Iron Fist

well with reviews like those..

There's no way it can be worse than Luke Cage and JJ

By Apollo Go To PostThere's no way it can be worse than Luke Cage and JJ

There is like an infinite number of ways it could be worse than those.

By Apollo Go To PostThere's no way it can be worse than Luke Cage and JJ

Luke Cage started off decent, and as much as it was bad there was quite a bit to like about it imo.

JJ Killgrave was the star, think it would have really struggled without him.

Where as it seems Iron Fist has very little to nothing going for it from impressions.

Both Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were saved by the incredible work done by Ali and Tennant. Everything else about those shows was downright terrible, especially the acting in Luke Cage by anyone not named Ali.

Still haven't finished Jessica Jones--started strong and started to become really weird so I stopped

Haven't started Luke Cage. Need to finish Daredevil s2. Loved S1.

Jessica Jones made me really uncomfortable and I couldn't enjoy it anymore. I have a thing where I empathize with fictional characters too much and what she was being subjected to from Killgrave would mess with my head and/or heart too much so I stopped watching.

The neighbor plot in Jessica Jones is WOAT TV.

When she has him basically caught and doesn't kill him is when I was like aite yea this show is jumping the shark now.

Jessica Jones went on for about 4 episodes too long, but I thought it was strong overall. Luke Cage I really enjoyed up until Diamondback. He's so much hammier than Ali, and his action scenes just don't sell him well at all. And the less said about the costume, the better. But I did like Colter as Cage in general. He comes across as more nuanced and approachable than the comic character does, even in his modern less stereotypical incarnation.

I had no problem with Daredevil season 2, but I've always loved the character and the stories that season was based on, so I brought some serious nostalgia in with me.

I love kung fu in general, so I may end up finding a way to enjoy this series. But the only time I really liked Iron Fist was an old Heroes 4 Hire run. And I guess Dark Reign era New Avengers, but pretty much everyone was good in that. Everyone always talks up Immortal Iron Fist but Matt Fraction books almost never work for me.

This shit fucking sucks. The reviews undersell it honestly

The show is boring.

I'm not going to say this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. I dunno, it does drag but after 3 episodes this still seems way better than Arrow (with almost the exact same setup) and people love that show. I kind of think the backlash against it is set against the relatively high quality of the other shows, rather than TV or kung fu movies in general. Because if this is a 37 on metacritic, any random network action show I've seen is like a 25.

I love how the bad dad is Geese Howard.

There's some bad stuff too though - the representation of how the mental health system works is fucked up.

Seems like Marvel really missed a chance to make Iron Fist Asian instead of the white savior role he was also.. I mean a rich American born Chinese (I understand that K'un L'un isn't China btw) kid who considers himself to be American and is out of touch with his Chinese background would have added a lot of depth to Iron Fist....

By blackace Go To PostSeems like Marvel really missed a chance to make Iron Fist Asian instead of the white savior role he was also.. I mean a rich American born Chinese (I understand that K'un L'un isn't China btw) kid who considers himself to be American and is out of touch with his Chinese background would have added a lot of depth to Iron Fist….

He's not a white savior in the comics tho. He's not even the best MA in his own comics. He's just the Iron Fist

By Apollo Go To PostHe's not a white savior in the comics tho. He's not even the best MA in his own comics. He's just the Iron Fist

I don't think that really makes it better...

The white savior trope isn't just about being the BEST but it is about appropriating something and basically saving the people you appropriated your skills from. Shogun / Last Samurai / Avatar..

While all in all, it isn't always a horrible story to read or watch it just seemed like they missed a big chance with Iron Fist..

By blackace Go To PostSeems like Marvel really missed a chance to make Iron Fist Asian instead of the white savior role he was also.. I mean a rich American born Chinese (I understand that K'un L'un isn't China btw) kid who considers himself to be American and is out of touch with his Chinese background would have added a lot of depth to Iron Fist….

That still wouldn't change the fact that the show was just plain boring though.

By domino Go To PostThat still wouldn't change the fact that the show was just plain boring though.

It would change the comic character tho... so yeah.

I agree with blackace.

If we made Iron Fist rightfully Asian instead of keeping it close to the comic, then at the very least we could be celebrating another W in the diversity column, even if it is bad.

I did not like DD S2 because it lacked a compelling Kingpin. Buncha anti-heroes.

Danny's not a white savior here. He's fails at virtually everything he tries to do for the length of the show.

His friend from K'un-Lun literally calls him "the worst Iron Fist ever" in one of the later episodes. That part of it is actually comic accurate.

