For many fans, the Iron Fist Netflix series was the first real letdown of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movies have all ranged from good to spectacular (even the frequently maligned Iron Man 2). The other Netflix series have all been beyond reproach, with Luke Cage being the highest rated installment of the MCU to date. Even the network TV shows, like Agents of SHIELD, have all exceeded their initial expectations.
Iron Fist was different, though. Even its most ardent defenders have to concede that it was conceptually a mess. Netflix’s low production budget kept the series from showing the aspect of the character that has generally been most appealing: the extra-dimensional city of K’un-Lun, its army of mystical warrior monks and the immortal dragon that the titular character gained his power from killing. To make matters even worse, they wrote that entire aspect of the franchise out in the worst post-credit string of the MCU.
The plot was all over the place. The Hand proved to be shockingly uninteresting villains for the master of Kung Fu to square off against. The characters were the least interesting stock characters from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and its tenuous connections to the other Marvel Netflix series was far more tenuous than we have come to expect.
Overall, the show was fine: just fine. It was a perfectly functional story that served as a perfectly functional lead-in to The Defenders. In five years time, it simply be remembered as the MCU’s disappointing introduction to Colleen Wing.
It will probably come as a surprise to many who tuned in for its premiere earlier this year that the series has not only been greenlit for a second season, but that it’s already in production over at Netflix. Despite its tepid reception and innumerable flaws, The Defenders will not be the last we’ll see of Danny Rand.
The thing is, though, that there’s a lot of potential in the Iron Fist brand. Due to his longstanding appearances in the comics and frequent presence on various cartoons over the years, he’s become a modestly popular character. He offers the MCU a natural inroad to the weird, mystical side of the Marvel universe that doesn’t rely on the occasional Doctor Strange sequel. Even more importantly, though, is that its Himalayan setting gives it the potential to introduce some much-needed color into the tiresomely monochromatic multimedia franchise.
When all is said and done, the biggest mistake Marvel made with the MCU version of the character is that it stuck with Danny Rand as its Iron Fist. The mantle of that character is passed down generationally to a new class of warriors, so there’s no reason why Danny Rand couldn’t have simply been a prior Iron Fist (and perhaps the tales of his heroics in the mortal realms inspired the latest to bear the title to venture forth and make his own claim in the modern world). And given the West Asian setting for K’un-Lun, it could have been the perfect way to bring in Indian and Chinese actors into not just the MCU, but the small screen version of New York used in the Netflix series.
Instead, however, they went with a rich white guy uncomfortably appropriating Asian culture and being better at Kung Fu than the warrior monks who were born into a life of vigilant, martial arts training. The actor who played the drunken Kung Fu master who fights Danny Rand later in the series was even up for the title role, but they passed him over in the name of comic book fidelity.
We can only hope that Season 2 learns from the mistakes of Rand’s Netflix debut. Fans are looking for more diversity than the nation’s ‘top 1%’ can provide and more choreographed Kung Fu fights than Netflix’s standard budget allows for. Fix that, and the rest of the problems with the series will fall in line in due time.
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