David Aja, Matt Fraction and Matt Hollingsworth left Immortal Iron Fist with the conclusion of issue 16. Ed Brubaker had left two issues earlier. The last issue all four of them were credited on was actually issue 13.
In their places were Duane Swierczynski, Travel Foreman, and Matt Milla. Issue 16 concluded with Danny reading through the history of the Iron Fists and realizing all of them - save Orson Randall - died at age 33, and that's when Orson went missing (and somehow hid his chi by living in an opium haze for decades.) It just so happens Danny just turned 33. Well, then.
So Swierczysnki's first story arc is about a predator that hunts down and kills Iron Fists, devouring the chi of Shou-Lao within them and using them as a gateway to K'un-Lun, where he tries to kill the dragon while it's still in its egg. Somehow, despite have a perfect track record killing Iron Fists, it never manages to get past the regular warriors guarding the egg.
It's a bit like JMS' Morlun story in Amazing Spider-Man, though narrowed in focus. Morlun would feed off any mystical animal-themed being, but this character only targets Iron Fists. The baddie even looks a bit like Morlun in that he's a classy-looking gent with slicked back dark hair who favors dark trenchcoats.
Also, where Peter won his fight by taking advantage of the radioactive aspect of his spider-powers, Danny wins by. . .fighting like an angry, furious child. Really, that's it. The guy can somehow read every martial arts move Danny makes in their first fight, so in the final showdown, Danny just rushes wildly at him. Even internal monologues about his frustration with growing up as an outsider in a strange city, missing his mother and father, et cetera, et cetera.
Travel Foreman's work is very different from Aja's. Characters tend to look angrier, more feral. The inking tends to make every sinew or muscle stand out. The page layouts are a mixed bag. In the first issue, when Danny fights the creature initially, there's a bit where he unleashes his chi and it forms a big glowy dragon visible above the trees in Central Park. This is relegated to a small panel in the upper corner of one page. The point when the creature drains Danny's chi is left to an ever smaller panel in the lower corner, which kind of blunts the impact of the moment.
Suffice it to say, I was not much a fan of the shift in art. Which is why the only two issues I retain from Swierczynski's time on the book are ones that focused on other Iron Fists, and were drawn by different artists. The above issue, about a future Iron Fist, and issue 24, drawn by Kano, about Li Park, the "Reluctant Weapon".
In and around those one-shots, there was a story about Danny investigating the existence of a mysterious "Eighth City" he was told of at the end of "The Capital Cities of Heaven" arc. Then there's a final issue where HYDRA tries to finish of Rand Corporation, and Danny learns Misty Knight's pregnant. As mentioned when we talked about Heroes for Hire vol. 3, that development was handwaved away somewhere in the between June of '09, when this book ended, and December of 2010, when that book started.
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