IRON FIST: HIS FIRST EIGHT ISSUES

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog will examine the first eight issues of Iron Fist’s adventures in 1974 and 1975. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 15 (May 1974) 

Title: The Fury of Iron Fist

Villain: Shu Hu the One

Comment: In the 1970s “Everybody was Kung Fu fight-iiiiing” and Marvel Comics jumped onto the bandwagon with a series of martial arts characters. By this point in 1974 the company had already introduced Shang-Chi the Master of Kung Fu, the female Avenger called Mantis and the Sons of the Tiger. Now would come Iron Fist, real name Daniel Rand, later modified to Daniel Rand-Kai.

Synopsis: The origin story of Iron Fist is told through flashbacks this issue and the next. This story starts with action and THEN delves into the superhero’s origin, a formula I think works best, but I’m not a comic book expert. In the Himalayan Mountains, in the mystical city called K’un-Lun, Iron Fist is battling four opponents under the watchful eyes of K’un-Lun’s ruler Yu-Ti the August Personage of Jade and his subordinate Dragon Kings.  

NOTE: This K’un-Lun is not THE K’un-Lun from Chinese mythology but it uses the same name and many of the inhabitants go by names corresponding to Chinese gods. Yu-Ti is one of them, Lei Kung the Thunderer is another. This K’un-Lun is an enchanted city that appears on Earth only once every ten years before returning to its pocket dimension home for another ten.

Back to the story – Iron Fist defeats his four opponents and, having survived this Challenge of the Many, now asks Yu-Ti for permission to face the Challenge of the One (Shu Hu). Yu-Ti wants Iron Fist to be sure that is what he desires, so he tells him to contemplate the path that has led him to this Day of Days.

Daniel Rand then thinks back to ten years earlier when he was 9 years old and accompanied his father Wendell Rand, mother Heather Rand and his father’s business partner Harold Meachum to the Himalayan Mountains. A decade earlier, Wendell Rand had left his home in K’un-Lun to return to New York City, where he made a fortune in business with Harold Meachum and had also wooed and won his wife Heather. 

Now, Wendell wanted his wife and son to see the glories of K’un-Lun and, needless to say, prove that it really existed. Meachum had come along out of friendship, he claimed. At one point in the freezing cliffs, Danny had nearly fallen to his death, dragging his mother with him, but his father had saved them, only to begin falling himself. He asked Harold Meachum for help but instead, Meachum kicked Wendell loose and he plummeted far below.

Like many villains in fiction, Harold wanted his business partner’s half of the business AND his wife Heather. While a furious Heather threw rocks at Meachum, Harold at last admitted his love for Heather and tried to convince her to cover up his deed and go back to civilization to become his wife, for her son’s sake if not her own.

Heather refused and Danny sided with her. Meachum cheerfully left them to die and headed back down the mountain. Danny and his mother continued on the way toward where their father had indicated K’un-Lun was located. End of flashback, for now.

Back in the present, Iron Fist tells Yu-Ti he is certain he wants to face the Challenge of the One and so that “One”, Shu Hu the Lightning, emerges to fight Daniel. After a while, the battle seems to be going thoroughly against Iron Fist and some of the Dragon Kings assume that our hero will lose and will face the fate of all who lose the Challenge of the One: banishment into the Himalayan snows when K’un-Lun again materialized on Earth, a day fast approaching. 

As the battle continues, Daniel flashes back again – cold and hungry, he and his mother dragged themselves onward for days until, at last, the Bridge of Destiny leading to K’un-Lun was there ahead of them. The Wolves of K’un-Lun had gotten loose in the snows upon materialization and unfortunately they now caught the scent of Danny and Heather.

Heather sacrificed herself fighting the wolves alone to give her child time to cross the bridge. He looked back to see her torn to pieces until archers from within K’un-Lun arrived to kill the wolves, then welcomed the newly orphaned child to the enchanted city. End of flashback for this issue.

Back in the present, despite the beating he’s been taking from Shu Hu the One, our hero manages to ignore the pain and increase his concentration to the point where he unleashes the power of the Iron Fist, his namesake, into his right hand. It glows with that power and he uses it to finish off Shu Hu, revealing it to be merely an android in human form used to test warriors.

