Heroes For Hire

Ian: I always find myself rooting for the superheroes with the dumbest costumes. Daredevil and Nightcrawler are two of my very favourite fashion offenders, but no one in the Marvel Universe takes the cake like Iron Fist. Don’t get me wrong, Iron Fist is the flippin’ man but Jeez Louise, those pajamas are as humiliating as watching Nuv get his mack-on at the Shannon Oaks Retirement Home. Those fine ladies didn’t live as long as they have by slumming it, my good sir!

Nevertheless, we’ll leave fashion to the experts, and focus instead on The House of Ideas’ resident BFF’s, Luke “Power Man” Cage and Danny “Iron Fist” Rand, also known as the Heroes for Hire. In case you’re wondering, I’m covering Iron Fist because I’m white and Nuv is covering Luke Cage because he just isn’t. Just joking you guys!

Nuv: No, he’s not…

Ian: Back in the 70’s the whole world went ape-shit for kung-fu (kinda like how Nuv went ape-shit for the new Jaden Smith/’Karate Kid‘ movie last month), and as a result Marvel created the Immortal Iron Fist to try and rake in the mad cheddar. Word has it they actually modeled Danny’s face on Chuck Norris!

Nuv: Around the same time, Blaxploitation was also booming, and BAM: Marvel gave us the yellow shirt and tiara wearing tough guy Luke Cage, known to suckers and weak sisters as Power Man, Hero For Hire. If you had enough bread, Cage would whup the s#!% outta any jive turkey unjustly messin’ with your mojo, uttering ‘street’ lingo like “Sweet Christmas!” along the way. He was utterly fearless, as evidenced by the aforementioned wardrobe choices. Black, white or Dr. Doom, he didn’t sweat you, man! The only colour that mattered to Cage was green.

Eventually, as the popularity of both Blaxploitation and Kung-fu flicks waned, Marvel, probably trying to juice a little bit more out of two flagging series, or maybe hoping the outrageous outfits would cancel each other out, had Power Man and Iron Fist team up and share a book as the newly pluralized Heroes For Hire. And it worked! They were the perfect odd couple. Black and white. Brawny strength and speedy finesse. One grew up poor and hard in the mean streets of Harlem. One was rich and aloof, raised in a mystical realm of martial arts wizardry and Kung Fu Treachery. Their common ground was having no tolerance for bullies picking on the little man, and the ability to kick the piss out of damn near anyone. Good times were had until the series finally petered out in the mid-80’s.

Other than a Marvel MAX series (like regular Marvel comics, but with more tits, blood and obscene words like ‘c_ _ _’ and ‘Ian’), Cage didn’t do a whole lot until yet another MAX series came out called Alias. Written by the very-familiar-to-Ian’s-left-hand Brian Michael Bendis, Cage was (heh) thrust back into the limelight in the first issue, having doggy style (and implied anal) sex with the title character. Now would be a good time to get that perv Ian to make his presentation in front of the class. Here’s a tip, Stabone: if it’s long enough, tuck it up into the waistband of your sweatpants, and the class will be none the wiser. F@¢#in’ degenerate. Back to you, cockpit…

Ian: Anyway, while Cage was living out Nuv’s prison fantasies, Iron Fist stumbled along in various lame-sauce incarnations until Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction came along in 2006 and laid their golden hands on the book. They made it not only GOOD, but bloody AMAZING.

So what made The Immortal Iron Fist better than the previous attempts? Well, to put it bluntly, everything. Danny Rand is a richer, more interesting character than he’d ever been in the past. His relationship with Luke Cage (unlike my relationship with Dingleberry over there) is a well-crafted combination of mutual respect, professionalism, and good timey shenanigans. Fraction and The Bru even managed to throw six other “Immortal Weapons” into the mix, without cluttering the book in the least.

Nuv: The Immortal Weapons are f@¢#ing brilliant! With this concept the writers managed to basically take the best-of-the-best tournament concept of Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat style video games and Bruce Lee films like ‘Enter The Dragon,’ and make it not only NOT hokey, but super-fun blockbuster entertainment! Plus, The Immortal Weapons have the greatest names ever! Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter! The Steel Phoenix! Prince of Orphans! Bride of Nine Spiders! The (named after my penis) Fat Cobra! And the best handle of the bunch, Ian’s namesake – Dog Brother #1!

Ian: Nobody knows what the hell you’re blathering on about and you’re scaring the children. Cease and desist.

It has to be said that David Aja’s pencils were absolutely and consistently brilliant throughout his entire run. You can’t have a kung fu book without an artist who can rock a fight scene, and Aja absolutely killed it in every issue. In fact, my dream commission is a David Aja mural depicting me kicking Nuv’s head through the uprights, while 1970’s Stan Lee, dressed as Indiana Jones, cheers from the sidelines.

Ah, whimsy. Anyhoo, even after Brubaker and Fraction handed the reins to Duane Swierczynski and Travel Foreman (issue #17), the book continued to be awesome, right up until its inexplicable cancellation with issue #27. Don’t worry though, says Joe Quesada, big things are in the works for the man in the green and yellow tights (jump ahead to the 5:40 mark). That’s great news for fans of Iron Fist and GREAT NEWS for fans of muscular men in tight tights (cough, Nuv, cough). Awkward pause aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m outta here! Peas!

Nuv: Oh, when he said “peas” he didn’t mean we were finished. He was just trying to give an accurate 1:1 scale to measure his testicles by. I hope what Quesada was talking about was not this ‘New Power Man’ business. Fred Van Lente’s a great writer, so I’ll reserve judgement, but come on! Nobody wants or needs a new Power Man. We want our old Power Man and Iron Fist in a new Heroes For Hire title. Bendis, after all of the seedy Alias business, brought Cage with him to the New Avengers title, and Cage had never been written better. Quit trying to fix what ain’t broke, Marvel. If you really want to put some effort into replacing a has-been, look no further than the walking pap smear to my left…

Ian: Here’s my proposal: Any combo of Brubaker, Bendis and/or Fraction writing. David Aja on art. Luke Cage, Power Man. Danny Rand, Iron Fist. I can’t speak for the rest of these suckers and weak sisters, but these Heroes For Hire would get my bread. You dig?

Nuv: Sweet Christmas, whitey! Ain’t you see my “I’m With Stupid” shirt?

Ian: I don’t…what does that even mean?

Nuv: It means I’m with you, peckerwood.

Ian: Racist.

Nuv: Right on, right on.

Put two in the air…

– The Big Two

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