Iron Fist and Luke Cage: Heroes For HIre at the Defenders core (Chris Claremont interview transcription)

Cage, Iron Fist: the new Defenders core, w/ Chris Claremont interview

1977: Editor Archie Goodwin looked at two of his Marvel Comics Group titles- promising characters with fans, but the sales weren’t quite there. “Archie,” says Chris Claremont, “figured: the one sure thing was, neither Iron Fist fans would not NOT read about Luke Cage, and vice versa.” He had this idea, to give both heroes a chance to survive in one title. That idea became the foundation for what’s known today as Netflix’s Marvel Defenders.

Initially a Patreon premium, we get an interview “from Nightwing Restorations” with author Chris Claremont, on the Thunder Quack network’s Epic Marvels. (I recommend supporting the Epic Marvel Marching Society- I have!) Early in his career, Chris was “in the right place at the right time” to take on Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere, where at least three writers, starting with Roy Thomas, co-created the first seven issues. “I think there were two issues in Marvel Premiere, then John and I took over...as of Iron Fist #1.” (In actuality, John Byrne drew Marvel Premiere #25- along with Giant Size Dracula #5 with Dave Kraft, it’s his first Marvel!)

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The Iron Fist trial run had continued through “a six-part solo story with –-Rico Rival?”--in Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, a black and white Marvel Magazine. Chris had a decent handle on his new assignment, then, as he and Byrne kicked off Iron Fist #1 with the heavily-demanded showdown with Iron Man. In his Epic Marvels interview, Claremont stated Marvel had resolved the “uber conflict that started it” regarding his origin and Rand-Meacham at this point; Iron Fist could be his own man. Despite casting about for compelling antagonists, dangerous and visually exciting, Claremont was most involved with Byrne’s depiction of the supporting cast: Alan Cavanaugh, the ex-I.R.A. terrorist trying to redeem his violent past, and best of all, the heroines Larry Hama had introduced, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing of Nightwing Restorations. The ex-police officer with the bionic arm and her samurai best friend (the first of Claremont’s female characters to take on a tough persona and martial arts expertise) were called The Daughters of the Dragon, built up quite nearly into headliners in their own right. When it began to look like the Iron Fist title wasn’t going to pick up the following Marvel wanted for its bottom line, the team devised a fitting continuation of their last adventure there, and began to look forward to Goodwin’s proposal as a fresh second act for all of them.

The wrongfully-imprisoned man who took the alias Nicholas Ca-I mean, Luke Cage- had gained his super powers of steel hard skin and metahuman strength, broken from jail, and survived under an assumed name as a professional problem solver- a Hero For Hire. His big heart often got him in deeper than the paycheck that drew him into situations. There was a single piece of Luke’s status quo left to wrap up: he’d been a fugitive from justice from his first issue. But even with a move to Chicago- and an effort to leave behind his Power Man/Hero For Hire identity- the past caught up with “Mark Lucas”- in the form of Bushmaster, the man who can prove he was framed- but not before taking a piece of his very soul with a kidnapping mission. Ahead lay a Marvel Misunderstanding (or MARMIS, as Marveluniversity.blogspot.com likes to call them) fight matching him up with the man who would become his best friend, Danny Rand, a.k.a. Iron Fist.

With Danny and Misty, POWER MAN #48 would also bring John Byrne. Chris Claremont had already come aboard with George Tuska and Bruce Smith, long after the title lost some of its intense first year focus (Archie Goodwin was one of those early writers). Cobbled-together teams of writers (like Wolfman/ Mantlo plotting and scripting) and artists (including Bob Brown & Klaus Janson) provided colorful villains like Cheshire Cat, Chemistro (two of them!), the Baron, and Big Brother (that’s in #37, alone).