The bloodied but unbowed Iron Fist now demands of Yu-Ti and his subordinates the right to make his choice. Yu-Ti tells him that yes, he has won the Challenge of the Many and the Challenge of the One and may now choose eternal life by eating of the Tree of Immortality … or choose death.

NOTE: As this opening story of Iron Fist ends, a note indicates it is dedicated to the memory of the Golden Age comics creator Bill Everett “a most amazing man” the dedication calls him. That line is a clear homage to Everett’s character Amazing Man, who, like many other Golden Age superheroes, gained extraordinary abilities in the Himalayas.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #16 (July 1974)

Title: Heart of the Dragon

Villain: The Scythe

Synopsis: Once again we start with action which will be followed by flashbacks to complete Iron Fist’s origin story. It is an unknown amount of time after the previous issue ended. Iron Fist is walking the night-darkened streets of New York City in search of Harold Meachum so he can kill him to avenge his father and mother.

Four hired killers lure Daniel into an alleyway and state they are planning to collect the bounty that Meachum has put on Iron Fist’s head, dead or alive. The battle goes along for a time, and as it continues our hero flashes back again.

Daniel was raised in K’un-Lun and was taught the martial arts by Lei Kung the Thunderer. He excelled as a student and at age 16 he was swift enough to pass the Test of the Serpent, striking with his hand more swiftly than the snake could move. He wanted still more, however, because he wanted revenge on Harold Meachum. End flashback for now.

Back in the present day, Iron Fist defeats all his attackers, then ponders the price on his head.

Now comes another flashback to how, after he passed the Test of the Serpent, Lei Kung continued his training, getting him to toughen his hands with the usual way familiar to martial arts fans – he would plunge his hands into tubs of sand over and over again, to develop calluses, then move on to tubs of gravel to do the same and finally to tubs of rocks.

Daniel still wanted even more skills and abilities, so Yu-Ti granted him the opportunity to risk death in pursuit of the power of the Iron Fist. Daniel went to the lair of the full-sized dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, who breathed fire and moved like a snake. The dragon had a mystical, dragon-shaped scar on its midsection where its heart had been cut out long ago and stored in a brazier deep within its cave.

NOTE: Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may be familiar with the common mythic theme of a being’s heart being removed and stored elsewhere, making it impossible to truly kill unless the heart is found and destroyed.

Our hero was familiar with the ritual of the Iron Fist and knew what he had to do. After a lengthy battle spent dodging Shou-Lao’s fiery breath and his serpent-like thrusts he had to squeeze the dragon’s midsection to his chest, blocking the dragon-scar on the creature to cut off its power long enough for it to fall unconscious.

Daniel endured the unimaginable pain, cutting off the mystically transmitted power from the dragon’s heart long enough for it to collapse in defeat, but branding the shape of the dragon’s scar into his own chest. Proceeding further into its cave he came upon the brazier in which burned Shou-Lao’s fiery heart.

Like martial artists toughening their hands by plunging them repeatedly into sand or gravel or rocks, Daniel plunged his hands into the scorching-hot heart of the dragon, thus gaining the power of the Iron Fist. Not to mention a fancy costume and mask like many other residents of K’un-Lun. End of flashbacks for now.

Back in the present, Iron Fist continues searching for leads to Harold Meachum that night in New York. He comes upon a costumed martial arts supervillain calling himself the Scythe, who boasts that HE will be the one to collect the bounty on Iron Fist.

This villain wields a Japanese kusari-gama, a sort of “ball and scythe” similar to a ball and chain in concept: an iron ball on one end and a chain connecting it to a scythe. After a battle royal it looks like the Scythe is gaining the upper hand, triggering another flashback on Iron Fist’s part.

This final flashback picks up where last issue ended – with Yu-Ti granting our hero a choice between eternal life by eating of the Tree of Immortality or death, by choosing to leave K’un-Lun, never to return. Iron Fist says he chooses to leave K’un-Lun to avenge himself on Harold Meachum, even though it means he will remain mortal and die someday.

