Power Man & Iron Fist Epic Collection, Vol. 4: Hardball

Power Man & Iron Fist Epic Collection

by Christopher J. Priest, Archie Goodwin, Alan Rowlands

Is this the end of a beautiful friendship? The original POWER MAN AND IRON FIST series races to its conclusion, as the duo face a rematch with old foes Nightshade, Discus, Stiletto, the Eel and Man Mountain Marko. But who is Captain Hero? And what does this powerhouse want from Luke Cage? Iron Fist shares a team-up with the Falcon at Project Pegasus — where there’s a murderer on the loose! And Cage is recruited to take on the terrorist group named Control-7! But why has Danny Rand suddenly become old and dying? And if he can somehow return to K’un Lun to be healed, what will be the terrible price? As the Dragon King’s brother attacks and Iron Fist sees red, the Heroes for Hire will be torn apart by tragedy!

COLLECTING: Power Man and Iron Fist (1978) 108-125

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Superheroes, Action, Graphic Novels, Fantasy

464 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2022

About the author

Formerly (before 1993) known as James or Jim Owsley.

Christopher James Priest is a critically acclaimed novelist and comic book writer. Priest is the first African-American writer and editor for Marvel and DC Comics. His groundbreaking Black Panther series was lauded by Entertainment Weekly and The Village Voice and will serve as the basis for the 2018 Marvel Cinematic Universe adaption.

Besides Black Panther, Priest has written comics for Conan, Steel, Green Lantern, The Crew and edited The Amazing Spider-Man. He also co-created Quantum & Woody along with Mark Bright and co-founded Milestone Media.

After a decade long hiatus he is currently writing comic books again and recently concluded a stint writing the comic book Deathstroke (2016-2019).

In addition to being a writer, Christopher J. Priest is also a baptist minister.

Reviews

[Rick]

Opening up this volume we have Power Man & Iron Fist #108-110 - A few one-off stories as we transition to a new creative team on the book. These are fun and help illustrate the relationship dynamic between Luke & Danny. Nothing great here, but still fun. The Wasp shows up briefly in one story, and that also includes a cameo by the Beast and Wonder Man as well.

Power Man & Iron Fist #111-113 - Christopher Priest, writing as Jim Owlsey, comes on board as regular writer and he has a firm grasp of Luke & Danny from the very beginning. These issues feature our protagonists dealing with … children. And it makes for some interesting stories. Owlsey also give us a pair of stories that separately focus on Luke & Danny individually. This helps establish how they function independently of one another. The Falcon makes a guest appearance and Nick Fury sports a cameo in one issue.

Power Man & Iron Fist #114-117 - And now we’ve got regular art from Mark Bright and this is the team that will be on the title until the end of the run (coming all too soon unfortunately), and it’s among the best runs on this title. Some new supporting characters and narrative threads are introduced and Iron Fist gets radiation poisoning. Wait, what?! Which is going to kill him. Wait! What?

Power Man & Iron Fist #118-120 - At this point, I’m guess here, sales had dropped to such a point that Marvel pushed the title to coming out only every other month. This is never a good sign for regular titles. When readers go almost two months without a new issue, they start wondering if they need to keep getting the title. So the writing was on the wall. As for the story? The aid of Doctor Druid is enlisted to make a return to K’un-Lun to try and save the life of Iron Fist. These three issues offer some more info and backstory for Iron Fist and works to fix some of the previous retroactive continuity that previous authors had layered onto the original backstory.

Next up is some material from Secret Wars II #2 & Power Man & Iron Fist #121 - Whoa! Where to begin? How do you unpack this stuff? First off, the events depicted in the material from Secret Wars II #2 probably takes place just after Luke and Danny left for K’un Lun (see Power Man & Iron Fist #118, but Luke and Danny themselves are probably wished here from their timeline around the time they left for Alaska (see #115). We get a brief cameo from Spider-Man, swinging by from his appearance in Web of Spider-Man #6, and of course we’ve got the Beyonder manipulating time, space and the very fabric of reality as easily as you’d wad up a sheet of paper into a ball. And then the story officially picks up with the titular protagonists returning to their Park Avenue office building, or at least where it should be. We also get some brief appearances by Captain Hero, the Falcon and Nick Fury. The whole thing is … well … as jumbled and ridiculous as any story with the Beyonder gets.

