“Power Man and Iron Fist: Heroes For Hire” by Jo Duffy & Chris Claremont with Ed Hannigan, Steven Grant & Bob Layton

            The following is a review of the graphic novel Marvel Epic Collection “Power Man and Iron Fist: Heroes For Hire” by Jo Duffy & Chris Claremont with Ed Hannigan, Steven Grant & Bob Layton.

            Carl Lucas was convicted for a crime he did not commit and was sent for life to Seagate Prison. Years later prison scientist Doctor Noah Burstein offered Carl a lighter sentence if he were to undergo an experiment that would potentially give him super powers. The procedure went wrong, which made it turn out right. Carl gained steel-hard skin and super strength. Carl then broke out of Seagate and took on the names Luke Cage/Power Man and became a Hero For Hire.

            Daniel Rand was orphaned in the mystic city of K’un-Lun, which only appears once every ten years. He was trained in the way of the martial arts and became a skilled fighter. He took on a challenge to defeat the dragon Shou Lao. He succeeded and gained the power of the Iron Fist, able to channel his chi into strength. He came back to the United States to find himself in charge of Rand-Meachum Enterprises, a position he did not want, and that he now had a sizeable fortune, which he heavily squanders. He took to the masked identity Iron Fist.

            Luke and Danny did not have a good first meeting as Luke was hired by the sinister John Bushmaster to take out Danny’s closest friends Misty Knight and Colleen Wing of Nightwing Restorations. However, during the conflict, evidence was uncovered, and Luke’s lawyer Jeryn Hogarth was able to use to exonerate Luke and make him a free man.

            Luke and Danny hit it off after a showdown with villains Stiletto and Discus.

            Luke, Danny and Misty then team up against crime boss Morgan, the Cybernauts and Deadly Nightshade and barely escape with their lives.

            Luke and Danny then battle the Incinerator and then go into business as the Heroes For Hire under the representation of Hogarth.

            Luke is asked to participate in an Auto Show. Taggart the Tiger, the star attraction, is released into the crowd, but while Luke and Danny subdue Taggart, the Fantasticar, transport for the superhero team the Fantastic Four, is stolen.

            Hogarth forces Ms. Jennie Royce upon Luke and Danny as their executive secretary, informing her of Luke and Danny’s secret identities. Heroes For Hire are hired by Dr. Abdol and Professor Merridew to protect artifacts of Tutankhamen, which are being temporarily displayed in New York, but Luke and Danny ultimately fail, but there is more to the theft than meets the eye. Luke and Danny team up with Scott Summers/Cyclops, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, and Ororo Munroe/Storm of the mutant superhero team, the X-Men, against the threat of the Living Monolith.

            A new superhuman, El Aguila/The Eagle arrives and challenges Luke and Danny.

            Danny’s old friend Alan Cavenaugh is accused of terrorism and Danny must then investigate to clear his innocent friend.

            Luke has a run-in with Man Mountain Marko while Danny faces off against Thunderbolt, whose super speed powers have a debilitating effect. Luke then finds himself six feet under… alive.

            Luke’s home is destroyed by Suerte and Muerte, leaving Luke’s friend D.W. Griffith fighting for his life.

            Luke and Danny find the tables turned when the Heroes For Hire must team up with El Aguila.

            Heroes For Hire and Nightwing Restorations team up to protect the Jade Tiger from Constrictor and Sabretooth.

            Bushmaster resurfaces and kidnaps Doctor Burstein in an effort to replicate the experiment that created Power Man in order for Bushmaster to gain Luke’s powers, while Luke finds himself powerless and fighting for his own life.

            Luke and Danny find themselves hired in order to protect a criminal from an even worse criminal, targeting a team made years back who are being crossed off a list.

            Colleen searches for her father, who is amnesiac and does not even remember having a daughter.

            I found this to be an interesting read. Yes, this book had a lot of stories in it, so it stands to reason that I had mixed opinions of certain stories, as in ones I liked, and ones I disliked, but overall I liked more than I disliked. One of the writers, Chris Claremont is one of my favorite comic book scribes, especially his work on X-Men over the decades. Ironically, the Heroes For Hire/X-Men team-up story was actually not by Claremont, but I still found that one to be enjoyable. I personally loved the pairing of Power Man and Iron Fist. I feel that they worked very well together, despite being from two completely different worlds and backgrounds, which, in my opinion, is why the team dynamic was so effective. They say opposites attract, and I think in the platonic sense, this described Luke and Danny. I especially liked their first meeting where they did not originally see eye-to-eye, and working past this tiff really made it interesting to me. Longtime comic book readers know that some of the best superheroes start out as villains, and some of the best teams are formed by happenstance, and this book felt like that to me. My biggest complaint was the overuse of the words “until that hand becomes like unto a fist of iron.” That phrase was repeated way too often for my liking. Now, as a graphic novel, there are two very important things: the story and the artwork. You can have a great story, worthy of an Eisner Award, but if the artwork is horrible, or the artwork is stellar and the story is a total dud; that ruins the enjoyment. Longtime comic book readers know that comic book art has changed much over the years, specifically the style. That can create the concept of good comic book art of the time, or just good comic book art period. The issues in this book were published during the years 1977-1981, and my judgement is that this was good comic book art in general. Despite the fact that this book had an assortment of artists, the art style is consistent. I honestly cannot tell that there were more than one artist, the blending was that effective to me. So in general, both the story and the art combination was to my liking. In fact, there were moments where I felt like the art was better than the story.

            As far as the target audience, I’d say it’s very general. If you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before, I feel that picking this book up and reading it and understanding it would not be a problem. I feel like background knowledge is not needed and that the book is self-contained. I feel like if you liked the “Luke Cage” Netflix series and are looking to get into a comic, this book would probably be a great place to start. There were a lot of parallels and consistencies between the two and I think this book would be to your liking if you’re a fan of the show. However, I wouldn’t recommend this book directly to anyone who just wants to randomly start somewhere, but I’m not deterring it from you either, I just feel that there are other places that would be better to start. There are other reasons I would recommend this book to you, but constraints to this blog site means I can’t share them. If you can infer these reasons and relate to them, I recommend this book to you.

            Now we’re at the most decisive point of this review that may get you to decide to read this book: my numeric score. I score on a scale of one-to-ten. One means to keep away at all costs, ten means if you’ve been interested at all by this review at all that you should buy it at your immediate opportunity. I’m a tough scorer, I don’t just go around giving tens to just anything, so a high score is a good thing. So, all cards on the table, combining all the stories and all the art, I’ve come up with my score: seven! Like I said, there were stories I liked and stories I disliked, which were my deciding factor since I personally loved the artwork, and I didn’t like enough of them to give the book a higher score. Still, if you ask if I recommend this book, I say that yes, I do.

            If you enjoyed this blog post, there is plenty more content on this page. Yes I’ve written dozens of reviews and those are my primary source of content, but I’ve written other things as well, such as short stories, poetry, essays and editorials, so there’s plenty more to see. I post on a frequent basis. I suffered a great personal loss and am recovering from an injury, which has impeded this blog in a major way, some of my planned content has been affected, but I can guarantee you that I am about to work on another review, which will be available shortly after this post has been uploaded, so if you liked this current post, look out for my next post. I’ll just wrap this whole review up with a few more words: Tim Cubbin… out!