Story-wise, he ended up with more opposite numbers who were black people than anyone in comics. Appropriate? Strange, but anticipating a TV LUKE CAGE one day that would feature an extensively black cast, but rather, reflect a black social world, rather than African Americans dressed up for the Marvel party. They increasingly got up to the kinds of plots typical of 70’s superhero comics, yet they’re rarely utilized by the shared Marvel story-verse. Maybe it’s the proliferation of black villains endemic to his cast- which at least gave us more black characters- which we don’t see much elsewhere in Marvel, that makes the practice conspicuous. (As far as their inherent quality, I find that’s really up to the engagement and talent of the creative team.) Yet, within a few years of its initial creative explosion as Marvel Comics, they’d begun diverging from white male exclusivity to the highly inclusive roster of today.

Iron Fist, Misty and Colleen were all freshly spun-off from their own concluding chapter. Claremont notes the title was cancelled, but it so happened John Byrne drew both Iron Fist and Marvel Team-Up! First, Claremont penned the debut of future X-Men villain Sabretooth, and a Captain America fight because “John drew a kick-ass Captain America!” Reasonable enough! And speaking of X-Men, Claremont and Cockrum had been busy focusing on the revived Uncanny X-Men, in which Chris felt deeply invested. Since Byrne had looked to join Claremont on X-Men at the first opportunity, IRON FIST #15 became a sort of trial shot for him to draw the mutants- “to see if he could do it,” Chris said to EPIC’s Kurtis Findlay, “and as it turns out, of course- he could!” Now there was only the matter of Misty’s undercover assignment to spy on Bushmaster, and Davos, rogue son of Le’i Kung The Thunderer, fresh from K’un L’un, stalking Danny for the power he saw as rightfully his. MTU #63 & 64 are an Iron Fist story, primarily. When Peter Parker photographs reclusive millionaire Danny Rand’s home just as Steel Serpent finally attacks, Spider-Man’s caught in the middle- so many more Marvel readers got introduced to “hopefully, really cool characters.” (Iron Fist co-starred in Marvel Team-Up nearly three years before in #31, too, if for a moment I may take us Backwards, Man).

Claremont explained he didn’t want to pick up the second adventure of his new title still tying up Iron Fist’s past story lines, since he had a choice. Tying up Power Man’s ongoing fugitive status would do a-OK, though, as a kick-off- it allowed the team to resolve things their own way, and clear the decks for Anything Goes with the new titular pair. Yes, I mean: Power Man and Iron Fist. There was very much a sense, Claremont says, of doing the team-up change as an Event, a special Marvel milestone in a time before a norm of gimmickry.

Other than a possibly compatible readership, though- Kurtis asks: why Luke and Danny?

Compared to the more culturally-acclimated Shang-Chi, K’un L’un-raised Danny, says Chris, “as clueless. Which is ultimately what made Power Man and Iron Fist such a great team-up: because you couldn’t have had a more fundamental yin/yang philosophy as Danny Rand and Luke Cage.”

“Neither book was successful: they were okay, but they weren’t building huge audiences.” Since Archie Goodwin saw both readerships open to the other character, “he decided: let’s see what happens when you throw’em together! As he said- quite brilliantly- you have Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing. You can get issues of conflict out of them walking in, in the morning, to have coffee around the breakfast table. You don’t...need villains. You don’t need antagonists; you’ve got’em right there! And it’s true.”

The challenge Chris and John faced was “a) building his character and his relationships but at the same time, being superheroes, the protagonist is defined by his antagonists. So we needed equivalents in terms of Iron Fist: who could we come up with?” Who was “really cool...visually impressive...and out-and-out scary?” Yet, when asked which ones stood out, Chris says: “My favorites more the heroes than the villains- there was never for me, ever an Iron Fist villain who grabbed me by the heart as effectively as Dr. Doom.” He notes Byrne’s brilliant subtlety in depicting how Danny’s friendship with the IRA revolutionary looking for redemption led to the end of his romance, at the time, with Misty.

He describes how his writing was shaped by working with such spectacular action artists as Byrne and Cockrum over on X-Men. He describes Byrne’s talent as “relentless... You could watch him grow from issue to issue, if not from beginning to end of an issue!” Findlay notes that Iron Fist creations often became mainstay foes for Power Man, as well. Meanwhile, much of today’s stories reach back into Power Man’s rogues.