And that brings us to the final stretch originally from the pages of Power Man & Iron Fist #122-125 - These stories are still examining the characters and their relationships, but they’re also tying up plot threads and building towards the finale. And it is … gut wrenching to say the least. The Avengers guest star as lots of “big heads” try to save the life of Captain Hero. Hank Pym chalks up another case for his Greatest-Mad-Scienctist-in-Marvel and goes all-in on some unorthodox methods to aid Captain Hero. Why don’t people listen when Reed Richards says you’re not on the right track? Victor Von Doom was only the first. When I first read this as it came out in comic form, I was devastated. Iron Fist had always been a personal favorite character of mine and this felt like a personal attack. Yeah, devastating. Like being hit by a car while crossing the street. But such a great story.

[Paul]

3.6 stars

I had a blast revisiting these old PM&IF stories (and filling in the gaps of the issues I missed first time ‘round). What a sad ending, though… somebody pass me a tissue…

[Brent]

I'll give it a 3 because I do like these characters, but this volume is average at best. No great highs or real lows. The ending is weird and unsatisfying.

[Jimbo]

HAS SPOILERS:::

Not sure why Christopher Priest's name is on this book at all since the majority of the issues were written by Jim Owesly. Many of the stories were out of step from the other Epic collection, BUT, Owlsely found his footing and ended the collection with some cool things happening.

Luke and Danny get out of sync in these stories and they end up breaking up Heroes for Hire near the end of the run and then the inevitable. Iron Fist is gone and Luke Cage is a wanted man again (Which we know isn't true, but that is how they ended the series Power Man & Iron Fist. This is the last in these Epic Collections.

[Brandon]

This is a weird one. The storyline of this run is Luke and Danny breaking up Heroes For Hire as they get to working for another company, as they get set up and run around with a new set of supporting cast members. New love interests (with plots that don't really go anywhere), new groups and rivals (who were a little hard to keep track, I don't care about the many generic secret organizations in a universe littered with them, of but did provide something fresh to the title), some new villains (some of which tying the line between friend and foe), and some overall pretty good artwork.

Iron Fist gets a bunch of grief lobbed his way and it's sort of weird, we get a bunch of stuff about what he has done as the Iron fist and then he gets all sad and mopey and boring.

The most interesting stuff with Power Man is when he confronts what it means to be Black, and a superhero, and visibly a Black superhero with his own ideals that might conflict with what society expects from him. But I don't really like most of the way this stuff is handled? Maybe it's just dated by when your big moral themes are "a girl wants to play football even though that is a MAN'S SPORT" and "race doesn't matter we should all just get along" and all that I really can't count this as a big gem of forward-thinking.

I believe this series was cancelled but it doesn't feel like it. Everything stays at a similar pace, things don't feel rushed- they just feel sort of bad. Like the whole collection does. Maybe not terrible, and it certainly tries to do some interesting and unique things that haven't been done in most of the Power Man and/or Iron Fist stuff that came before, but it never quite hits the mark.

[Sebastian Lauterbach]

By far the best of the 4 volume set and it is not even close!

This entire volume is written by Christopher Priest, who is still using his pen name. He immediately introduces a lot of new characters to the cast, shakes up the existing relationships and explores a lot of interesting new dynamics. Suddenly, the book has multiple open plot threads and an ongoing narrative and it works.

I suppose the series got cancelled with #125, but the way the book ends is definitely a choice and I'll leave it at that.

All in all the Power Man and Iron Fist series as a whole is a complete train wreck, but the last couple of story arcs did make it quite interesting only to end in shambles.

[Ryan]

Usually, around the time a comic is getting cancelled, the quality takes a dip. For some reason, that didn't happen for this series. Most issues have great artwork by an artist I don't really know named Mark Bright. It's really clean art, feels a bit like Alan Davis. Without giving anything away, has a major turning point for Iron Fist, that, I think, was forgotten for several years. This is the end of an era for this branch of comics, Power Man and Iron fist will be back, but will never really be the same.

[Bob]

I adore Priest, especially for his Black Panther run, & M.D. Bright, but this is some rough stuff. Gems include Jeryn’s daughter dumps Luke & Danny for Beast & Wonder Man, another K’un-Lun epic, & Misty cucking Danny w/ Det. Sgt. Tyrone King, but issues involving a Captain Marvel-knockoff, Iron Man-style corporate espionage, & Beyonder & Danny’ new girlfriend are nearly unreadable

[Shawn Gallagher]

Weird ending to the series. I know sales were lagging and they needed space for New Universe titles but this one ends so strangely. Iron Fist outcome is so confusing.

[Doug Mason]

Sometimes you shouldn't read those things that were favorites 50 years ago, badly dated, in story, art and character deservedly canceled looking back at it

[mel]

read issues #112 - #113, #121, #123, and #125

that last page is no joke man :(