Essential Power Man and Iron Fist, Vol. 2

Essential Power Man and Iron Fist #2

by Chris Claremont, Mike W. Barr, Jo Duffy

When figures from their pasts return to haunt them, Power Man and Iron Fist battle organized crime, interdimensional evil, and espionage.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Marvel

624 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 2009

About the author

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.

Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.

Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic run from the '80s concludes here.

POWER MAN AND IRON FIST is one of the true underrated gems of the Jim Shooter era at Marvel Comics, and Mary Jo Duffy is a forgotten comic-book genius. Shooter's reign at Marvel had a lot of standout creators working on a lot of breakout books, and if it weren't for Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Frank Miller, John Romita, Jr., and all of the other massive talent that was running wild at Marvel, Mary Jo Duffy could have been a legend. Her work on this title deserves to be mentioned alongside Miller's DAREDEVIL, Stern's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and the Claremont/Byrne X-MEN. It was that good, and it holds up.


Ably assisted by artist Kerry Gammill and inker Ricardo Villamonte, Duffy's team of hapless "Heroes for Hire" encounter crazed super-powered assassins, vampires, Time-Lords and evil robots, villainous mountaineers, swashbuckling Zorro wannabes, and a mad slasher who is waaaay more than meets the eye. Unfortunately, the perfection of the Duffy/Gammill/Villamonte team only accounts for a scant three issues in this collection, and when Gammill and Villamonte leave, the chemistry is thrown off, and the book never quite recovers. (The bulk of this amazing collaboration is collected in the first volume.)


Gammill and Villamonte were one of those art teams that clicked in juuuust the right way. Finding a new issue of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST on the newsstands as a kid was a joyous occasion. Why Gammill isn't hailed as one of the all-time great pencillers is beyond me. I'm not sure why he left the book, and I'm not sure where he ended up after he left, but if Marvel had moved him onto a higher-profile series, the sky would have been the limit. Ditto for Duffy, whose imaginative plots and snappy dialogue would have been right at home in one of the Spider-Man family of books.


Denys Cowan takes over the art chores after Gammill departs, and.....the man is a good artist, but I never quite warmed to his scratchy style. Duffy sticks around for a few issues, but you can tell that the spark was gone, and her last issues seems rushed, as she struggles to tie up all of her dangling plot threads with a few hasty lines of exposition.


She is succeeded by Denny O'Neil, who is later replaced by Kurt Busiek, in what must be some of his earliest work. For a newcomer, Busiek's work is surprisingly readable. The O'Neil issues are serviceable, and include possibly the weirdest crossover ever, as Cage and Iron Fist are hired to find Moon Knight, who is trapped in a water tower (!). Cowan sticks around for a bit, and is replaced by Ernie Chan and inker Mike Mignola, contributing some of his earliest work. The bulk of this collection is fun, readable stuff, but none of it holds a candle to the Duffy/Gammill/Villamonte issues that open the volume.


On a side note, POWER MAN AND IRON FIST #78 is forever burned into my mind as being one of my most-read comics from my childhood.


I read and reread this issue until it was falling apart. The mystery of who the masked, animalistic slasher and his upscale partner were haunted my childhood. Gammill's visual of the slasher in his Elephant Man sack captured my imagination like nothing I had ever read before. This issue is truly one of the greatest single issues ever published. (The identities of the slasher and his buddy would be revealed in six months, in issue #84. I had no idea who either of these men were back when I first read these issues, but the reveal is a pretty big one, in hindsight.)


ESSENTIAL POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, VOL. 2 collects POWER MAN AND IRON FIST #'s 76-100, and DAREDEVIL #178, and is a fun throwback to a kinder, gentler age of comics, and earns a healthy seven out of ten sweet Christmas trees.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collects Power Man & Iron Fist issues 76 - 100, and Daredevil # 178. Just a reminder to all you comic fans, most of these were written in the 1970s and as such the demographic for such material was much younger than those written today.

Power Man and Iron Fist, two heroes with cancelled series, who were then packaged together in a sort of buddy-superhero title. Obviously, Luke Cage has super strength and steel-like skin, while Iron Fist is the world's greatest martial artist and able to summon his chi to create the titular iron fist - a massive destructive force. While they don't work on their own, the characters play off each other well.