So Luke Cage, Power Man #48 brought the fateful confrontation and new creative team. From that match-up, the two fought Bushmaster and worked to clear Luke’s name. #50 now featured them on the same side, under their new joint banner, celebrating Luke’s turn in fortunes and, as a quartet, fighting off Discus and Stiletto, as the new status quo fell into place. Byrne began the next story, but fate opened other plans.

Now it’s true, along with Dr. Noah Burstein, Claire Temple, Luke’s paramour, doesn’t stay around for the new direction. But when I saw Dr. Claire show up halfway through MARVEL’S DAREDEVIL, I was tickled for several reasons (in different places). First, you get A-quality actress Rosario Dawson! She’s also an intriguing and reluctant love interest for the masked vigilante, who has no more apparent connection to his private identity Matt Murdock than Daredevil apparently has to Debra Page.
Her role is a cool Easter Egg to one of Luke Cage, Hero For Hire’s sister titles launched in the 1972 creative affirmative action: Night Nurse. Another one of those gets a callback via Patricia Walker in MARVEL’S JESSICA JONES: The Claws of the Cat! And that builds onto this deeper meta-narrative: we get a Luke Cage supporting character in Daredevil’s storyline, a sign of MARVEL’S THE DEFENDERS uniting the solo stars!

“Unfortunately, the one thing we hadn’t really anticipated,” says Claremont, “was that, directly after we took over Power/Fist, John would get tapped for X-Men.” At the time, Marvel took X-Men monthly, “which meant John had to do double-duty for the first six months” to get on schedule and build a backlog “so we wouldn’t be behind the eight-ball in terms of the monthly title.” (The team was also creating Star Lord’s continued adventures for editor John Warner.) “So I had to suddenly sit down and write, or conceptualize...six to eight months of X-Men, immediately, and unfortunately, something had to give. And Power/Fist was it. I didn’t want to go back to rotating artists. And, for want of anymore appropriate phrase, X-MEN were my guys, my baby. I didn’t want to screw it over for Danny. Dave Cockrum and I had built X-Men to where it was, and I didn’t want to let any of it slip away.” So it was that John Byrne left PM/IF with #51, while Claremont wrapped up the Night Shade storyline with Mike Zeck.

The next step is easy to overlook, but it happened in issue #54. Luke’s modus operandi becomes Danny’s, too, with a significant tweak from Canadian lawyer Jeryn Hogarth from Fist’s series. The story telling engine’s set in place: they’re now professional Heroes For Hire, complete with retainers, advertising, outreach to cultivate clientele, and coded pager signals. Luke learns the way security services are set up, actively present, involved. It’s a process that might’ve been drawn out with more comedy and tentative missteps and adjustments, but Ed Hannigan’s only the writer a few issues, too, before Jo Duffy becomes the first long-lasting scripter. For now, Danny hands over the day-to-day affairs of Rand-Meachum to Joy Meachum, her mind only recently changed about Rand as a cold blooded murderer. Danny divests himself of the lucrative business; in parallel, Luke engages with a new clientele and operations. The end’s kind of funny: Lee Elias depicts a downcast Danny, fresh off breaking up an armed robbery conspiracy by The Incinerator, happy for Luke’s new venture. Then his face lights up when he sees the new business cards include him. Danny, you ARE pretty far out there.

There’s a lot more going on than the winning pairing of Luke and Danny this time out. I think the multi-racial cast had a fundamentally positive effect in that era. That’s become easier to find, so if anything, strong storytelling makes that aspect count- there’s a lot of well-done tv and only so many hours in anyone’s day! How will they do it? Aside from the preview at Comic Con reported by our friend Edward Pettis, the world’s waiting to find out August 18th- - and for Chris Claremont and many others, later than that- if he’s still having the kind of luck with Netflix he has with Skype!








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