Danny Rand

Iron Fist (Daniel Thomas "Danny" Rand) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Iron Fist first appeared in ''Marvel Premiere'' #15 (May 1974). The character is a practitioner of martial arts and the wielder of a mystical force known as the Iron Fist, which allows him to summon and focus his '' chi''. This ability is obtained from the city of K'un-Lun which appears on earth every 10 years.

He starred in his own solo series in the 1970s, and shared the title ''Power Man and Iron Fist'' for several years with Luke Cage, partnering with Cage to form the superhero team Heroes for Hire. Rand frequently appeared with the Daughters of the Dragon duo Misty Knight and Colleen Wing – with Rand often seen in a relationship with the former, marking the first interracial romance in Marvel Comics history. The character has starred in numerous solo titles since, including ''The Immortal Iron Fist'', which expanded on his origin story and the history of the Iron Fist.

Iron Fist has been adapted to appear in several animated television series and video games. Finn Jones portrayed the character in the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Netflix television series '' Iron Fist'' (2016–2018), '' The Defenders'' (2017), and the second season of ''Luke Cage''.

Development

Iron Fist, along with the previously created Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, came from Marvel Comics during an American pop culture trend in the early to mid-1970s of martial arts heroes. Writer/co-creator Roy Thomas wrote in a text piece in ''Marvel Premiere'' #15 that Iron Fist's origin and creation owe much to the Bill Everett character, John Aman, the Amazing-Man, created in 1939. Thomas later wrote that he and artist/co-creator Gil Kane had

The film mentioned by Thomas is ''King Boxer'', aka ''Five Fingers of Death'' (1972), which presents the ''Iron Fist'' technique. Thomas further discussed the character's creation stating, "When Stan Lee gave me a verbal approval to star him in a series, I contacted Gil Kane and we worked out the costume and story. I had Gil give him a dragon brand on his chest, inspired by the one branded into Bullseye, a great western character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. At Gil's urging, we took some story elements from Bill Everett's 1939 hero Amazing-Man, which itself had borrowed heavily from James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon and the first movie made from it, which introduced "Shangri-La" to the world."

Publication history

Debuting in a story written by Thomas and pencilled by Kane in the umbrella title ''Marvel Premiere'' #15–25 (May 1974 – October 1975), he was then written successively by Len Wein, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella, and Chris Claremont, with art by successive pencillers Larry Hama, Arvell Jones, Pat Broderick, and, in some of his earliest professional work, John Byrne. As the ''Marvel Premiere'' issues had successfully established a considerable readership for the character, following this run, Iron Fist was immediately spun off into the solo series ''Iron Fist'', which ran 15 issues (November 1975 – September 1977). The solo series was written by Claremont and pencilled by Byrne. A subplot involving the Steel Serpent left unresolved by the cancellation of the series was wrapped up in issues #63–64 of ''Marvel Team-Up'', the latter of which featured Rand kiss Misty Knight, marking the first interracial kiss and first long-term interracial couple in Marvel Comics history, as well as the first couple with an age difference in which the woman was older than her man.

To rescue the character from cancellation, Marvel paired Iron Fist with another character who was no longer popular enough to sustain his own series, Luke Cage. The two characters were partnered in a three-part story in Cage's series ''Power Man'' #48–50. The title of the series changed to ''Power Man and Iron Fist'' with issue #50 (April 1978), although the indicia did not reflect this change until issue #67. Iron Fist co-starred in the series until the final issue (#125, September 1986). Writer Jim Owsley (subsequently known as Christopher Priest) later commented, "Fist's death was senseless and shocking and completely unforeseen. It took the readers' heads clean off. And, to this day, people are mad about it. Forgetting, it seems, that (a) you were supposed to be mad, that death is senseless and Fist's death was supposed to be senseless, or that (b) this is a comic book."

Iron Fist was revived half a decade later in ''Namor, the Sub-Mariner'' #21–25 (December 1991 – April 1992), a story which revealed that the character killed in ''Power Man and Iron Fist'' #125 was a doppelgänger. The story was both written and drawn by Byrne, who found the manner of Iron Fist's death objectionable and later commented, "In one of those amazing examples of Marvel serendipity, it turned out to be fairly easy not only to resurrect Danny, but to make it seem like that was the plan all along." Iron Fist then became a frequently starring character in the anthology series '' Marvel Comics Presents'', featuring in three multi-part story arcs and four one-shot stories in 1992 and 1993. Two solo miniseries followed: ''Iron Fist'' (vol. 2) #1–2 (September–October 1996), by writer James Felder and penciller Robert Brown; and ''Iron Fist'' (vol. 3) #1–3 (July–September 1998), by writer Dan Jurgens and penciller Jackson Guice. Also around this time, he was among the ensemble of the group series ''Heroes for Hire'' which ran 19 issues (July 1997 – January 1999).

Following a four-issue miniseries by writer Jay Faerber and penciller Jamal Igle

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