Kung Fu Factory

by Crimefactory

  The Quarterback unleashed a barrage of quick punches to her ribs and chest and face until he was absolutely certain she was still alive but wouldn’t be able to shoot him when he turned his back on her.

  On his way out of the locker room, The Quarterback took a picture from Shaw's wallet, one of the few of Shaw and The Coach's daughter he was able to talk her into. He would put it on his own bulletin board as a reminder of what he was doing and what he could become if he didn’t keep himself in check.

  Back at the motel, the hooker had returned and was passed out on the bed with the TV turned to the morning news. The Quarterback eased the needle out of her arm and cleaned her up. If the humidity broke later in the day he'd go see her pimp about getting her out. If not, maybe they'd go out to lunch and hang out at the cinema for the day. He fell asleep with the hooker wrapped in his arms thinking that sometimes you didn’t need to fight to be a hero.

  bring me the head of fredric wertham:

  The Immortal Iron Fist

  liam jose

  FORGOTTEN CITIES

  Kung Fu hasn’t been a fixture of mainstream American comics for decades. Superheroes and dramatic comics have all but dominated that sphere since the eighties. With the influx of Eastern film that came to Western attention in the seventies interest briefly fluctuated, with bigger publishers like Marvel and DC integrating the aesthetics through superhero-styled lenses, giving birth to characters like Iron Fist.

  While never a huge hit, the character satisfied a niche for audiences at the time, and is fondly remember for his unlikely partnership with blaxploitation-flavoured superhero, Luke Cage, “Power Man” (one of the only black characters of the day to escape the embarrassing ‘Black’ qualifier).

  Yet Iron Fist quietly disappeared – a fan favourite character, for sure - but only resurfacing in supporting capacities in other books from time to time, whilst being unable to carry his own title despite the attempts of a few abortive relaunches in the eighties and nineties.

  After the speculative boom that left mainstream comics creatively bereft during the nineties, the industry went all but bust and comic publishers faced with bankruptcy found themselves able to experiment with their products as there was no fiscal risk.

  The time seemed ripe to unleash a head-kick of Kung Fu to shake up those stalwart genres.

  SECRET WEAPONS

  In the mid zeroes, Marvel set about relaunching The Immortal Iron Fist. Ed Brubaker, hot from his recent stints on Captain America and Daredevil, was one half of the writing team tasked with the overhaul.

  Along with Brubaker came Matt Fraction, who’d been generating buzz with his indie series Casanova.

  With the art team of David Aja and Travel Foreman aboard, the series was good to go.

  ANCIENT RITES

  It would have been easy to churn out an action heavy kung fu flavoured comic, but instead, Fraction and Brubaker weaved an enormous mythology for the character.

  Brubaker and Fraction realised that any Kung Fu story worth its salt is loaded with the heady calls of legacy, rites, duty and vengeance.

  And, oh boy, do they fucking deliver.

  The writing duo kick off by revising the traditional lore of the Iron Fist by revealing that Danny Rand (current Iron Fist) is not a singular superhero, but rather, the successor of the Iron Fist mantle that 88 others have bared before him.

  Danny’s world is rocked when Orson Randall, WWI-era Iron Fist, returns after a 70-year self-medicated opiate binge.

  From there, Danny finds himself in the middle of a hostile takeover bid for his billion-dollar company from a death cult.

  To spoil any of the myriad twists and turns of the (sometimes convoluted) plot would be to spoil the fun. This is a book where anything can and does happen.

  Legacy seems to be the word of the day. Each character is burdened by the legacy of their father, their predecessor or their responsibilities.

  And some handle this burden better than others. Orson Randall collapses under the weight of the hefty mythology that is backing him. Danny’s father, Wendell, becomes absorbed by his sense of entitlement. And Danny tries to channel his guilt into pearls of altruism, which ultimately do damage to those around him as he forgets to remove his ego from acts of selflessness.

  The writers play with the aspects of this legacy being a gift and a curse

  SHADOW PLAY

  The writing, particularly that of the characters, feels rather elliptical, as though Fraction and Brubaker present them in shorthand. When the series first came out, I tried the first issue or so, but couldn’t get hooked, largely because of this. Looking back now, with such a crowded book, I can’t actually imagine how the writers could have done anything differently, yet it still does make me wish for some of the depth of character that I would find in a Grant Morrison comic, for example. Although this cluster-bomb-development style that everything is presented in certainly sets the fast-kicking pace of the book, so I can respect the writers’ choices.

  Nostalgia and familiarity will go a long way in determining your admiration for this book. If the sight of Luke Cage and Danny standing side-by-side smacking death-cult ninjas in the face makes you smile, you’ve got a head start.

  That’s not to say that the series is shallow. Far from it.

  It’s filled with flawed people battling to assert themselves - to prove their worth - yet all the while feeling inferior. Whether they are kings in kung fu cities, warriors, teachers or villains, all these men are struggling to live up to what they believe will make them whole: Packed just beneath the heavy gloss of pop are some seriously fucked-up individuals.