Yu-Ti exhausts the usual anti-revenge arguments against Daniel, who at length loses patience with Yu-Ti and snaps at him about how the August Personage of Jade couldn’t possibly understand how he feels about his father Wendell Rand’s murder. Yu-Ti pops a surprise on our hero, telling him that he DOES understand, because Wendell Rand … was his brother.

Though stunned by this admission, Iron Fist still leaves K’un-Lun for good the next day, the one day every ten years that the city materializes on Earth. Daniel was 9 when he entered the city, now he is 19 and sets out on his quest for vengeance.

Back to the present day, Iron Fist fights on against the Scythe, ultimately using all his skill and iron-fisted powers to defeat the mercenary killer. The villain loses all his bravado now, beaten and with his weapon destroyed. 

In a panic he answers Iron Fist’s questions about where he can find Harold Meachum. The Scythe points to Meachum Tower, formerly Rand-Meachum Tower, and our hero stalks off toward it, relishing his impending revenge. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #17 (September 1974)

Title: Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance

Villains: Harold Meachum and the Ninja

Synopsis: Iron Fist storms through the ground floor doors of the Meachum Building, which has plenty of people in the lobby even though we were told last issue that it’s nighttime. (Well, New York IS the city that never sleeps.) In tried-and-true martial arts movie “gauntlet” fashion, our hero must fight his way to Meachum’s penthouse/ office on the 24th floor. 

Iron Fist overcomes assorted high-tech death-traps and automated machine guns, etc as he ascends from level to level. He ultimately has to survive gun-wielding goons, acid, toxic gasses, trap-doors, you name it. Just outside Harold Meachum’s office door, a security camera which is really a laser-gun shoots at our hero, but he is helped by the sudden appearance and disappearance of a supervillain in a Ninja costume, a villain we will eventually learn is, in fact, called the Ninja.

The Ninja blinded the laser weapon with one of his Ninja Stars, then Iron Fist destroyed the weapon itself, though puzzled about the “hit and run” Ninja. He at last knocks his way into the office ahead of him, only to see that this was all a trap. Inside the phony “office” is a costumed martial arts villain calling himself Triple-Iron (above right) for the armor and triple-nun-chucks he wields. Triple-Iron says he’s been paid well to kill Iron Fist. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #18 (October 1974)

Title: Lair Of Shattered Vengeance

Villains: Triple-Iron and the Ninja

NOTE: Marvel Premiere is now published monthly instead of bi-monthly.

Synopsis: As their battle begins, Triple-Iron informs Daniel that he has been imprisoned in this cell/ death-trap for several years, with Harold Meachum offering him his freedom ONLY after he would kill Daniel Rand, whom Meachum lived in fear of, lest he come looking for him.

We see that the exoskeletal armor worn by the incredibly tall villain AND the high-tech walls of the room serve to electronically charge his triple-nun-chucks, electrocuting Iron Fist to a certain degree with the merest graze of his weapon as they fight. The battle goes on and on, until the Ninja teleports into the room, throws a Ninja Star to indicate which part of the wall can be used to escape into another room, then teleports away again.

The puzzled Iron Fist bursts through the wall in the place indicated by the thrown shuriken and discovers the control center from which Harold Meachum oversaw the use of all the death-traps he faced last issue. Meachum is no longer in the room and the battle between Daniel and Triple-Iron continues.

At length Iron Fist uses wires to electrocute his opponent, short-circuiting his armor and triple-nun-chucks, plus rendering the villain unconscious. A doorway to another room now opens and our hero enters cautiously, to see a robed Harold Meachum sitting behind a desk. 

Iron Fist enters the room, intent on killing Meachum, but is stunned to see that both of Harold’s legs have been amputated just above the knee. He also seems to have aged thirty years even though only ten have gone by since he last saw the man. Meachum relates what happened after he left Daniel and his mother Heather to die in the snows of the Himalayas.

He became lost and nearly died in the freezing wind and snow, but came to in a village near Katmandu, being cared for by an old man and his daughter. He was horrified to see that they had been forced to amputate his legs before frostbite moved any further up his body.

