Again apologies for the somewhat long hiatus on my blog. I was on vacation for two weeks in Hawaii and the mainland United States and now am back in Hong Kong, spending some time catching up on work and practice as well as experiencing a very strange form of jet-lag. Although I do manage to sleep the requisite 8 hours or more, waking up about 6.30am, I am still walking through the day as though in a stupor and don't feel very grounded in my body. Anyhow I hope this doesn't last too long.
One of the things I wanted to post about was that I came across one of my favorite comic book characters from my youth in recent weeks and it was quite fun to go onto Wikipedia to get acquainted with him again and see what had happened in the interim. I read a lot of American comics in my youth but after the 90s mainly read manga and local Chinese comics as life and family intruded.
The protagonist, Daniel Rand was born in New York City, the son of American businessman Wendell Rand, a wealthy entrepreneur who discovered the mystical city of K'un-L'un as a young boy. During his time in K'un L'un, Wendell saved the life of the city's ruler, Lord Tuan, and was adopted as Tuan's son. However, Wendell eventually left K'un L'un and became a wealthy entrepreneur in the United States. He married socialite Heather Duncan and had a child, Daniel. When Daniel was nine, Wendell organized an expedition to again seek out K'un L'un, taking his wife Heather, his business partner Harold Meachum, and Daniel. During the journey up the mountain, Daniel slipped off the path, his tie-rope taking his mother and father with him. Meachum, who also loved Heather, forced Wendell to plunge to his death but offered to rescue Heather and Daniel. She rejected his help, preferring to journey without him or die.
As explained in Marvel Premiere #15, Heather and Daniel come across a makeshift bridge that appears out of nowhere and are attacked by a pack of wolves. Heather throws herself on the wolves to save Daniel and is killed even as archers from K'un L'un attempt to save her. The archers take the grieving Daniel to see Yü-Ti, the hooded ruler of K'un L'un. When Daniel expresses his desire for vengeance, Yü-Ti apprentices him to Lei Kung, the Thunderer, who teaches him the martial arts.
Daniel proves to be the most gifted of Lei Kung's students. Rand conditions his fists by plunging them into buckets of sand, gravel, and rock to toughen them. At 19, Daniel is given the chance to attain the power of the Iron Fist by fighting and defeating the dragon known as Shou-Lao the Undying, which guarded the molten heart that had been torn from its body. During the battle, Daniel throws himself against the scar of Shou-Lao, which burns a dragon tattoo into his chest. Having killed Shou-Lao, he enters its cave and plunges his fists into a brazier containing the creature's molten heart, emerging with the power of the Iron Fist. It is later revealed that there have been many Iron Fists before Daniel, making him the modern member of a long lineage of Iron Fists.
What is interesting is that there are some aspects which accord with our standard martial arts training (such as the iron palm training), and Kun Lun is actually a real range of mountains in China, which have ties with martial arts. There are also parallels with some of the Shaolin movies from Shaw studios from the 70s where the monks brand with a dragon motif when they pass the tests for mastership and are able to go down from Shaolin mountain. Also what is interesting is that Iron fist is not a superhero as such but all his abilities derive from his skills and Chi training.
Iron Fist would partner with Power Man - a black superhero and crime fighter and would work together with the Daughters of the Dragon who were Misty Knight, a jive talking ex-cop with a cybernetic arm, and her master of samurai swords partner Coleen Wing, who happened to be Chinese not Japanese. It was enough to make the head spin. But at the same time it was glorious fun
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