  Danny is more likely to fight in a kung fu tournament than save his best friend’s mother. Luke will rejoin Danny for a re-enactment of the good ole’ days regardless of the cost to his family. Misty (Danny’s girlfriend) sticks with a bad relationship partly out of nostalgia, and partly because she’s sure that something good can come out of it.

  However, the book seems aware of this, and progresses the characters, allowing them to come to grips with this cycle they compete in. Which, really, is the smartest way I’ve seen a superhero comic deal with the essentially cyclical nature of their narratives – superheroes can have no third act.

  PROTEGE

  During this run of Iron Fist, the creative teams seem to shift regularly, but a strong sense of continuity is held in place. Although issues may feature five artists and the writing duties were regularly shifted around, the stories all seem to organically flow from one another.

  Brubaker and Fraction crank out idea after idea at a dizzying pace, allowing the audience to only breathe during their frequent flashback tales. At the time of the launch, Brubaker was the proven creator, while Fraction was a relative unknown. Ed Brubaker has in past interviews said he hadn’t done any significant writing since the tenth issue, and was really just there as “a second set of eyes.”

  Like much of Fraction’s stuff, the pacing can be a little patchy in places, letting his manic crop of ideas loose at you at machine gun pace. But the ideas are generally pretty fucking magical, and once Fraction gets some momentum with his stories, he’s always able to reach the most perfect junctures in plotting.

  As Fraction and artist David Aja left the book, Travel Foreman who’d been illustrating the integrated flashback elements in most issues, jumped aboard pencilling duties.

  To join Foreman on art, writing went to a similarly green (for comics, anyhow) writer, Duane Swierczynski.

  The series, somehow, didn’t lose a beat.

  The incoming writer certainly brought his own sensibilities to the series, amplifying the pressure on Danny and the creepiness, by having Danny fight demons, curses and sending him to hell.

  Like Fraction, Swierczynski often seems to rush through an arc. Although, much of this is due to the harsh mandates that would have been laid on him due to the book’s impending cancellation. And, certainly, all the ideas he heaps in are amazing, and for what it seems were the conditions he
had to write under, it is hard to imagine how he could have pulled anything off any better.

  HIDDEN KICKS

  All the different art teams for the book are perfect. David Aja plays with tonal reduction and offers characters that feel organic in their environments, his talent is such that each movement feels like the next logical extension of the scene, giving pages a roundness that draws your eyes across them perfectly. His line work is so minimal, yet so perfectly placed, that you almost forget the incredible amount of effort that goes into it.

  Foreman’s style is completely different. Filled with bombastic exaggerated lines that curve from one corner of a panel to another, he brings a kineticism to the layout that suits the book, and particularly Swierczynski’s take, perfectly. His angles and designs are always unpredictable, always managing to take the reader off guard. His techniques are some of the most innovative in recent memory, on par in that respect with Frank Quitely and JH Williams III.

  In their own unique ways, they both make you feel every kick and punch, each subtle change in mood and always in a dynamic exciting way.

  GOLDEN AGE

  If there’s anywhere that Fraction and Brubaker stumble with in their work, it is in the flashback tales they pack the story with. Often during their stories, the writers will take us back in time and we’ll spend a third of an issue with a previous incarnation of the Iron Fist. While this sounds great in theory, and truth be told, is pretty fucking wild, they don’t hold the same weight for the audience.

  While it is mostly awesome pudding, and it effectively brings the reader into the expanded world of the Iron Fist lore, they frequently pulled me right out of the story and didn’t act as the counterbalance to the main story that they may have hoped. All being said though, these criticisms are minor - I’m just being the kid who complains about getting a cramp during a sex party.

  While the flashbacks to ancient Iron Fists weren’t my cup of tea, the flashback tales written about Orson Randall (WWI Iron Fist) were. The small bits and pieces we got of this are essentially like stumbling across a few lone issues of the greatest comic you’ll never be able to read more of. I found myself, as much as I loved Danny, just wishing that pulpy Orson Randall Iron Fist was the comic I was reading. All the time. That they managed to have every fucked up, crazy, disparate idea they could throw onto the page contribute to the central present day narrative with Danny is nothing short of breath taking.

  The audacity of what is on display with the plotting is nothing to overlook, dear readers.

  It could have been a tragedy when the original two writers had to depart the book if they hadn’t gotten Duane Swierczynski. Whatever minor weaknesses I may have nitpicked about with Fraction and Brubaker’s flashbacks are completed fixed in Swierczynski’s run. In the single-issue format he manages to truly take flight with his all-in approach and create some of the coolest short stories I’ve read in years. He paces the issues perfectly, and turns them into an anything-goes breather between his frequently intense stories about Danny.

  HONOR KILLINGS

  Yet the book, unfortunately, ended up on the chopping block. Whatever it was about the series itself, or the industry in general, Iron Fist got cancelled due to low sales.

  Which is horrifying.

  Swierczynski seemed like he was just getting going on the book, and barely had time to perform a satisfying ending (but, even lumped with an impossible situation, Swierczynski manages to pull of something fantastic and satisfying, if a bit of a compromise – much like Danny himself in the comic).