Meachum had to wait in that village until a sledded cart could reach there from civilization, and while waiting a Tibetan monk called Da Tempa visited his saviors. The monk rejoiced to report that K’un-Lun really did exist, for he had seen it and had seen an American boy whose father was taken by the mountains and whose mother died at the hands of the Wolves of K’un-Lun.

Yu-Ti himself told the monk he had visions that one day the boy might be one of the enchanted city’s greatest warriors, possibly even gaining the power of the Iron Fist. After that, even when he had been able to return to America and change Rand-Meachum Industries into just Meachum Industries, Harold was obsessed with fears that Daniel would leave K’un-Lun ten years down the road when the city again materialized for a day. And would come to kill him.

The anxiety and fear wreaked havoc on his health, aging him prematurely and causing him to imprison Triple-Iron and make Meachum Tower into a 24-story death-trap out of his fear of Daniel. Now, seeing that it was all in vain and that Iron Fist has gotten past all his traps and mercenaries, he resigns himself and says he welcomes death.

Our hero struggles to rekindle the hatred he has felt for this man for ten long years, but finds he cannot. He just feels pity at the trembling wreck of a human being before him and resolves to just walk away and leave Meachum to the slow death he left him and his mother to. Harold at first begs Iron Fist to come back and put him out of his misery, then, seeing that he won’t, despairingly pulls a gun from his desk drawer and tries to shoot Daniel in the back.

The Ninja appears again and ruins Meachum’s aim enough so that the bullet just grazes Iron Fist’s skull, knocking him out for a moment. He is awakened by the screams of Harold Meachum, and he goes back to the man’s office, only to find him dead with the Ninja’s sword thrust through his belly and a huge hole in the wall behind him.

Iron Fist stands contemplating the dead man and the strange turn of events which made him first long to kill him, then negate his 10-year quest for vengeance by sparing him, only to see him slain by another person. Just then Joy Meachum, Harold’s adult daughter, enters the office from a door on the opposite side from where Iron Fist entered.

Seeing Daniel standing there and her father dead, she assumes Iron Fist killed him and refuses to listen to his claims that he didn’t do it. In tears she damns our hero for the way her father feared that a strange man like him would find and kill him for 10 hellish years.

As Daniel turns and leaves, Joy Meachum continues screaming at him that she’ll spend the rest of her life if she needs to in order to get revenge on him. That she’ll hire a thousand killers if she has to, until the day she sees our hero crawling on the floor begging to die. Iron Fist keeps walking, no doubt reflecting on Yu-Ti’s warning about the destructive nature of revenge. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #19 (November 1974)

Title: Death-Cult

Villains: The Cult of Kara-Kai, the Ninja and Meachum Assassins

Synopsis: Iron Fist exits Meachum Tower via the ground floor doors, pondering his next move, alone and friendless in a country he hasn’t really seen since he was 9 years old. A beautiful Eurasian woman named Colleen Wing (FIRST APPEARANCE) approaches him in the rain. After telling him that her father, Professor Lee Wing, knows about K’un-Lun and even predicted her finding Iron Fist leaving Meachum Tower at this time, our hero agrees to get in a cab with her and go to meet her father.

Meanwhile, Joy Meachum informs her Uncle Ward Meachum that the mysterious Iron Fist her father had feared for years has murdered him with a sword. Ward, an amoral scumbag like his dead brother, is grateful to have Harold out of the way but assures Joy that together he and his niece will destroy Iron Fist. 

Back with Daniel and Colleen, two members of what we will soon learn is the Cult of Kara-Kai try to kill them with their ceremonial blades before they can reach Professor Wing but Iron Fist defeats them, of course. Colleen introduces Iron Fist and her father to each other and then leaves them alone to talk.

Professor Wing tells Daniel about his lengthy career studying the Far East and details an archaeological dig years earlier in Northern India, where he unearthed an ancient tome called The Book of Many Things. The Indian scholars working with him warned him about the book, telling him that among its dark secrets was a way of destroying the legendary city of K’un-Lun itself.