We see the runs of three writers through this book. Mary Jo Duffy who took a light touch to the tales, many of them filled with tongue-in-cheek moments. Denny O'Neil with his grounded flair and ability to mix real world issues with superhero realities. And Kurt Busiak who, in his characteristic style, offers tons of throwbacks to earlier issues - not just of this series but Power Man and Iron Fist's original series- to build on the mythology presented.

The art stays steady throughout the book. If there's a problem with this title it's that most of their villains are forgettable. Do you remember Shades and Commanche? Or Fera? Or Montenegro? Or Black Mariah? Of course you don't. The best villains they had was one issue which featured Constrictor and Sabertooth - this was Sabertooth pre-Wolverine related times, when he was just a random villain. To sum up these issues are fun and well done, but not great.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a certain fondness for 80's Marvel in general because that's when I really started buying comics heavily and calling myself a collector. I never got around to buying Power Man and Iron Fist, though, for some reason. I was familiar with the characters, just never bought the book. And when I finally did buy an issue to check it out, it was #100, the final issue of the series. So reading this nice thick collection was like returning to a childhood home I never actually knew. All those artists and writers I knew from other titles of that era but hadn't thought of in years: Kerry Gammill, Denys Cowan, Mary Jo Duffy, Steven Grant, Keith Pollard ... This volume seems to be at its best when Mary Jo Duffy is writing it. She seems to have a real handle on the characters, and the book moves along at a brisk pace. I especially liked the whole Dr. Who homage ("Day of the Dredlox") that appeared during her run. Also noteworthy is Kurt Busiek's run, which closes out the volume. It's a bit uneven. Astro City was still years away at this point in his career, and he was obviously still learning his craft. But there are some interesting things going on--I really liked what he did with Unus, the Untouchable, for instance. You can see him steadily improving, though, and, if the book hadn't been canceled, he could have done some interesting things with it. I like the idea of superheroes for hire, and Power Man and Iron Fist make a great team.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were some of my favorite characters in comics growing up and it was nice to revisit those comics. There are some issues in this omnibus that I haven't read since they were first published in the early 80's.

One of the things I always liked about Power Man & Iron Fist is that they lived in our world, they fought regular criminals (and super powered ones as well), they lived in Hell's Kitchen, they had all of the life issues that Spiderman had but they were a little seedier.

I picked this edition up from a vendor at a Comic-Con for a couple bucks at the bottom of a box...it was a good find and I'd recommend the old Power Man & Iron Fist to anyone (that's my way of saying skip the new series and read the old one).

[Sean Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rather like Luke Cage, although the 1970's 'street wise' banter is downright emmbarising at times, and I rather got tired of been told about his 'steel hard skin' each and every issue! Rather Good!

[Lissibith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun. This book was just a lot of fun. It felt very fast-paced, especially as compared to today's write for the trade mentality. Rarely did a story go more than one issue in a row. And as with the first volume, the really great part here was how well Power Man and Iron Fist work together as partners and as friends. They both know one another's strengths and weaknesses and work together pretty seamlessly to face whatever comes at them.

Is there a misstep or two? Yeah. A few things make just the barest of sense. A few chapters seem like they threw a dart at a board to pick what the pair deal with. But overall, it's just fun. It's enjoyable, the characters' personalities are really setting one another off, the circumstances are starting to continue from issue to issue, and I just really enjoyed it. Highly recommended if you don't mind superhero stories and a bit of cheese.

[Greg Hatcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good clean fun.