By blackace Go To PostSeems like Marvel really missed a chance to make Iron Fist Asian instead of the white savior role he was also.. I mean a rich American born Chinese (I understand that K'un L'un isn't China btw) kid who considers himself to be American and is out of touch with his Chinese background would have added a lot of depth to Iron Fist….

I'm not sure that's this character though; I think a vehicle for exploring that kind of idea would be better served through someone else. He's presented here as a monk who's totally in touch with all of that, who's kind of weird but honest to a fault and able to draw on an inner strength framed by Buddhist wisdom to overcome trauma, which is his strength as a character rather than just as a set of superpowers. It's also premised on the idea that being in touch with that is what generates the physical manifestation of that power.

You could do a hero's journey type of story that deals with an American kid learning to get there, and I think there's a great story to be told there. But I think the rejection of Danny Rand as nothing more than a walking mighty whitey trope is kind of unfair - and I'm not talking about you here but addressing the broader reaction across the internet. There's a sense that this is just another in a long line of exploitative colonial pulp appropriations, one that was designed to freeze out Asian presence. But I tend to think much of that reaction is coming from people approaching the character without context.

Marvel definitely didn't create him out of a notion that an Asian hero would be unpalatable, and that kung fu tropes needed to be white-washed to be accepted. They'd already introduced Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu 2 years before Iron Fist debuted; his series went on to be more successful than any of Iron Fist's and lasted over a decade.


Seen against this background, Iron Fist serves to explore a number of other ideas. The first is the notion of the transportability of Eastern wisdom and physical praxis; the martial arts boom was happening as an undercurrent of the broader counter-culture which saw Western morality as having failed and led to WWII and the nuclear anxieties of the Cold War. Writers like Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki had gained great traction popularizing Eastern ideas as a philosophical curative for Western problems. At the same time, Bruce Lee had shattered ideas about manhood and race, and physical prowess. John Wayne-style fisticuffs looked like an antiquated joke next to him. Iron Fist was created as a vicarious conduit for a million kids who saw Enter the Dragon and said "I wanna be that guy."

But his series was cancelled relatively quickly. He only became successful when he was paired with Luke Cage; the character was exploring an emerging fluidity of cultural identity in cosmopolitan postwar America from the beginning, and continuing to use him as a way to bridge racial differences showed what the character was really good at in terms of archetypal and narrative function.


Which is where I come to think that the racism critique going around is unfair. Even if it looks like a collection of clumsy stereotypes based on exploitation film genres from the standpoint of 2017, it's difficult to understate just how super freaking progressive this character, his friendship with Luke and this type of story was in 1975. He existed as an optimistic pulp embodiment of the aims of the civil rights era. I can't think of an analogous character in comics; the closest was Green Lantern hanging out with radical leftist (and rich white guy) Green Arrow.

If the general argument against him is that he's taking up a slot that could have gone to an Asian character I don't object to that so much; he could have been introduced as a side character in Luke Cage and everything would have been fine. I can only say so much about the series as I'm only so far into it, maybe things get bad, but in general I think that rather than deleting Danny Rand, the MCU is better served by coming up with a good take on Shang Chi or his kind-of-more-interesting rival Shen Kuei.

Good post. I'll defer to you, and share among my friends who are gearing up to go in on this show in their graphic novel classes this week.

Thanks for the mighty whitey trope reminder. I had forgotten what it was called, and I'm about to start writing on Far Cry 3. I didn't see Last of the Mohicans as a reference (Hawkeye), but may have missed it.

Episode 4 has so much cringe. "I betrayed the code of bushido!" WHO WRITES THIS.

By Phoenix RISING Go To PostGood post. I'll defer to you, and share among my friends who are gearing up to go in on this show in their graphic novel classes this week.

Thanks for the mighty whitey trope reminder. I had forgotten what it was called, and I'm about to start writing on Far Cry 3. I didn't see Last of the Mohicans as a reference (Hawkeye), but may have missed it.

Hey, just keep in mind I'm talking about the comics character. I haven't finished the show yet, for all I know it gets racist AF.

By livefromkyoto Go To PostI'm not sure that's this character though; I think a vehicle for exploring that kind of idea would be better served through someone else. He's presented here as a monk who's totally in touch with all of that, who's kind of weird but honest to a fault and able to draw on an inner strength framed by Buddhist wisdom to overcome trauma, which is his strength as a character rather than just as a set of superpowers. It's also premised on the idea that being in touch with that is what generates the physical manifestation of that power.