They also warned him that a death-cult called the Cult of Kara-Kai would seek the book and would kill whoever had found it. Since then, after surviving attempts by the cult to take his life, the professor met the Tibetan Monk called Da Tempa.

Da Tempa had been spending all his time since visiting K’un-Lun spreading the word in India, Nepal and part of China about how the enchanted city really did exist, but few believed him. Professor Wing was one of those people who believed him AND believed his story about a young American boy whom Yu-Ti had foreseen might gain the power of the Iron Fist.   

The professor wraps up by telling Iron Fist he wants to hire him as a research aide regarding K’un-Lun AND as a bodyguard against the Cult of Kara-Kai until they can translate and decide what to do with The Book of Many Things. Our hero explains to Professor Wing about how Joy Meachum thinks he killed her father.

Wing tells Daniel to try talking to Joy by phone to see if he can persuade her that he is innocent. Iron Fist gives it a try and the nefarious Joy pretends she is willing to talk, but face to face. She sets up a meeting with our hero at an abandoned arcade, then tells her Uncle Ward to send a small army of assassins to kill Iron Fist at the arcade.

Naturally a huge battle is waged at that site between our hero and the Meachum assassins. Iron Fist defeats all but three of them, simply rendering them unconscious, not killing them. However, the Ninja appears again, slaying the last three assassins with his sword, so the Meachums will be even more convinced that Iron Fist was the sword-wielding man who murdered Harold.

The Ninja stands over the dead bodies, refusing to answer our hero’s questions and tosses him a newspaper with a headline naming him the killer of Harold Meachum.  

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #20 (January 1975)

Title: Batroc And Other Assassins

Villains: Batroc and the Cult of Kara-Kai

Comment: Iron Fist got well and truly integrated into the Marvel Comics universe with this battle against Captain America’s frequent supervillain Batroc the Leaper.

Synopsis: It’s another day later and Iron Fist is involved in a battle against four or five members of the Cult of Kara-Kai who have come to try killing Professor Wing again so they can steal The Book of Many Things. That mystic tome includes arcane information about how to destroy the enchanted city of K’un-Lun. Our hero defeats all the cultists.

Iron Fist grows annoyed with the Professor’s flippant attitude toward the murder attempts and informs Colleen about how her father claims the Cult has tried to kill him over 40 times in the years since he started trying to translate The Book of Many Things. Colleen tells her father that she has agreed to guard him alone while her partner Misty Knight runs their business herself for a while longer.

Colleen wants to give Iron Fist time to track down the Ninja and try to prove that he killed Harold Meachum. Instead, the next morning our hero naively goes to Meachum Tower to talk to Joy again. He uses all his stealth abilities to ascend all 24 floors to reach her in her new office from which she helps run her late father’s empire Meachum Industries.

After another bitter and acrimonious exchange between Joy and Iron Fist, her Uncle Ward enters with their new mercenary hire: Batroc. A clash between Iron Fist’s kung fu and Batroc’s French kick-boxing unfolds.

Eventually, Daniel emerges victorious, even breaking Batroc’s arm (or dislocating his shoulder – this issue and next contradict each other on what injury he inflicted on the villain). The Frenchman calls in his subordinate mercenaries, Batroc’s Brigade, to kill Iron Fist.

As the fighting drags on and on, Daniel knocks out several of his dozens of attackers, but at one point he is nearly killed from behind only to have the Ninja appear again and kill that member of Batroc’s Brigade. From that point on in the action the Ninja fights at Iron Fist’s side, slaughtering men as usual and ignoring our hero’s demands that he let him handle the battle himself.

The wounded Batroc enters the fight on behalf of his men and attacks the Ninja, disgusted by the way the figure is butchering the Brigade. Iron Fist takes it upon himself to end the slaughter by swiftly knocking out Batroc and his remaining 11 men.

Once again, Daniel demands answers from the Ninja, but he remains silent as he teleports Iron Fist and himself several streets away. Our hero tries to fight him but the Ninja teleports away again before that can happen.

