Post Sixty-Two: Iron Fist

You know, I've always thought Iron Fist was a great character. Since I don't really know too much about his history, I think my perception of him comes down to the fact that he has a pretty cool costume:

However, back during my first run on collecting comic books, Marvel killed him off in the last issue of the second Power Man & Iron Fist series, issue #125 I believe. Iron Fist was put in the position of being forced to use his chi to save a kid dying of cancer until Captain Marvel's wristbands (or a facsimile thereof) could be strapped on the kid's arms. While it appeared to be successful, expending so much of his chi knocked him out cold. It was actually quite poignant. {sniff!}

But wouldn't you know it? The little kid wakes up in pain, and out of desperation changes to his "Captain Hero" alter ego. He then proceeds to beat Iron Fist to death in some kind of attempt to wake him up. How's that for gratitude? That little shit.

Well, due to events that I didn't really know about at the time, Power Man had to make tracks because it looked like he was going to be accused of killing Iron Fist. So the final issue left him walking away to roam the earth like Jules in Pulp Fiction.

Fast forward to today's Marvel Universe. Well, I just came to learn that it was none other than Iron Fist who has been impersonating Daredevil while Matt Murdock was locked up with the Punisher on Rikers. Having been under the impression that Iron Fist was, in fact, dead, I quickly consulted Wiki to find out just what I'd missed in the last 15 years. Here's what I found:

The storyline [of Iron Fist's death] would not be resolved until years later, in the 1990s in Namor. Rand apparently returned from the dead, but was revealed instead to be the Super-Skrull, who admitted that he had been Captain Hero, and that the plot to destroy Rand and Cage's lives had been masterminded by Master Khan. It was also discovered that the "Iron Fist" that had died was actually a doppelgänger created by the H'ylthri. Rand had, in fact, been kidnapped and replaced by the H'ylthri just after he had left K'un L'un for the last time.

I have to say that this is one hell of a job ret-conning a character's death. And by that I mean complete bullshit. I know, it's kind of stupid to get worked up about a ret-con job, but come on: is this the best they could friggn' do?

I'm going to have to agree with my brother: I'm glad I skipped out on Marvel's 90s.