Writing and Art by Kaare Kyle Andrews
My first real introduction to Iron Fist was the Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction run on Immortal Iron Fist which, if you haven’t read it, is amazing. It’s even on my list of things that people new to comics should read. Iron Fist: The Living Weapon, however, I am less convinced about.
Somewhere in the shuffle I must have missed a couple of issues, because I was completely lost. That is about the only way I can explain my confusion only five issues in. Even within the issue itself, I had a hard time following what was being discussed. I’m also getting a little bored with stories about Iron Fist that insist on going back to his childhood in K’un-Lun, especially when they do it about once an issue. It’d be like Action Comics going back to Krypton or Batman to Crime Alley every issue. It’s completely unnecessary. However, the book is not without its high points. The portions of the story do not deal directly with Danny Rand are interesting, and the last two pages provided some great foreshadowing, which is probably what will keep me on this book for at least another issue or two.
A creative layout that worked.
As far as the art goes, anything set in the present with Iron Fist was pretty painful. Frequently, I was barely able to figure out what was going on in each panel and how it connected with the surrounding panels. Several pages attempted to do something more creative with the panel structure, which only lead to more confusion. Thankfully, the problems were really limited to the pages with Iron Fist in the present. Both the pages that involved flashbacks and those with a little girl were actually pretty good. Those same creative panels that cause confusion in other parts of the book worked very well here. Given that it’s all the same artist I’m at a loss to explain what caused this difference. My only complaint about the flashback pages is that there is a folded/crumpled paper texture that is added to give the appearance of age, which is distracting and not necessary.
Texture not required.
The portions of this book with Iron Fist are making me want to drop it, but everything else is keeping me going. We will see which side wins in the end. 2.5/5 Death Stars.
Therefore I Geek 