We readers see that the Ninja has returned to Professor Wing’s study, where The Book of Many Things is laid out. The Ninja’s form dissipates and reenters the book, leaving behind its human host … Professor Wing himself.   

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #21 (March 1975)

Title: Daughters of the Death Goddess

Villains: Shaya and Ushas & their Cult of Kara Kai

Synopsis: Batroc and his surviving men have regained consciousness and are being forced to argue with Ward Meachum and his niece Joy over their fee. The Meachums are offering them only a fraction of what they hired them for, insisting that the negotiated fee was for Iron Fist’s death, which they failed to deliver.

Furthermore, Ward reminds Batroc that he and his men are wanted criminals in the U.S. and should be grateful for ANY amount. Batroc expresses contempt that the Meachums are tastelessly haggling when some of his men died at the hands of the Ninja who fought at Iron Fist’s side. (At last getting into the public record that the Ninja exists and uses a sword in his killings.)

Batroc and his men leave in disgust and Ward Meachum thinks to himself that he doesn’t believe Iron Fist killed his brother Harold but he has his own secret (for now) reasons for wanting Daniel Rand dead.

Elsewhere, Iron Fist has returned to Colleen and Professor Wing’s home only to find the place a shambles and 7 dead members of the Cult of Kara-Kai lying on the floor. Daniel assumes that the rest of the cultists who attacked must have abducted Colleen and the Professor.

Before he can leave to try tracking them down, he is attacked from behind by Colleen’s previously mentioned business partner, Misty Knight, who thinks he’s the one who abducted the Wings and killed the cultists.

NOTE: This is Misty Knight’s first REAL appearance. Years later, Marvel Comics decided to retcon things to make her the unnamed woman that Spider-Man and the Human Torch saved from a mugging in Marvel Team-Up number 1. Misty is black and has a bionic arm and we soon learn that the business she runs with Colleen is an investigative and security firm.

It’s kind of a “love at first sight” thing for Iron Fist, who, while he and Misty fight, thinks to himself about how women in K’un-Lun were never taught the martial arts and he finds this beautiful woman who DOES know them fascinating. (Remember, he hasn’t happened to see Colleen Wing use martial arts yet.)

For her part, Misty sarcastically calls Iron Fist “Zorro” because of his mask and ultimately he realizes that this fight is wasting precious time that would be better spent tracking down the Wings. He renders Misty unconscious and makes a mental note to look her up later.

As Daniel contemplates how to find Colleen and the Professor, the Ninja appears in ghostly form and wordlessly indicates to Iron Fist that he should follow him. Our hero doesn’t trust the Ninja of course, but, since that Ninja is presumably the slayer of the dead cultists, figures he’s the best lead he has at present.

The Ninja leads Iron Fist along back alleys and down into the subway tunnels. He further leads him along the tracks to certain long-abandoned or disused subway tunnels, wherein he discovers the Cult of Kara-Kai’s Temple of Kali. Colleen and Professor Wing are chained to an enormous statue of the goddess Kali at the center of the temple.

Iron Fist is jumped by more members of the Cult of Kara-Kai and defeats them, only to wind up in battle with two martial arts super-villainesses calling themselves Shaya the shade and Ushas, favored of the sun. They claim to be daughters of Kali but Daniel expresses skepticism.

Shaya and Ushas tell Iron Fist that the professor must die because he stole their cult’s most precious book, the long-lost tome which they call the Sacred Volume of Kali instead of The Book of Many Things. The women show Daniel that they have taken possession of the book in question.

The Professor/ the Ninja lies, shouting to Iron Fist that it is Ushas and Shaya who are lying. Hoping to get Daniel to take action and recover the book, he claims they want that book in order to destroy K’un-Lun. The Daughters of the Goddess insist they have never heard of K’un-Lun but WILL destroy it if it turns out to pose a threat to their cult.

Iron Fist insists that, though he can never return to K’un-Lun he will always fight to protect it and attacks the two women. Shaya unfurls her Cloak of Darkness, plunging the temple into complete darkness. Soon, Daniel can briefly and periodically make out the glowing nun-chucks wielded by Ushas. 

