Evidence That Casanova Wasn't A Once Off.

Oh, the costume redesign wasn't too shabby either.

A lot of people (a lot of people) have gotten to the point with Matt Fraction where they now believe he's past his prime in terms of talent, and thus ought to be ousted from his role writing critical moments in the Marvel Universe. This for the man that only a couple years back won an Eisner Award for his work on Iron Man. And before that, produced one of the most creative comics (Casanova) I'd read for a while. In between those events, he teamed up (initially) with Ed Brubaker, and David Aja to produce an almighty home run with The Immortal Iron Fist (which ,PS, almost got an Eisner too). This week I'll look at the whole run, collected into a delicious Omnibus. This Omnibus is actually largely available in stores still, so while could hit up Amazon or similar, you might want to consider a wander to some of your Local Comics Stores.

Can you recall many instance of Hydra winning a fight? I can't

The book runs from the end of Danny Rand pretending to be Daredevil (just prior to Civil War), through the intriguing "recent" history of The Iron Fist, some vey much less "recent" history, and a bid by Hydra to destroy the city of K'un Lun during the tournament to determine the precedence of the Seven Cities of Heaven.
Interestingly the story uses Orson Randall as the catalyst to kick off the series of events told in this collection, and frequently returns to Orson Randall as a cypher used to explain Danny's heritage and powers developed by other Iron Fists. It would be fair to say that Orson Randall is as important to the book as Danny Rand. Of course you get appearances form Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, the usual K'un Lun crowd, as well as the other Immortal Weapons. What you don't get is a whole lot of crossovers into other books and events, which would really have ruined the story, or any fights with Constrictor or Sabertooth (which made up the bulk of my recollections of Iron Fist prior to this run).

And it's not just the writing that's wonderful. David Aja's contributions are perfectly suited to the story, and he got rid of that ridiculous collar. Which is a big enough achievement in itself.

If it's not clear yet, I loved the crap out of this book, from reading single issues, to trades, to this omnibus. I can't really fault anything in it, and that's a pretty big deal. The other thing to keep in mind is that Iron Fist isn't an A-list character. He's a fan favourite maybe, but not A-list. And yet, Marvel stuck by this series and let the story be finished. Despite that sales weren't anywhere near equal with the level of critical acclaim.

I recommend this book to anyone that likes martial arts moves. Anyone that likes Iron Fist. Anyone that likes to trash Matt Fraction. Anyone that likes a good comic. Anyone that likes to be entertained, in fact. And while this may be just my opinion, I'm more than happy with that.

Up next, strangeness.

Not quite what the blurb advertised.