Enter the iron dragon: Iron Fist turns 50 this year and is still kicking on

He may not have his own show right now, but there’s a reason why Iron Fist has been around for 50 years now.

My first encounter with Daniel Thomas “Danny” Rand aka Iron Fist was through the pages of Marvel Team Up #63 (published in 1977), where he teamed up with Spider-Man to battle his arch nemesis, Steel Serpent.

In that “Night Of The Dragon” two-parter, which was presented by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (the same creative team behind the X-Men’s 1980 success), I learned about Iron Fist’s origin, the source of his strength, his rivalry with Steel Serpent and his inter-racial relationship with Misty Knight. In between all this, somehow the idea of a white man martial artist was purely fascinating.