Now I wasn't too familiar with Iron Fist prior to this story. All I knew was that he wore funny green pajamas and had a blatantly 90sified dragon tattoo on his chest. Overall, not too interested...On a whim, however, I picked up this classy Hardcover and was pleasantly surprised. Not only are the stories of Danny Rand and his legacy 'Iron Fist' power intriguing and steeped in martial arts, eastern mystery, and shadowy streetcorners, but they are all cleverly written by Brubaker and Fraction and wonderfully illustrated by Aja. A far underappreciated comic like this deserves your time. Hands down.

I've never been a fan of the original Heroes for Hire until Bendis reinvigorated Luke Cage in New Avengers. Now Brubaker has done the same for Iron Fist and made him a New Avenger as well.

This book explains where the Iron Fist powers originated, and hints at much greater possibilities than "fist as of iron" abilities. Be prepared for flashbacks, unexplained characters, and a cliffhanger ending as this sets the stage for issues to come. If you want to see Kung Fu in Film Noir style, come and get it!

As much as I read Marvel comics, I never really had any prolonged exposure to Iron Fist (Danny Rand) before this title. I knew he was one half of the "Power Man and Iron Fist" team back in the seventies, but since that was a little before my time, most of my experience with this character came from Wikipedia. As a result, I really didn't know what to expect from this new comic.

Well, I can easily say it's definitely in my top five being put out right now. As the reviewer before me said, it does spend a lot of time setting the plot up, but I don't think it's for the worse, since I personally appreciated the time to get what was going on. You get to see Danny interact with his main supporting characters like Luke Cage (who thankfully has been brought to the forefront of books like New Avengers), but the "Immortal" aspect of the title is also played up, with short glimpses into the lives of the other people to bear the mantle of Iron Fist. One of these other people plays a major role in the arc collected, so the fact that while the continuity is clearly important (the closeness of Danny and Luke, his former relationship with Misty Knight), it isn't necessary to know all of it in order to follow what goes on. Honestly, I originally read it because Ed Brubaker's name was on the cover, and he could rewrite the telephone book and find some way to make it awesome. I am glad to say his combined efforts with Matt Fraction (who has been a great job on The Order) make this an excellent read.

That good writing is coupled with the more than excellent art of David Aja and Matt Hollingsworth is an even better deal. Sometimes it's annoying when good writing is somewhat dragged down by mediocre or worse art (after all, that's what I first notice in a comic book), but their talent is a perfect match. I don't know how to say this well, but there is a dank atmosphere created by the use of colors in the first few issues, one that makes the story more "real," and then the use of different artists for different time periods takes us, the audience, out of that successfully, suggesting a different world entirely.

This review has probably gone on too long anyway, so to be concise: This is a well-written book that made me, someone that didn't care for Iron Fist at first, a big fan of Danny Rand.