  I hate that I missed this series when it first came out, and now that I’ve binged on it, that there’s no more like it. And even though that sucks, you kinda do owe it to yourself to check out one of the best mainstream comics in the last decade.

  By mixing the Iron Fist’s kung fu elements with superheroics, pulp, sci-fi, horror and really, anything they could figure, and making it all work (even more astonishing when you consider the huge talent pool involved in making such a seamless product) the writers and artists on Iron Fist pay tribute not only to the traditional, sometimes awkward assimilation of Eastern stories to Western sensibilities, but also the mesh of influences that comics evolved from over the years.

  This series celebrates everything that’s wonderful and exclusive to comics, and even when it doesn’t work, it’s still awesome. This is Comics with a goddamn capital C!

  Kung Fu is dead. Long live Kung Fu. Rinse and repeat

  spinning plates, crunching plots:

  an interview with duane swierczynski

  Duane Swierczynski once said that, on a good day, his amazing output includes four pages of comic book script and 1,500 words of prose. In the basement of his family's Philadelphia home, he cranks out an astonishing array of cross-genre work. From The Wheelman, arguably one of the most important crime novels of the last ten years, to his work on Black Widow for Marvel Comics, Duane is a man of a million pulp ideas – spend half an hour with him and he'll throw them away without even realising he's doing it. Cameron Ashley caught up with Duane between his deadlines at Noircon to talk about his run on Marvel's kung-fu book Iron Fist, following on from the acclaimed writing team of Brubaker and Fraction, crossing genres, workload and how his childhood was one long kung fu movie.

  I'm kind of curious as to how you came to get the Iron Fist job...

  Good question...I was writing a Werewolf by Night mini-series for Warren Simmons at Marvel and I think he knew that Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction were so busy, Matt was taking on Iron Man, Ed was just, you know, going crazy and they had to leave the series just from sheer workload and they were looking for a replacement and Warren kind of floated it by me and I had some ideas and...you're never just given a job with Warren, you have to pitch for it, do your take on it. I was a huge, huge fan of Ed and Matt's run and I kind of at first panicked and though how can you follow that up? Then I just decided to have fun with it and what they created was an amazing story machine that goes beyond the “simple” Marvel Universe. It went into, you know, like pulp history and this whole idea of this Iron Fist legacy and generations which just fascinated me. So I approached it like, okay, let's just keep expanding the world they've already started to expand and have fun with that, so I pitched my ideas on how to bridge what they were doing with future plans and it kind of went from there. After some going back and forth, I got Ed and Matt's blessing...and the cash bribe to Warren and Matt helped too!

  How did you feel about their climax? They basically left you a cliffhanger to follow on...

  Yeah.

  Did they give you any indication of how you should perhaps follow it on plot-wise or was it just, “Here you go, Duane, go for it.”

  It was the latter and I kind of appreciated that. They had a great set-up and they said run with it, which I do appreciate and I was tempted to ask them, well what did you have in mind, but I like challenges like that, I mean, if you were to go hand me ten bucks and say “Okay, go write a romantic opera set in Poland in 1540...”

  I've got ten bucks here, Duane...

  Yeah? Well out of sheer perversity, I'd go off and do it. So, I loved that cliffhanger, that you go and figure it out, the trains going off the rails, here you go, so that was great fun and it helped me, it sparked a lot of ideas as to where the series might go. So they were true gents about it and it's a nice hand-off.

  Yeah, because I believe that's the first time you've directly followed on from someone else's run.

  Yeah, well, Cable was too. Cable was coming off “Messiah Complex,” that big crossover, and I had to really nail it where it left off and not contradict anything that came before and that's actually, with Marvel, you often have to be really aware of other books and where stories have left off...

  But I think that's the beautiful thing about Iron Fist. At that point, I imagine you would've been pretty much free editorially?

  Oh, yeah. Pretty much, yeah. I ran a few things by Warren and he was...a great cop, in terms of what The Fist
would do and not do and for where we wanted to go with these things. But for the most part, a lot of freedom and the biggest freedom was telling those “lost” one-shot issues, those “lost” Iron Fist tales and a lot of those started just by joking around, going “Let's do an Iron Fist 2,000 years in the future. And he's a kid.” I love that stuff. I got a chance again to play around with time and space.

  They do seem to be these little nuggets of perhaps the most fun, I don't know if that's the best way to describe it...

  Yeah!

  You seem even more free in those issues to really do whatever you want.

  Totally. And even to this day, I do prefer doing the one-shots and the mini-series to the ongoings. Only because there's often a lot more freedom and it feels a lot more similar to what I do with novels and stories. With ongoing, it's arcs and ramping up and keeping readers interested, and that's fine, but I do have the most fun with the small stuff. I was given a Blade one-shot this summer, it was just fun, like “here's a little piece of the Blade story you should tell,” and I had great fun just...inventing characters to just kill them...and that's, you know, my own perversity I guess...