Looking At The Conclusion Of The Mortal Iron Fist

I mentioned the end of the battle against Zhou and his master, Ch'i-Lin, was bothering me, so I'm going to try and delve into that a bit.

Essentially, Danny succeeds fighting Zhou by abandoning all technique, and fighting like an angry 8-year old, mad at a world that seems to love taking shots at him (that's a paraphrase of how Danny describes it). Another part of this strategy is Danny suppresses his chi, like Orson did (minus the heroin), only Danny's still going to fight. This changes things so that Zhou can't predict Danny's attacks anymore, as he did in their first battle, when he could easily block, for example, Danny's Bronx Sucker Punch.

OK, so problems with this for me. First, Zhou, besides clearly having some level of superhuman speed and agility*, seems to be a fairly skilled fighter, and I'm leery of the idea that you can beat a skilled fighter by just lashing out blindly the way a hurt child would. It reminds me of that scene in Robin, post-One Year Later, where he was able to fight on even terms with Cass Cain because he wasn't using any particular style, he just blindly attacked her**. I didn't really buy it then, but I'm less bothered by it because the story suggests that Zhou's fighting skill comes from his ability to predict attacks by reading chi. Except I would think one would be using their chi to attack, even if they haven't concentrated it on making their fist 'unto like a thing of iron', as the old saying goes.

Second, so Danny's feeding off all the misfortune and loss he's experienced. Well, he's had quite a bit of that, but would that make him unique amongst Iron Fists? We know Wu Ao-Shi grew up a poor child, trying to steal glass cherries (to sell, I suppose), and being forced to bite down on one instead. No telling what happened to her parents. She was likely the only girl vying for the right to fight the dragon, which I imagine lead to some less than friendly comments from her competitors, and the man she married ran off the night she became Iron Fist. There's some pain to work off there. Granted, we don't know how she did, except that she died at 33***, so clearly she didn't do as well as Danny. I'm simply not totally sold on the berserk tactic working for Iron Fist.

Third, Zhou keeps bringing up that's he's been studying the Iron Fist for 75 years, so as to avoid letting Danny elude him as Orson did. Most of that appears to relate to Danny's friends and how they can be used against him, but you might think some of that would have been spent learning the fighting style as well. Granted, if you can sense his moves, maybe you don't see the need, but perhaps the fighting style itself reveals something about the target. Orson likes to use guns, and seems to be more of a brawler, compared to Danny, who has more grace to his style****. Does that mean Orson likes to keep his killing and fighting at a distance, and what might that mean for you, the guy hunting him? That sort of stuff.

There's something that balances a lot of this out, and it's something unique to Danny Rand. That would be the friendships he has, especially with the other Immortal Weapons. Orson had friends, but it doesn't appear they helped him fight Ch'i-Lin, even before Orson opted to hide. The others may have had friends as well, but never the other Immortal Weapons. Fighters of that caliber (plus his old Heroes for Hire pals) helped keep Danny alive long enough to have this brainstorm.

And that's probably really the key, that Danny triumphs because he had some sort of advantage no other Iron Fist before him had. I keep comparing this story to the first Spider-Man/Morlun battle, and there's a similarity there as well. Morlun had probably fed on lots of "totems" before, but before Spidey, he'd never come across one with radioactivity in his system, and the brains/chutzpah to exploit that. For Danny, maybe it's the pain and loss he suffered early, or it's having to survive without the Book of Iron Fist to learn from*****, or perhaps it's that Danny is a friendly, earnest person who can form alliances with those that normally would try and bludgeon him. So that helps.

{Edited Sunday morning} Jason brought up the end of the fight in the comments, and I had meant to talk about it, but I was feeling lazy and didn't initially, but might as well take care of it now. The final strike by Danny, that was good. It was clever, decisive (even if Danny is sure it isn't over), and visually impressive. He played opossum, which invited Zhou/Ch'i to bet it all on one attack, which left them hanging in mid-air when Iron Fist decided to punch through their head. Even if they can sense and devour his chi, there's no way from them to dodge because all their momentum is carrying them right towards that fist, and no time to do whatever is required for them to steal his chi. So good job there by Swierczynski and Foreman.

I'm still a bit disappointed, but like I said Thursday, Robo Fat Cobra is on his way. I'm am dying to see that.

* As demonstrated by his tossing Luke Cage around and dodging bullets.

** Yes, because those hordes of stupid thugs she'd beaten up over the course of her series weren't doing much the same thing, as they were all highly trained martial artists.

*** So no Iron Fist has ever died before they were 33? You'd figure Law of Averages, one of them would have had a really bad day somewhere along the line.

**** Makes sense right, as Orson is bigger, and would probalby rely more on strength, while Danny would use quickness.

***** Which as Jason noted awhile back, makes Danny arguably the strongest Iron Fist, since he didn't get to read up on all the cool stuff his predecessors had learned.