You could do a hero's journey type of story that deals with an American kid learning to get there, and I think there's a great story to be told there. But I think the rejection of Danny Rand as nothing more than a walking mighty whitey trope is kind of unfair - and I'm not talking about you here but addressing the broader reaction across the internet. There's a sense that this is just another in a long line of exploitative colonial pulp appropriations, one that was designed to freeze out Asian presence. But I tend to think much of that reaction is coming from people approaching the character without context.

Marvel definitely didn't create him out of a notion that an Asian hero would be unpalatable, and that kung fu tropes needed to be white-washed to be accepted. They'd already introduced Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu 2 years before Iron Fist debuted; his series went on to be more successful than any of Iron Fist's and lasted over a decade.


Seen against this background, Iron Fist serves to explore a number of other ideas. The first is the notion of the transportability of Eastern wisdom and physical praxis; the martial arts boom was happening as an undercurrent of the broader counter-culture which saw Western morality as having failed and led to WWII and the nuclear anxieties of the Cold War. Writers like Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki had gained great traction popularizing Eastern ideas as a philosophical curative for Western problems. At the same time, Bruce Lee had shattered ideas about manhood and race, and physical prowess. John Wayne-style fisticuffs looked like an antiquated joke next to him. Iron Fist was created as a vicarious conduit for a million kids who saw Enter the Dragon and said "I wanna be that guy."

But his series was cancelled relatively quickly. He only became successful when he was paired with Luke Cage; the character was exploring an emerging fluidity of cultural identity in cosmopolitan postwar America from the beginning, and continuing to use him as a way to bridge racial differences showed what the character was really good at in terms of archetypal and narrative function.


Which is where I come to think that the racism critique going around is unfair. Even if it looks like a collection of clumsy stereotypes based on exploitation film genres from the standpoint of 2017, it's difficult to understate just how super freaking progressive this character, his friendship with Luke and this type of story was in 1975. He existed as an optimistic pulp embodiment of the aims of the civil rights era. I can't think of an analogous character in comics; the closest was Green Lantern hanging out with radical leftist (and rich white guy) Green Arrow.

If the general argument against him is that he's taking up a slot that could have gone to an Asian character I don't object to that so much; he could have been introduced as a side character in Luke Cage and everything would have been fine. I can only say so much about the series as I'm only so far into it, maybe things get bad, but in general I think that rather than deleting Danny Rand, the MCU is better served by coming up with a good take on Shang Chi or his kind-of-more-interesting rival Shen Kuei.

Think they were one year apart.. Marvel cashed in the success of Hong Kong film at that time.. and the comic was supposed to be a quasi-remake of the TV show Kung Fu then they copped Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu instead, so people would have a comfortable concept to wrap their heads around.. His series did run for 9 years and then was promptly buried for 5 fives before trying to get another push and then he was all but forgotten in the late 80s and 90s..

Iron Fist failed partly because he is a tropey whitey mighty that makes little sense in why he is who he is... He fails a lot but at the end of the day he was his master's favorite and most promising pupil who became an Iron Fist because somehow he was better than the all the folk born and raised to the mystical hub of a city. I do like what they did with the city in the TV series making it a multicultural melting pot, rather than the comics version of basically China in another dimension.

But maybe Shang-Chi will get a movie so there is some hope..

As for the whole kind of civil rights look at Cage/Iron Fist. Falcon and Cap come to mind.. and while a little later Cloak and Dagger were also quite a big step..

Also I miss when comics were affordable

Power man and Iron Fist only happened because neither of them could sustain their own solos.

So I finished this show. I'll try not to spoil much.

The good:

• Jessica Henwick
• Kung Fu
• That one episode the RZA directed because he is the only person involved with this whole damn thing who gets it.
• That one time he fights a guy who uses drunken style.

The bad:

Wow.

So at first the show was alright. I've gone through enough bad martial arts stories in kung fu movies, comics and video games that I'm not going to get upset about one that's just kind of meh.

But the longer I watched, there were so many things that kept piling up.