Unable to use his powers in the utter darkness, Iron Fist is getting his butt kicked by Shaya and Ushas until, the Professor – whom neither Daniel nor Colleen yet suspect is the host for the Ninja – tells the fighting Iron Fist to follow his voice to where he and Colleen are, so that he can shatter their chains and Colleen (but really HIM) can join the fight.

Still doing what he can to survive attacks from the ladies and their cultists, Daniel makes his way to the base of the Kali statue and uses his Iron Fist powers to shatter the chains, but inadvertently used too much power, causing the statue to start to topple over, threatening to crush all our characters, both heroes AND villains.

Ushas funnels all her solar energy into her nun-chuks for one colossal blow against the falling statue, shattering it into little pieces in order to save her, Shaya and their followers … and incidentally our hero and company. Shaya is forced to drop her cloak of darkness to care for her spent sister Ushas. Meanwhile Iron Fist and Colleen Wing battle the cultists, and Daniel is once again surprised to see a woman – in this case Colleen – using martial arts.

A member of the Cult of Kara-Kai grabs Professor Wing from behind and threatens to cut his throat unless Iron Fist and Colleen surrender. The Ninja is forced to abandon his secret under the circumstances and he transforms the Professor’s body into his Ninja form to slay the cultist threatening to kill him.

As Daniel and Colleen gape in shock at the revelation that the Professor is the Ninja, that Ninja slaughters more cultists while demanding they return the stolen book to him. In the blood-letting he accidentally kills the cultist holding the book, causing the man to accidentally drop the book into a burning brazier.

At first the Ninja panics at seeing the book burning, apparently assuming the book’s destruction would eliminate HIM as well. But as the book’s destruction does nothing but separate his body from that of the Professor, who slumps unconscious to the floor, the villain marvels at the fact that he is still alive.

Next he realizes that when the Dragon Kings of K’un-Lun imprisoned him in The Book of Many Things he had always assumed (or was outrightly lied to, Marvel retconned back and forth on that) that his continued existence was bound to the well-being of the book itself. Ironically, he has been guarding and preserving his own prison for centuries.

The Ninja bitterly vows that that is one more debt he owes K’un-Lun, which he plans to wage war upon by first killing Iron Fist, whom he calls “the shining hope of that thrice-damned city.” He knocks down our hero while he is still fighting cultists and stands over him with his sword, about to deliver the death-strike. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #22 (June 1975)

Title: Death is a Ninja

Villains: The Ninja and the Cult of Kara-Kai

Synopsis: Iron Fist manages to save himself from the Ninja’s death-strike, and as the two continue fighting each other, they find they must also battle the Cult of Kara-Kai, whose members have begun attacking them again.

While Colleen Wing defends her still-unconscious father from the cultists, the chaos continues, with the Ninja as usual slaughtering every opponent he can. Presently a score or more NYPD officers rush into the temple, saying that another officer spotted Iron Fist entering the subway tunnels earlier and called it in. Since Daniel is still wanted for Wendell Meachum’s murder AND has proven to be super-powered the cops decided to raid the place en masse.

Ushas and Shaya abandon their followers, and after killing a cop or two those followers who are able to also disperse into the deeper tunnels in this abandoned section of subway in order to escape. The cops also try to arrest Iron Fist but Colleen and the now-conscious Professor Wing try to tell them that the Ninja is the real murderer of Harold Meachum.

The Ninja, really feeling his oats at having a corporeal body again for the first time in hundreds of years, gleefully admits to the murder in front of all the cops. Next, the Ninja teleports himself and Iron Fist away, to finish their battle undisturbed.

It turns out that the villain has teleported the two of them into a pocket dimension that he says was created just for him by the ancient Chinese sorceror he serves – Master Khan. There is no gravity in this realm, putting Iron Fist at a distinct disadvantage at first.

NOTE: For fans of martial arts movies, picture this as playing out like the frequent battles of two opponents who take their battle high into the air to have at each other. It’s depicted sort of like that.

The Ninja at length delivers a blow which he believes has killed Daniel, then goes into full-blown Villain Rant Mode, screaming his hatred at Yu-Ti and the Dragon Kings that that blow was not just the death-knell of “a callow youth, but the death-knell of K’un-Lun as well.”