[Tyler Marsolais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome team! Really fun and really long

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Power Man & Iron Fist #76 - After Luke and Danny affect their return from K’un-Lun we get an issue that features two solo stories, the first by Chris Claremont with art by Rudy Nebres & Frank Miller, deals with the return of an old antagonist from Iron Fist’s solo career, Warhawk, while the second deals with the return of The Vampire from Power Man’s pre-partnership era. This second one returns Duffy to the writer’s seat and Mark Bright handling the art, with inking by Ricardo Villamonte on the whole issue to tie it all together. For really being not much more than filler, these are both well done stories. So there’s a lot of returning face opening this volume. (3/5)

Next up is the two-part crossover from Daredevil #178 and Power Man and Iron Fist #77. Miller was in the midst of his visionary run on Daredevil, and visually this issue does illustrate how extraordinary his approach was, unfortunately it also illustrates how little he cared about working within the framework of a shared universe. His portrayal of Jeryn Hogarth, Luke & Danny’s silent partner in Heroes for Hire, runs completely contradictory to how he’d been portrayed previous in the series. Instead the whole relationship is played off as a joke, for laughs at the expense of the characters. But then this shouldn’t be a surprise as this is basically what he did with the relationship between Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson. In contrast, Duffy’s take on the characters in the second half of this story works much better. Here the story is silly and certainly has a lot of laughs, but it isn’t at the expense of respect for the characters (4/5).

Power Man and Iron Fist #78-79 wraps up Duffy and Gammill’s tenure on the series. The first of these sets up a story that will pay off a bit later, to finish off Duffy’s run, and the second is an honest-to-goodness homage to Doctor Who and the Daleks. Almost too fun to believe (4/5).

Power Man and Iron Fist #80-84 brings in a new artist Denys Cowan to finish off Duffy’s spectacular era with the characters. These feature more conflicts with Montenegro, Warhawk, Constrictor & Sabretooth, as well as a trip to Halwan. The art is good, from Denys Cowan, but it doesn’t have the same look as Gammill, obviously, so the change takes some getting used to. But these stories also feel a bit sillier in some ways and not well crafted. So kind of a sad ending for Duffy’s otherwise great run on this title (3/5).

Power Man and Iron Fist #85-89 - We got Cowan’s arrival and now Denny O`Neil replaces Duffy as the writer. These issues are not very engaging, the characters feel forced and stereotyped, the camaraderie between Luke and Danny feels oddly combative. These stories feel like the relationships have all been turned back to stupid. The appearance of the Mole Man is badly structured and pointless, the returns of Scimitar and Black Mariah are fun, but throwing these two together makes absolutely no sense, the Moon Knight guest appearance is definitely the best thing about this run of issues. The art is nice and saves the otherwise plodding writing from miring the whole package into inanity. Just an uninspired and weak ending to this volume (3/5).

Power Man and Iron Fist #90-100 -

Mother rest of this volume is written by Kurt Busiek, and while it’s not his best work by any means, there are some good stories here. There’s a couple of filler issues from other writers but none of them amount to much at all. The art is fairly good throughout, just nothing particularly exciting. Taken all together, there’s nothing really remarkable here, except the story that builds up the #100 issue that’s nestled right in the middle of the book.

[Variaciones Enrojo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reseña de Andrés Accorsi para su blog:
http://365comicsxyear.blogspot.com.ar...

