[close] Essential Iron Fist is another good use of Marvel's budget-priced Essentials series. Iron Fist was a second-tier character intended to capitalize on the '70s kung-fu craze who ended up occupying a middle ground between conventional super-heroes and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Iron Fist was raised as a martial-arts master in the fabled city of K'un-Lun, but gave up an immortal life in that paradise in order to return to the United States in pursuit of revenge. Essential Iron First Vol. 1 collects his opening run in Marvel Premiere 15-25 followed by his own book, Iron Fist 1-15. The book floundered a bit once the initial story arc was over, but was distinguished by the team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, who were also working on their historic run on the X-Men (there's some character overlap). But even so, Iron Fist only lasted 15 issues until some of the loose ends had to be tied up in two issues of Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man. The volume concludes with Power Man 48-50, in which Iron Fist meets his eventual partner Luke Cage, the former Hero for Hire. --David Horiuchi [close]