The villain reflects on his origin as a samurai in Japan long ago. His bloodlust eventually made his formerly honored name tainted as his pointless cruelty grew. Soon he was even slaying fellow samurai and was cast from their ranks.

His flight from Japan led him into contact with the Chinese figure known as Master Khan, the self-proclaimed oldest of all wizards. Master Khan tutored the former samurai in the arts of the ninja, including dark mystic powers that most ninja never mastered.

Among the books that Master Khan gave him to study was The Book of Many Things. In that tome he learned of the enchanted city of K’un-Lun and of magical ways of entering the city in its home dimension at times OTHER THAN the one day per decade that it materialized on Earth.

Master Khan taught him that K’un-Lun posed a threat to his own future plans, so, to please his master (or sent there at Master Khan’s command – Marvel retconned it back and forth over the years) the Ninja invaded K’un-Lun in its home dimension. He nearly succeeded in defeating all its warriors and destroying the city itself, but Lei Kung and Yu-Ti managed to defeat him.

The Ninja was bound in iron chains, which negate the kind of sorcery he had learned from Master Khan (explaining why he had to use his astral form to lure Iron Fist to the Temple of Kali to save him and Colleen Wing, his host body the professor was bound by iron chains). Yu-Ti and the Dragon Kings sentenced the Ninja to have his physical form stripped away and his spirit imprisoned in The Book of Many Things.  

Hundreds of years went by, then a pair of thieves managed to enter K’un-Lun on the one day every ten years in which it appears on Earth and stole the book. The Ninja states his mystic powers had refined themselves in some ways during his existence in pure spirit form and he was able to mentally control one robber and get him to kill the other.

He then forced that thief to give The Book of Many Things to the Cult of Kara-Kai, who were said to be led by actual goddesses, hoping that those goddesses would detect his presence in the book and free him. Unfortunately the leaders of the cult were not really goddesses but were just as human as Shaya and Ushas in the present day.

The foolish leaders of the cult renamed the book The Sacred Volume of Kali and failed to even understand most of the book. It was placed on an altar in a temple to Kali and only her alleged “daughters” were allowed to touch it.

The Ninja tried exercising his powers through the book again, but inadvertently unleashed earthquakes in his anger, causing the temple to be buried under tons of rock and soil for roughly 150 years. It was then excavated by Professor Lee Wing, who found and set about translating the book. Over time the Ninja’s spirit was able to possess the Professor without his knowledge and use his magic and fighting ability to kill all members of the Cult of Kara-Kai who tried to slay him and take back the book.

NOTE: So THAT is how the professor was able to survive over 40 attempts on his life by the cult over the years. The Ninja would manifest in Lee Wing’s body and kill the attackers. He guarded the professor and The Book of Many Things, hoping one day the professor’s translations would prompt him to recite aloud spells that would free him from his imprisonment.

And so, with all mysteries solved, Iron Fist stops playing possum and rises to fight the Ninja again, now that he has the answers he needed. Another epic battle takes place between them right there in the Zero-Gravity dimension and ultimately our hero prevails, destroying the Ninja and, since he was the sole reason for this dimension’s existence, it dissipated and Iron Fist was teleported back to the subway/ Temple of Kali back in New York City.

Colleen, Professor Wing and the police inform him he’s being cleared of Harold Meachum’s murder and can stay with the Wings until he decides what he wants to do with his life. Accepting this offer, he temporarily removes his Iron Fist mask after the police leave, showing us readers the face of the adult Daniel Rand for the first time in the series. He’s still blonde, of course, like he was as a child, but this face-reveal is symbolic.   

NOTE: Master Khan (above right) would become one of THE biggest recurring foes for Iron Fist over the years, even during the time when he and Luke Cage/ Powerman were a team of heroes for hire. Like Groot, Doctor Druid, Xemnu and others, Master Khan was a figure from Marvel’s 1960 horror comics before they got back into publishing superhero stories in the summer of 1961 with the Fantastic Four.

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