great, and the Dog Brother chapter is particularly poignant. These two stories are the hidden gems of this volume. I would probably have given the first half of the book a good four stars as being really enjoyable, but the latter half is so disappointing that it is more of a two star mish-mash. Thankfully the Immortal Weapons stories, in particular the two mentioned above, come through and help salvage the mess which we are left with. I was definitely left with the feeling that there had been too much material to put this story into a single volume with the earlier parts of the story we saw in the prior one, but the Eighth City arc was not enough to form a volume of its own really so we got bits pieces of some other lackluster stories to fill out the pages. Luckily there was some quality in there too.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, there must be a doctorate thesis-level of material in here about the Asia is portrayed in American comics. Honestly, I don't know what I feel about it. Like the last volume, the writing and art are terrific. Most of the stories are legitimately great, though the sections that are about previous Iron Fists or the other Immortal Weapons and NOT Danny Rand are much, much better than the stuff about him. Taken on its own, this is high-quality comic book writing, but it's also amazing that you can write an entire series mostly set in China and starring mostly Asian characters and have almost no references to actual Asian mythology or culture. Like they spend several issues in a Chinese Hell dimension, but it's kind of a cultural ... blank slate? And Kun'lun itself is as generically Asian as possible. This was written recently (the run began in 2006), so it's not as if the internet didn't exist and it was hard to find visual reference material. You get that excuse for comics written before the 90's, maybe the 80's, where you could just draw a forest and call it Tibet, but not now. So either they didn't do any research beyond a specific brand of kung fu movies or they actively decided to make it as generic as possible so as to not offend anybody. Different ages, cultures, and languages are conflated and the story doesn't end up being about anybody with a specific origin, with the exception of some stuff about previous Iron Fists from different generations (though the one about the Opium Wars is just straight-up wrong). The most-researched storyline is obviously the one about the previous Iron Fist, who is Western, and who lived in Hollywood in the 1920's, so that's when the story takes place. On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading all of this. I just don't know what to make of it.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the riveting conclusion to the new Immortal Iron Fist collection.

Here, we have collected the following:

Two decent stories about Orson Randal, one of which was significantly better than the first. I enjoyed the noir, almost Sin City-esque tone to the "Death Queen of Hollywood" story, but the tale of him and John Aman came up lacking for several reasons... not least of which was for its odd inclusion out of sequence with the rest of the stories. It would have served much better being read after issue 12 or 13.

The origin stories for the rest of the Immortal Weapons, which on the whole were pretty good. I would have preferred a more in-depth story attached to Dog Brother #1, but Fat Cobra and the Tiger's Beautiful Daughter were far better than they deserved to be. Even Bride of Nine Spiders had a pretty decent story, although it couldn't really be classed as an origin tale as much as a satisfying little horror comic. Ditto for Prince of Orphans, he remains pretty cloaked in mystery. These, however, were quite good.

The main thrust, of course, is the continuation of the previous volumes plot. Here we venture into the 8th city, learn about the fate of the Iron Fists, and the demise of the Rand corporation. Altogether, this story was satisfying and well rendered. Arguably it ended a bit too soon, but that's what future arcs are for.

My only complaint about it all was the small epilogue story "Caretakers" which, while a great story, had significantly sub-par art which was so bad as to be distracting. Oh well, at least the writing was consistently strong. Altogether, a very fun read.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars. So the main story here is 9 issues. I was definitely into it. Enjoyed the whole idea of a Mysterious hidden 8th city. Danny and the other immortal weapons have been looking for it and find out that it is real. Then they discover the history behind and decide to go in and do what needs to be done. I was actually really into this story, it was just the end the kind of felt empty to me. Not enough closure to satisfy me. The end didn’t match the intensity of the journey to get there.

Then there were 2 issues that gave two different stories of older iron fists. One from 700 something A.D. and another from the year 3099. Both of these were just ok. Nothing extraordinary.

Next it’s the 5 one shots. Each telling some back story of each of the five immortal weapons. These also were just ok, run of the mill except two of them. Dog brother 1 and Tigers beautiful daughter. Really enjoyed those. Then to wrap it up, one last story of one of Danny’s students. This one kind of sad but I did like the energy, gut and determination of this student.

Overall, a decent collection.

[Torono · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always thought iron fist was cool. He's an underrated character and it's unfortunate the show represented him horribly. This comic series is decent though, I do think it could've had less of... I don't wanna say side stories but I think that the story is kind of bad, and it had too much happening. But it's still fun.

[Lissibith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great volume, following the further adventures of Danny Rand, AKA Iron Fist, one of the Immortal Weapons.

This volume starts out with someone gunning for Iron Fist with a supernatural zeal, and willing to go at it from any angle he can get. There's a reason almost no Iron Fists have lived past a certain point in their life, and this being? Is largely why. Then Iron Fist learns more about the mythical Eighth City and with the other Immortal Weapons, heads there - only to find way more waiting there than he expected.

We also get to see a little more of the other Immortal weapons here, as each of them gets at least part of an issue dedicated to themselves - sometimes on their backstories (as with Fat Cobra, Dog Brother #1 or the Tiger's Beautiful Daughter), and sometimes about the extent of their powers (as with the Prince of Orphans and the Bride of Nine Spiders). If I'm being flat out honest about it, I'd love to see more of the adventures of these six galavanting across the globe, righting wrongs and triumphing over evil. :)

The book ends with a two-parter back in New York where Iron Fist has to deal with a decision he made years before, as seen through the eyes of one of his young pupils at his martial arts school. While most of the book's art is great, the art duties on this last story are split and the latter half just didn't do it for me. But I liked the story itself, and it has a character in it I'd love to see crop up in the future of Marvel.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was worried about a dropoff from Brubaker. There probably was, but this was still good.

