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Immortal Weapons #1-5

Immortal Weapons

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Out of the pages of Immortal Iron Fist! A handful of Marvel's hottest writers plus an all-star roster of artists bring you Immortal Weapons! One volume packed with six thrilling tales of Kung Fu action.

Follow Fat Cobra as he uncovers the true story behind his decades of adventure. See the action unfold as Bride of Nine Spiders is forced to confront her past after a disturbing relic surfaces at an exclusive auction house. Learn the mystery of Dog Brother #1 and how he may be involved in the string of disappearing orphans in Under-City. Then it's Tiger's Beautiful Daughter - her beauty is legendary; her kung fu, unmatched. Now learn how one of the most gorgeous women in the world also became one of its deadliest fighters! Plus: so many questions surround the Prince of Orphans. what is his mission on Earth? What is the nature of his incredible power? And is there anyone who can defeat his kung fu?

When Iron Fist joins Aman on a life-or-death mission to fight monsters and banish ghosts, Danny may learn the answers to these questions...if he survives!

Collecting: Immortal Weapons 1-5

184 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2010

2 people are currently reading
129 people want to read

About the author

Jason Aaron

2,351 books1,680 followers
Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.

Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.

In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.

Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.

In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.

In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.

After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
Profile Image for El Tapiz de Fionavar.
126 reviews
January 29, 2022
Este último tomo me ha gustado. Aquí se reúnen distintos guionistas e ilustradores y  cada uno/a toma un Arma Inmortal e inventa una historia. 

De este modo nos encontramos con la muy trágica biografía del gran Cobra Gorda, con la aterradora y lovecraftiana trama de la Novia de las Nueve Arañas, el tristísimo guión de Hermano Perro N°1, el amazónico relato de la Hermosa hija del Tigre y la misteriosa aventura del Príncipe de los Huérfanos y Daniel Rand.

Algunos guiones están mucho mejor que otros, pero todos nos dejan entrever un velo más de la vida de estos personajes.  Las ilustraciones son muy buenas en su mayoría y agregan un plus a esta última compilación.

Luego de leer todos los arcos de El inmortal Puño de Hierro puedo decir que me quedo con los capítulos escritos por Fraction y Brubaker, tienen la medida justa de acción, mística y kung fu, la historia es coherente y atrapante y nos presentan por primera vez a las Armas Inmortales. Hubiese sido genial que el torneo entre ellas tuviese más protagonismo, pero no lo consideraron en el desarrollo del cómic.

Desde el tomo 3 en adelante la trama se enrarece y quedan algunos cabos sueltos. La vida de Dany Rand luego de su vuelta de la octava ciudad me aburrió bastante, quería leer sobre el luchador, el campeón de Kun Lun y me dieron la historia de un chico de Nueva York y su novia. Ahí desapareció todo el misterio. Meh!.

Volviendo a este tomo compilatorio 6, que me gustó más que los dos anteriores, puedo decir que recuperar a las Armas Inmortales fue lo que le dio sus cuatro corazones de Shao-Lu 🐉🐉🐉🐉
Profile Image for Quentin Wallace.
Author 34 books178 followers
July 4, 2022
A great end to the series. A one shot story starring each of the Immortal Weapons. I liked the Bride of Nine Spiders story best, followed by Fat Cobra, but they are all top notch.

Great volume, I enjoyed every story.
3 reviews3 followers
April 1, 2011
A mix of good and bad in the stories collected here. Fat Cobra and Prince of Orphans were both just ok, Bride of 9 spiders wasn't good, but Dog Brother and Tiger's Daughter were both fun reads. The Iron Fist story collected at the end of each was not particularly good either.
Profile Image for Derek Bailey.
Author 11 books28 followers
January 25, 2016
THE IMMORTAL WEAPONS collects issues 1-6 of the comic series of the same name. It springs from the main series, entitled THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST and if you have not read that, then this graphic novel could certainly still entertain you, but will probably seem a bit random since it largely builds upon some of the characters in Iron Fist's series and one of the issues actually takes place after the events of THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST VOLUME 5. I have previously read and reviewed the core volumes of this series so I will be writing the review for this spin-off work with a pre-established bias toward these characters as well as the story space itself.

Effectively THE IMMORTAL WEAPONS is a compilation that features each of the six Immortal Weapons: Fat Cobra, Bride of Nine Spiders, Dog Brother, Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, and The Prince of Orphans. Many of these characters were massively underdeveloped prior to this piece due to their being side characters in the tale of Danny Rand, The Immortal Iron Fist. Now each gets their own moment in the spotlight which makes this graphic work kind of like a collection of short stories. Each is self-contained though the issue featuring Iron Fist does take place as a sort of continuation of the story told in his main series. The Weapons are also fairly isolated for the most part with some crossover in one of the issues.