• The intro is straight out of the opening to a PS2 era Koei game.
• This is one of those frustrating shows where there are misunderstandings that characters can clear up in about 5 seconds but they don't just come out and say it, creating the dumbest kind of unearned dramatic tension.
• Characters reveal abilities...then forget they have them. The "who can beat who" scale gets knocked right out of wack multiple times.
• Aside from the character they lifted out of Daredevil, none of the main threats he faces are in any way imposing or even very interesting, there's so much bad casting in this show. The person who turns out to be the main antagonist is barely Steven Segal villain tier.
• Everybody is atrociously terrible to each other all the time, but we're supposed to buy that they have this family-like connection. You would not believe how many of these characters have each other locked in horrifying mental institutions on false pretences then hug it out right after.
• Speaking of which: "This person took drugs. We have to strap them into a hospital bed and keep them sedated with meds and never let them leave, because we think they're a public danger (even though that's not how the mental health system actually works because that would be insane). Unless they break out and leave, in which case we just forget they ever existed and never contact the police even though they seem to be in the papers every day."
• Colleen "Asian buffet" Wing, the people writing her character had no idea what the fuck they were doing. She's got a Chinese name and speaks a little mandarin. But she grew up in Japan, raised by her grandfather. Who was somehow also a harsh samurai and taught her karate (?) and kendo and apparently...Chinese Tai Chi? So she lives by the bushido code, a late 19th century invention that no samurai ever lived by, and agonizes about breaking it. Except she doesn't, because then she joined a ninja cult for years and talks about how wonderful it was. And she's half white but they never touch on that.
• This is one of those shows where even the homeless people in foreign countries can randomly speak English. Why were they so terrified of subtitles in an era when everyone's going after Chinese entertainment dollars? Presumably because they thought only idiots who can't read would be way into this show. You're right, good call. Never mind.
• Danny's been back in the world for a week. He has a credit card and owns a super-expensive sports car that he can drive. He should have a 10 year old's understanding of the world, but they seem to skip over all of that.
• "We're flying to the other side of the world to bust the ninja drug lab." "I'm coming too!" NO. Why would you come? You're just a normal person, that makes no sense. Based on everything established about your character, it doesn't even makes sense that they'd ever even think that.

Did I mention this show was terribly written?

But the worst part by far is the main actor. Almost every problem leads back to him. He's supposed to be this in-tune Buddhist monk. Except he's got MAJOR ANGER ISSUES ARGHHH that rear their head in almost every scene. Like, Incredible Hulk movies have more chill than this guy. But then sometimes he's just saying normal stuff and he's either mumbling the lines or talking in a kind of high pitched voice that makes him sound really wussy. In between all that, he often just comes across as creepy. By about episode 8 I'd had it with this guy and his problems and didn't care if he solved them or not because he was just making me feel uncomfortable to watch.

And because he has about 3 ounces of muscle mass (seriously, how was this wet noodle cast in a role that demands he have his shirt off all the time? This guy makes Vlade Divac look like Vin Diesel) they made the decision not to cast anybody who looks tougher than him in any role that gets more than 2 lines. Which kind of keeps the tension in fights pretty low (like I said, only RZA's episode gets around this and is any good). The fights themselves are mid-to-low tier wire fu, with a very limited wire budget.

TLDR: Watch episode 6 then move on with your life. This is by far the worst Marvel show and nothing important happens for Defenders that you won't be able to figure out yourself. I hope they replace Finn in the title role, he's so bad and is in no way cool enough to be bros with Luke Cage (who does not appear in this at all. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything).

By blackace Go To PostAs for the whole kind of civil rights look at Cage/Iron Fist. Falcon and Cap come to mind.. and while a little later Cloak and Dagger were also quite a big step..

Falcon's a good one; I could think of things like Black Lightning & Superman, but that was more of a token effort that came & went. But Sam Wilson stuck around as a major character in Cap for years. Cloak & Dagger...it honestly didn't even register with me that Cloak was black until a couple of years ago. I never read their original series and it was downplayed so much in the way he was drawn (his face was often just coloured grey) and characterized in other appearances.

By Apollo Go To PostPower man and Iron Fist only happened because neither of them could sustain their own solos.

I wouldn't say that. There were plenty of characters who had cancelled titles, it didn't mean they got rolled into other series. (Stan Lee presents: Werewolf By Night and Millie the Model!) They definitely had particular aims with Power Man & Iron Fist.

NBA Playoffs were so boring due to blowouts, I ironically watched this series for entertainment.

That's a hindsight sunken cost joke. Everything that can be said has been said. This show is a sampling of superhero movies and shows beforehand Wesley Snipes revived Blade.

The regression of EVERYTHING from S1 DD is astounding. How do you accomplish this? By spending 3/4 of the show on characters than NOBODY GIVES ONE FUCK ABOUT.

Seriously, this could have just been a made-for-TV movie, but a promise was made and money was exchanged. The result is worse than 3 Ninjas Kick Back.