Immortal Weapons

Anyone still lamenting the demise of “The Immortal Iron Fist” would do well to pick up this volume.  While Danny Rand , the titular Iron Fist, does feature into two of these stories, this is mainly an anthology of tales about the other “immortal weapons” that he fought alongside in his series.  They’re generally solid tales of horror, hope, vengeance, love and lots of kung-fu fighting.  “Iron Fist” writer Duane Swierczynski fills us in on the backstory of Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter and how she reclaims her village’s warrior woman heritage, and on what happens when Danny has to look after the daughter of a man he helped send to prison years ago.  I’ve never heard of Cullen Bunn before, but he tells an effectively creepy tale of what happens to people who try to learn the secrets of Bride of Nine Spiders.  This story is also helped immensely by Dan Brereton’s equally creepy art.  Rick Spears gives us the story of Dog Brother #1, as a young orphan boy prays for the hero to save him from his woeful lot in life.  David Laphan closes things out with the Prince of Orphans teaming up with Iron Fist to stop ten thousand ghosts from carving a path of slaughter across the Chinese mainland.

The main issue I have with this collection is unique in that the lead story by Jason Aaron (and a half-dozen artists) about Fat Cobra coming to terms with his history is head-and-shoulders better than all of them.  Part of that is because Fat Cobra has always been the most charismatic and entertaining of all the other weapons, and I could read an entire mini-series about his exploits alone.   It’s also due to how Aaron takes what could easily have been played entirely for slapstick laughs (which he does effectively in sections) and then successfully pivots into an ending filled with tragedy and manages to make it work within the context of the story.  I still recommend this book, but after reading it you’ll wish the rest of the stories could’ve been as good as this one.  Or that they’d put this one last to make it go out on the best note possible.