CHARACTERS
As I mentioned before, each of The Immortal Weapons gets one issue that features them. That said, some of these issues actually don't really feature the character that much at all. One example of this is with The Bride of Nine Spiders whose issue sort of plays out like a horror story. The Bride is quite aloof and really only shows up near the very end. In her case, it was a little disappointing that I never really get to know all that much more about the character than I did before. In her stead though are a number of other characters whom the story gives more attention to and while they may not be super heroes, they were still pretty great. With characters like Fat Cobra and Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, there is more of an origin story treatment going on which makes for a far more personal angle. At the end of those issues, I definitely felt like I knew the characters far more than I did previously and while the origin story formula is a bit on the safe side, both issues were done in a compelling enough manner to feel worthwhile. Then there is Dog Brother who I dare not say too much about because his story has a few very interesting and rather morbid twists. Danny and John Aman, The Prince of Orphans, definitely have the strongest appearances since their issues really just tell a story. Both still paint vivid depictions of who these characters are and what they are about, but they do so by simply showing the characters in action rather than relying on the trusty origin story formula to convey the sketch.

WORLD/SETTING
The nice thing about a collection like this is that it brings readers to a nice variety of locations rather than relying on a set of backdrops. From the seedy city streets in Dog Brother's issue to the creepy mansion in Bride's story, and the exotic jungle in The Prince of Orphans's issue, there is just a lot of visual variety to be enjoyed here - perhaps more so than what readers usually get to enjoy in a super hero story-line. In most cases, the setting is just a place for the action to occur, but in some instances it also gives a bit more insight into who the character is. The harsh streets of Dog Brother's tale and the lush kingdom that Tiger's Beautiful Daughter calls home are both locations that added a lot to how I viewed those characters. They're teaming with life and character and were really quite unlike anything I'd seen before. It was also quite a treat to see the section of New York that Danny lives in again since that's where we left him last. Having just one more issue that brought me back there really felt like something special even if the city is by far the most dank and dingy location featured in the entire volume. The worlds that these heroes inhabit are as hostile as they are compelling and the full gravity of each is fully explored throughout the course of the story

PLOT/TONE
There's some nice variety in the types of narratives that are told within the pages of this book. There are origin stories, tales of adventure, a little survival horror, and a lot of stories that feature personal strife. Most of these issues probably won't make you feel very deeply since there is so little real estate in which you can really get attached to the characters. The two main exceptions to this are with Danny Rand, who most readers will already know and love by now, and Fat Cobra. In Danny's case what moved me the most was the intimacy of the conflict taking place. There's no grand conflict or global catastrophe, it's just a story about The Iron Fist trying to make a difference in one little girl's life and realizing just how hard it can be to face these smaller-scope challenges. Equally somber is Fat Cobra's backstory which is told in retrospect by a side character who has collected information about Cobra's life since he himself does not remember a whole lot of it. Much to Fat Cobra's dismay, the story in reality is far from how he likes to "remember" it and it's rather heartbreaking to discover the memories that this hero has repressed. Really all of these stories are quite sad in their own way which definitely fits with who they are in THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST series. It was perhaps a bit naive of me to think that ANY of these stories would be at all happy, but that's not to say that they weren't also uplifting in some ways.

ARTWORK
The art in this collection is a mix of breathtakingly beautiful to downright hideous. Each issue is illustrated by different artists which was nice in that it gave each issue a distinct look. It was also neat that the different artists seemed to have mostly come from the original series so those who read through THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST will likely recognize at least a couple of the styles. But like I said, not all of it is really all that good. There are a lot of artists who make use of really flat looking rendering techniques that just don't feel very inspired. I think that in a lot of ways the artwork very much lets down the stories being told and I really don't understand why a company like Marvel couldn't pull together higher quality artistry. The only real standouts here come from the artists who worked on the issues featuring Fat Cobra and The Prince of Orphans. These were definitely done using painstaking shading practices and the panels in these issues pop off the pages in a truly epic way that heroes like this deserve. Basically I think most will find this area of the work to be either a hit or a miss in a rather extreme way.

CONCLUSION
If you read THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST from start to finish, then I would highly recommend that you pick this one up. It's not essential reading so far as continuity is concerned, but it is a fantastic chance to spend some extra time with these characters and learning more about them in the process. The artwork will either thrill or disappoint depending on the issue in question, but almost all of the stories were entertaining in their own right and the sheer variety of every aspect of this volume is definitely something that sets it apart from other graphic works.
Profile Image for David Ross.
439 reviews17 followers
September 25, 2022
If you read THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST from start to finish, then I would highly recommend that you pick this one up. It's not essential reading so far as continuity is concerned, but it is a fantastic chance to spend some extra time with these characters and learning more about them in the process. The artwork will either thrill or disappoint depending on the issue in question, but almost all of the stories were entertaining in their own right and the sheer variety of every aspect of this volume is definitely something that sets it apart from other graphic works.
Profile Image for James DeSantis.
Author 17 books1,203 followers
May 20, 2023
5 Individual stories all telling the past and sometimes current times of the Immortal weapons who fought against and alongside the Iron Fist.

