This weekend’s belated superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at this Iron Fist adventure serialized in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. It was penned by Chris Claremont and though it features his X-Men foes the Demons of the N’Garai and a woman called the Firebird whose schtick resembles his later retcons to the Phoenix Force, the story ultimately sucks and is an incoherent mess.
It has the same charm to its awfulness as a bad movie does, so it’s enjoyable on that level.
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #19 (Dec 1975)
Title: Shall I Love the Bird of Fire?
Villain: Dhasha Khan
Synopsis: Danny Rand (Iron Fist) is out at night in New York City. He sits contemplating the fact that this was his 20th birthday but he concealed that information from Colleen Wing and her father Lee. He reflects on his life up to this point and how he still doesn’t feel at home outside of K’un-Lun.
Suddenly he hears a woman screaming. He investigates and sees that a long line of attackers are preparing to gang-rape a beautiful young woman they’ve already stripped naked. Our hero takes on the would-be gang-bangers and knocks out all of them.
He then tries to comfort the woman but she panics at the sight of the dragon on his chest and mistakenly believes him to be an agent of a figure called Dhasha Khan, ruler of Feng-Tu, the afterlife for people who die in K’un-Lun – the mystic city where Iron Fist was trained – and its vicinity.
Iron Fist calms her down and gets her to the home of Colleen and Professor Wing, where the woman – called Jade the Firebird – starts to tell her story. (After Colleen and her father stop their recurring argument about him wanting her to stop the dangerous work she does alongside Misty Knight.) She only gets as far as stating that she was sent to find the wielder of the Iron Fist because he is needed.
Before she can continue, two Messengers Who Seize Souls (Kou-Hun-Shih-Cheh) enter the Wings’ home. They are called Ma-Mien the White Ox and Niu T’ou the Black, and they say Dhasha Khan has sent them to take Jade back to Feng-Tu where her soul will be fed to the Soul Slayer.
Iron Fist attacks the pair, joined by Colleen, who is swiftly defeated. Our hero continues fighting the Messengers and when he uses the power of the Iron Fist to finish them off, that somehow causes him and Jade to be transported from Earth to Feng-Tu. They are in the throne room of Dhasha Khan (right), who affirms that he is the ruler of this afterlife and states that he plans to strip Jade of her soul and have it damned forever.
Iron Fist declares his intention to defend her and serve as her champion against the Soul Slayer. Dhasha Khan uses his mystical powers to blind Iron Fist, then sics his throne room guardsmen on him. Continue reading
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #25 (Oct 1975) 
THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU SPECIAL Vol 1 #1 (June 1974)
Synopsis: Storywise, this tale features three separate sections as Iron Fist, the Sons of the Tiger and Shang-Chi the Master of Kung Fu go up against Fu Manchu in three separate stages of his “master plan.” 
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 15 (May 1974) 
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.
POWER MAN Vol 1 #48 (December 1977) 
Shades (at right) and Comanche, escaped cons who served time at Seagate Prison with Luke Cage back when he went by his real name Carl Lucas, were sent by Bushmaster to abduct Power Man’s girlfriend Dr. Claire Temple and her colleague Dr. Noah Burstein. They have done so and, per Bushmaster’s orders, they give Luke Cage/ Carl Lucas their boss’s ultimatum. 
They make it clear to Power Man that to gain the release of those two doctors he has been close to for years, he must capture and deliver to Bushmaster one of his foes, private investigator Misty Knight. The villain doesn’t just send Shades and Comanche (at left) to abduct her because Misty’s associates, her investigative partner Colleen Wing and the superhero Iron Fist, stand beside her. 
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 15 (May 1974) 
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