Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #8

I find it a little strange that this series is coming to an end just when its hero is on the verge of a new beginning. Andrews has spent the last seven issues breaking down Danny—often literally—exposing us to the least likable, most pathetic aspects of the Iron Fist presumably to cleanse him of them later. [Spoiler alert!] And indeed, by the end of the issue, with a shining new costume, Danny seems set to hang up his hang-ups and finally kick some ass—at life.

Since day one, Danny’s been more than a little angsty, but unlike Bruce Wayne (another rich downer), to little purpose. Often, you felt that his confrontations with Davos and Co. were spurred by a lack of anything better to do than real conviction. It’s not your imagination; at the top of the issue, Danny runs through a self-loathing monologue that could have been lifted directly from Jeff Lemire’s Oliver Queen playbook: “…I would find out what happens when you are given everything. You end up with a life made of nothing.” He’s rightfully schooled and mocked by a little kid a page later,* to which his only response, as always, is “I know kung-fu.”

That knowledge, however, is rendered impotent by his ennui, a fact which both Sparrow and the Fooh point out. Seeing how he’s already dead inside, they send him to Diyu, the realm of the dead, to meet one of the major causes of his apathy: his mother.** Death, however, proves no challenge to Danny, even with two mostly crippled arms. Working his way through the minions of Diyu, you can accept. What’s positively anticlimactic is when Yama, ruler of the realm, reveals himself and Danny is able to fell him with one punch through his wolf head, remarking “Aw, what the heck…” Apparently, a killer machine is more powerful than death itself. Comics!

Danny’s near-instantaneous defeat of Yama also cuts short any exploration of Diyu, whose many regions Andrews teases: “The Chamber of Tongues” (where gossips are punished), “The Chamber of Scissors” (philanderers), “The Forest of Copper Columns” (arsonists). This all sounds like an interesting issue in the making, but Andrews is content to leave that road trip for another day. I imagine Inferno would be a much lamer book if Virgil took Dante to Hell, pointed out a few diversions (“Over there, heretics burn in tombs, and over there, the greedy wrestle with their money bags—that’s a good one—and, let’s see, over there, traitors get trapped in ice…”), and then just moved on to Purgatory.

You understand, of course, that Andrews wants to get to the real meat of the issue, which is Danny’s mom giving him permission to work through all the stuff that’s kept him down this whole time. That he succeeds isn’t terribly surprising; all that talk of Buddha ought to remind you that he did achieve enlightenment in the end. The gist of Danny’s conversation with his mom is also fairly predictable: she admits it may have been a mistake to swear him to vengeance as a child, encourages him to move on, then disappears. And presto! Just like that, his mind and body are healed and he’s ready for another round with the One. It all works, but it does feel like Andrews is just coasting through his beats here, giving us the bare minimum instead of exploiting their full potential.

That the scenes work at all is a credit to Andrews’ storytelling, which is solid despite its brevity. His visuals are also very helpful, with him reducing his linework to their black-and-white essentials, like living Rorschach patterns against a deathly white background. This gives Danny’s time in Diyu an abstract quality, more spiritual experience than actual experience, and to some degree excuses how fast Andrews moves us through it. And while Andrews isn’t the most emotional of artists, he gets the emotions just right between Danny and his mom, neither pushing them into melodrama, nor underplaying them into indifference.

Some Musings:

* How much you wanna bet that once Danny gets his act together, that kid’s dad is going to find himself with a new job?

** Well, what do you know? Danny and I have something in common.

– Should we be concerned that Danny sees his mom in Brenda? Isn’t that some kind of Freudian red flag?