Fat Cobra and Dog Brother 1 are easily the best stories here. Dark, twisted, fucked up, yet they make you understand their characters more. Beautiful daughter twist is easy to see coming but still great. Spider and Orphan have decent stories but not great.

Overall fun collection, 3.5, I'll bump it to a 4 on here.
Profile Image for Sarah.
807 reviews13 followers
May 11, 2021
This was so very good! What a tasty surprise. This is a an anthology over the immortal weapon warriors, the immortal iron fist is one.
Profile Image for Sophie.
2,639 reviews116 followers
September 5, 2010
It's fair to say that I've made several big discoveries when it comes to comics this year. "The Immortal Iron Fist" is my big small discovery, as strange as it sounds, because I still don't quite know why I love it as much as I do. Αs if the fact that it's very well written isn't enough.

This volume collects five stories about the five Immortal Weapons. I picked it up mostly for completion's sake, but I was glad to discover these were genuinely great stories. I'm hard-pressed to pick a favorite, although overall I liked the last three stories a bit more than the first two.

It's also difficult to say who I'd recommend this to, because in all honesty if someone had recommended this to me I'd have said, "Well, thanks, I don't think *that's* my cup of tea since I've never been that much into kung-fu and whatever." And I'd have missed a great, great comic with a main character who I love to a degree that's bordering on ridiculous without quite knowing why (kind of like the series itself, I suppose) and a fascinating cast of "minor" characters, very well-crafted mythology and the best fight-scenes I may have ever read. The idea to "subtitle" the moves with captions was a stroke of genius that actually makes them look and sound more like poetry than anything else, which is very fitting.
Profile Image for Neil.
274 reviews9 followers
January 26, 2011
Before it was cancelled, the latest Iron Fist series did a great job of melding modern, gritty, street level super heroics with classic pulp era adventure fiction, all meshed into epic kung-fu theater. While it ended too soon, the final collection of stories was an excellent mini-series focusing on the various "Immortal Weapons" of the different, fabled, mystical cities. Originally introduced as foes and compatriots of our nominal hero, Iron Fist, each issue in this collection provides in depth looks at each, hero, heroine and anti-hero. Fat Cobra's is a well written juxtaposition of humor and tragedy. Dog Brother, probably the best story in the collection, is a telling look and poverty and violence. Bride of the Nine Spiders, wonderful pulp horror. Prince of Orphans, classic, mystic martial arts. Only Tiger's Beautiful Daughter (the best name of the bunch) is a relatively weak story.

All in all, this is a fun collection that utilizes the best of traditional action fiction tropes to make for excellent adventure fiction.
Profile Image for Tays.
342 reviews32 followers
June 17, 2015
It's a collection of both great and bad stories. Fat Cobra, Tiger's Daughter, and Dog Brother comes off as one of the good one shots I've read. Prince of Orphans and Bride of Spiders we some sort of a long-shot for me, I dint really like how it was written that much. Anyway, the point is, this is a mere one shot stories using each and every Immortal Weapon from The Immortal Iron Fist series. Some are origin stories and some are just stories utilizing the each character. It was more or less okay - it's still a good read though.
Profile Image for Marco.
634 reviews1 follower
May 19, 2016
More like 3 1/2 stars. None of the stories are terrible (the art in the 2nd half of the Iron Fist story is, though!) but they are too little to do these potentially interesting characters justice. I would have liked to see more of the other cities and how they interrelate with K'un-L'un and each other.
Profile Image for louisa.
332 reviews11 followers
Read
August 22, 2011
By its very nature a mixed bag. Dog Brother's story is a little higher brow than the rest but still excellent. Fat Cobra's is trashy good times!
Profile Image for Chummy.
14 reviews
May 9, 2013
Always love Iron Fist, cant get enough of him sad that the titke got canned too early. Best story is The Dog Brother and trailing behind is Fat Cobra while the weakest is Tigers Daughter
Profile Image for Fugo Feedback.
5,105 reviews173 followers
April 23, 2016
Muy buen final/prólogo para una serie que supo explotar más que bien el lado pedomístico/marcial de Marvel. Todavía me falta como media serie, así que a llenar huecos ni bien pueda.
43 reviews
March 30, 2017
A really good anthology of lots of characters I didn't really know much about before. I'm disappointed that there's no full series using all these characters together outside of Iron Fist, because my favourite stories in here starred Bride of Nine Spiders and Dog Brother but I guess that means I'll just have to read some Iron Fist.
Profile Image for Ragnarök.
99 reviews64 followers
March 30, 2017
LOAMOLOAMOLOAMO <3 <3 <3 Es mi cómic favorito de esta colección, y posiblemente de todo Puño de Hierro. Aquí se nos presentan a las Armas Inmortales, contándonos historias suyas.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews

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