Hoy, una reseña como las de antaño. Me tomé varios días para bajarme este masacote de 624 páginas que retoma la historia de los Héroes de Alquiler justo donde deja el tomo reseñado aquel lejano 12/10/10. Acá tenemos todos los números entre el 76 y el 100 de esta serie decididamente menor dentro de lo que es la producción de Marvel de la primera mitad de los ´80. Aún así, sin chances ni pretensiones de jugar en Primera, hay varias cosas para rescatar, más allá de mi cariño por Luke Cage y Daniel Rand, quienes seguramente cosecharán millones de nuevos fans ahora que son parte del Universo Marvel de Netflix.
En la reseña del Vol.1 yo postulaba que si esta serie tiene algo así como una “etapa clásica”, tendría que ser la que cuenta con Mary Jo Duffy en los guiones, Kerry Gammil en los lápices y Ricardo Villamonte en las tintas. De esa papa bastante fina, este libro nos ofrece cinco episodios, los últimos cinco, porque Gammil se despide en el n°79. Villamonte se va en el n°81 y Duffy en el 84. Las historias en sí no son gran cosa, son aventuras menores de justicieros urbanos que operan al “nivel de la calle”. Hay un crossover con Daredevil (que estaba en las gloriosas manos de Frank Miller y Klaus Janson) que busca traerle nuevos lectores a la serie y después, peleas menores contra matones y villanos de la B que no suman ni restan. Lo atractivo pasa por el desarrollo de personajes, que es algo en lo que Duffy no defrauda en lo más mínimo. La guionista le abre el juego a varios secundarios interesantes, entre los que se destacan Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, Bob Diamond, D.W., y un personaje que yo creía que había sido creado para las series de Netflix y sin embargo ahora me entero que aparece en los comics de Power Man desde los ´70: la doctora Claire Temple, interpretada en la pantalla chica por Rosario Dawson.
Seguimos adelante y cuando no le queda más remedio, el coordinador de la serie, el maestro Denny O´Neil, se hace cargo de los guiones. Poquitos números, apenas cinco, entre los cuales hay un excelente unitario en el que Luke y Danny se cruzan con Moon Knight, otro paladín de tercera línea que en esa época operaba en New York. Está bueno también eso, que los guionistas hagan tanto énfasis en la ciudad. Este es un comic bien urbano, donde los héroes rara vez salen de New York, y tantos los textos como los dibujos reflejan (y a veces satirizan) muchos detalles de lo que era la vida en la Gran Manzana de los ´80.
Pero estamos en el n°90 y de nuevo nos quedamos sin guionista. Es la hora de que haga su debut un pibe de las inferiores, un tal Kurt Busiek. Estos primeros números de Busiek no están mal, pero son comics del montón, no hay grandes ideas, no le pega sacudones grossos a ningún personaje y dedica cuatro números a avanzar a ritmo muy tranqui hasta el n°100, que es un poco más grandilocuente que lo que veníamos viendo.
En materia de dibujantes, una vez que se va el exquisito Kerry Gammil entra otro pibe con poca experiencia: Denys Cowan, al que vemos mejorar de a poco, y al que le tocan entintadores muy disímiles, desde un interesantísimo Carl Potts hasta verduleros impresentables que merecen prisión perpetua. Los últimos siete episodios del tomo los dibuja el veterano Ernie Chan, en un estilo que ya para 1982-83 se veía anticuado. A veces lo dejan entintarse a sí mismo, pero en varios episodios lo entinta otro pibe que hacía su debut en Primera: Mike Mignola. Al principio, el combo Chan-Mignola hace agua por todos lados, porque los estilos chocan groseramente. Para los… dos últimos números, ya hay una mejor comunión gráfica entre el filipino que la descosía en Conan y el futuro creador de Hellboy.
Y no hay más. La revista de Power Man & Iron Fist llegó hasta el n°125 y esos 25 episodios finales no están recopilados en libro. La verdad que los Essentials no me dejaron tan cebado como para ponerme a juntar las revistitas. Pero después de Busiek toma los guiones Christopher Priest (cuando todavía se llamaba Jim Owsley) y eso es un gran punto a favor, así que quién te dice…

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a lot of fun.
This was the era of PM/IF when I first became a regular reader.

This was always a fun read, as it was pretty street level, but also made good use of marvel history by using villains from other titles.
Plus, Luke and Danny aren't detectives or scientists, they have to work to solve a mystery or deal with a big super hero problem.
The odd couple friendship between the two men works so well.
The series rarely got big name artists, but the art is always solid and looks really good in B+W.

The series can be uneven, as it seemed to have trouble keeping a writer and writers really seem to have fun writing Luke and could struggle to get a handle on Danny.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

B-level ‘80s Marvel is still better than most A-level ‘00s Marvel. We get to see Kurt Busiek cut his teeth on this title. Most of these issues are self-contained, but multi-parters become more common towards the end of the book. Ernie Chan's artwork is good, and can be great, depending on the inker. Power Man and Iron Fist are street level heroes and, as such, typically fight street level villains. That is something that is missing from many modern comic books: the street level villain. Now, everything is some kind of Skrull invasion or Norman Osborn led conspiracy. These issues are dated, but lovably so.

[Karl Kindt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Until I read this, I never knew Kurt Busiek, Mike Mignola, and Ernie Chan ever worked on the same book.

[Scott wachter · Rating 4 out of 5]

old school cheesy fun. they cut the issue with ROM (because the universe is heartless place), but the BBC still hasn't sued over the "Doctor Who" issue.