“You’re the Worst Iron Fist Ever”: Five Reasons Not to Watch Marvel’s Iron Fist

The final Defender in Marvel’s Netflix series, Danny Rand, premiered in his own series, Iron Fist, in March of this year. Danny is a martial artist who has the Iron Fist, or the ability to turn his fist glowy yellow and use it to punch through walls. Together with his new friend/love interest Colleen Wing and series fan favorites like Claire Temple, he takes on Madame Gao and the Hand. The Hand were the villains of Daredevil, the sole Marvel Netflix property that I did not finish because the grimdark racism of it was not my cup of tea. But Iron Fist promised to be at least tangentially about Asian culture and was sure to feature at least one Asian character in Colleen, so I decided to watch it anyway.

That was a mistake.

Don’t watch this. (via imdb)

Iron Fist was an incredibly slow slog in which I wasted thirteen hours of my life on cultural appropriation, Asian erasure, manpain, and drugs, and I would not recommend it. But if you want a longer opinion, below are the five main reasons Iron Fist was not great. Spoilers for the entire series follow.

Trailer Tuesdays: Marvel’s Iron Fist

Saika and I just finished Luke Cage, the third Netflix installment of Marvel’s four-part NYC superhero adventure. Luke, along with Jessica Jones, Matt Murdock, and some guy called Daniel Rand are supposed to make up The Defenders, a group of superheroes who will be showcased in a later Netflix miniseries. I thoroughly enjoyed Jessica Jones, but I gave up on Daredevil a few episodes in thanks to its relentless grimdarkness and racism, so I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy the last Defender. “Who even is Daniel Rand?” I asked Saika.

“Oh, he’s Iron Fist, he knows martial arts and stuff,” she told me.

“Oh, cool!” I said. “So they cast an Asian guy finally!”

“They got fucking Loras Tyrell to play him,” she said. “So… not really.”

As you might imagine, I watched the newly dropped Iron Fist trailer with some trepidation.

Magical Mondays: Appropriating Myth and Magic

Much ado has been made in the last few days about Tilda Swinton being in talks for the Doctor Strange movie, making her the second surreally-visaged actor to potentially claim a role in said film. At first blush, this could be cool; Tilda Swinton is weird and wonderful, she’d be a welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Except for one thing: she’s apparently set to play Doc Strange’s mentor, the Ancient One—a traditionally Tibetan (and male) role. While on one hand, it’s nice to see that Marvel is finally thinking out of the box in regards to casting, it’s also pretty dang racist to whitewash a role that’s traditionally filled by a person of color.

If they gotta cast a white person why not cast Tilda as Strange? Get B.Cumbs out of my MCU…

This leads me to ask: when should a character not have a certain set of powers? Are there certain kinds of magic that are tied enough to specific cultures that it’s not right for someone outside that culture to have them?

The Ultimate Spider-Man is Actually Pretty Good

So I’ve been trying recently to branch out into American comics. You may have noticed this. My most recent adventure has taken me into the animated world of Spider-Man.  Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man TV show is actually pretty awesome. The premise is this: Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for a while when he is approached by Nick Fury with a proposition: join up with S.H.I.E.L.D. and let them train Peter into the “ultimate” Spider-Man.  Peter accepts and is suddenly tossed onto a team with junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agents White Tiger, Nova, Power Man, and Iron Fist.  Hijinks ensue and Peter learns valuable lessons about superheroing, blah blah, you know the drill. Anyway, it’s a pretty fun show.

So first I gotta be upfront with you about the real reason I started watching this show. Yes, it was a good way to learn more about the Marvelverse, as Peter often breaks the fourth wall to explain a situation or introduce a character we may not know.  But really? I needed more Son of Coul in my life.  Yup, that’s right. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a lot of influence on this show, and one way that shows is in the presence of Agent Coulson as a supporting character.  Best of all, they even got Clark Gregg himself to do the voice acting! It’s just a small part in the background (Coulson is undercover as the principal at Peter’s high school) but it made me happy nonetheless.

The voice acting in general on this show is pretty great, with Drake Bell as Peter Parker, Tara Strong as Mary Jane, J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, and Tom Kenny, Greg Cipes, Steve Blum, Travis Willingham (as Thor!), and even Mark Hamill as various other roles. (Stan Lee has a running cameo as the high school’s janitor.)

The animation is somewhat inspired by anime, with some chibi-fication and whatnot.  It also has a good mix of episoding plots versus an overarching storyline.

I’m enjoying it so far. (Although, to be fair, seeing as the internet seems to be full of this show’s haters, I’m relatively easy to please and have no basis for comparison.) I recommend you check it out, too!