In honor of his brand new Netflix series, I thought it should only be fair that this week I write up a post on Danny Rand, aka The Iron Fist.
So the Iron Fist is now the fourth Marvel character that has been given their own thirteen episode Netflix series. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, all starred in some of he best Netflix shows of all time, hands down. Iron Fist, although may not hold up to the standard set by the pervious three, it does introduce my personal favorite protagonist in Danny Rand.
The Iron Fist was created in the sixties during the big Kung Fu craze in the US. His back story is pretty straightforward. He crashed somewhere in the Himalayas as a kid, is taken in by monks to live in the city of K’un L’un which happens to be in another dimension, where he grows up learning Kung Fu, until he ultimately fights a dragon, puts his fist into the dragon’s still beating heart and learns magic Kung Fu where he can channel his Chi into his fist, making it unbreakable. So nothing complicated about that. And eventually he makes his way back to the rest of the world where I may have forgotten to mentioned, he is worth millions and is the sole inheritor of Rand Industries. He then takes to the streets to fight against the evil shadow organization called the Hand.
His costume and look is rather straightforward as well. He wears baggy, monk like yellow pants, a yellow and green bandana, no shirt which exposes his most recognizable feature, the dragon tattoo that covers his entire chest. He is not a rather mainstream character, so it only seems normal that he would not have any note worthy villains, besides the Hand as a whole.
Danny Rand is one of my favorite characters, because ultimately he is a good, kind man, that just wants to help everyone as much as he can. He doesn’t have a death wish, or a messiah complex. And although he did go through some trauma as a child, he isn’t dictated by it. He’s a happy, functional human being, that also happens to have magic Kung Fu powers.
However, recently Marvel has been subjected to a lot of criticism due to the casting of Iron Fist. Many complained that they cast a white guy as the role of Danny Rand. There was some back lash about Marvel whitewashing Kung Fu and creating another white savior figure. Many of these activists cried out saying that they shouldn’t be perverting the character in this way. One key fact that they did not know was that Danny Rand has always been a white guy, ever since he was created. He is basically a blond haired, surfer dude, that learned Kung Fu in the sixties. And while I’m not opposed to the idea of an asian Iron Fist, I thought it was funny that people didn’t do their due diligence and google the Iron Fist.
Any who, Danny Rand is a great character and I personally really enjoyed his series that released last Friday, called The Iron Fist.