It seems like a lot of Iron Fist stories are about the secrets behind the myths of K'un-Lun. This makes sense once or twice. But you figure at some point, one of the people who has lived there forever (because they're all immortal) would just put together a comprehensive history and tell the Iron Fist so everyone stops being surprised.

The other immortal weapons sure are interesting. It would be cool if one of them had a series at some point.

[Scott Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hit and miss here. The first story-line dealing with all Iron Fists dying at age thirty-three was all right. The second story line dealing with the "eighth city" was pretty darned good, actually. The rest of the book was weak. The long series of short stories about the various immortal weapons just weren't up to snuff. They were varying degrees of creative, but I didn't pick up the book to read about them.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a fun and exciting first collection, introducing additional Immortal Weapons, giving history to the fictional city of K'un L'un, and revealing every Iron Fist died or disappeared at the age of 33 (the age Danny Rand just turned) and there was a mysterious eighth mystical city...the Iron Fist title got a completely new creative team to handle the rest of the tale. It goes about as well as can be expected. While this volume wasn't bad, it also wasn't as good as the first one.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. The story wasn't that great. The art went back and forth from good to terrible. Overall the collection was good. Vol. 2 just wasn't that good. The best story was Dog Brother's back story.

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a guy punches a train to death, there's very little to do from then on, you would think... But Danny always finds things to punch!

And I'm a sucker for people jumping out of windows, or catching people who were thrown out of windows. I'm always like "Aww..."

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I really enjoyed the first volume of this series, this follow-up left me a little cold. If you are sold on the mythology that they have built and love the characters, this is a great book to read. But if, like me, you really only love the classic 70s stuff, then this may not be your thing.

[WinterStars · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first collection, but that's because the first collection was written by Brubaker & Matt Fraction.

[Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Half Rating - 3.5/5
Second Half Rating - 2.5/5

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars for the main run, 3 1/2 stars for the supplemental stuff.

[Joey Outten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Immortal Weapons. This collection isn't as well written as Fraction/Brubaker run but I still really enjoyed it.

Tiger's Beautiful Daughter 4 LIFE.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I didn't want to take back to the library because it was so good. I read and reread it. I loved how everything came together. We have the Iron Fist in a story of his own but the reason I wanted to keep it was because there were behind the scenes stories of the other Iron Fists, that were interesting, if not better, than the actual story. There were also stories about the Immortal Weapons, which takes me back to the first season of Iron Fist on Netflix. And that's when I realized the only one that grasped the knowledge of the Iron Fist was RZA. His episode, Immortal Emerges from Cave was a true representation of the graphic novel. Now, I appreciate RZA even more and I liked where he went with this. If only he could take the reigns for more episodes, I don't think it would have been cancelled. But that's just my opinion.

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second collection finalizes the story-line from vol 1. After defeating the attackers from both inside and outside of Ku'n-Lun Iron Fist leads the Heavenly Cities Immortal Weapons to Earth to find out about the mysterious 8th City.

Book is full of fights, exotic locales and mystical kung fu powers and remains loyal to its pulp novel roots. For all means and purposes this is good ol' action adventure that does not try much to flesh out the characters but to take reader for one truly interesting ride.

Art is more diverse than in first volume and (for me) it oscillates between awesome work (Danny Rand's return to K'un-Lun) to extremely simplistic (Lei Kung showing the secret army to Danny). Overall not bad but for me art in first volume was much better.

If you like pulp fiction novels like Mask, Phantom and likes give this one a chance. I am sure you will enjoy it.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art, with the exception of 1-2 issues at the end, was subpar to questionable (why does the Thunderer look like the Hulk?).
The plot, with the exception of 1-2 issues at the beginning, was subpar to questionable. I really didn't enjoy any of the origin stories of the Immortal Weapons (but I'm not a grrrlpower fanatic). I didn't like the retconning of Danny's history... or the use of the 8th city (no one knows anything about it... except everyone knows about it?). I lost interest but slogged through, which is more than I can say for the Power Man and Iron Fist collections (the art made that unreadable). Hoping for better going forward. Or maybe Danny Rand only has one good story in him. (Tho I think "The Book of The Iron Fist" may have some promise)

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one better than the first, though it carries on the racism and sexism trend with obvious bandage attempts that are OK for last generation, but not so much this one, and it's still just Iron Fist, who is pretty 'meh' and a rich pseudo-Batman white guy. There are some decent fights in this issue, and a neat mystical dragon-egg / cycle of violence that makes little sense outside of the universe of Kung-Fu movies and Marvel nonsense, but is entertaining.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not a huge iron fist or kong fu fan (the extent of my knowledge stems from being a film buff and huge comic book reader) so Based on enjoyment and alone, Vol 4-5 varies in quality but is fairly mediocre really. 2.5 stars.

[Rocco Ricca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never bad, but coming after the first half of the series (which is probably one of the best superhero comics to come out of the 2000s) this book feels wholly uninspired. A downgrade on just about every aspect from the story, the characters, and the art.

[Viviana · Rating 4 out of 5]

review soon