Iron Fist

X-Men #102 (December, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

With this post, we’ll be resuming our coverage of writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum’s half-century old “Cassidy Keep” storyline in X-Men right where we left off in July — so, if you didn’t read our post about issue #101 at that time (or just need to refresh your memory), you might want to check it out before proceeding.  Also along the lines of housekeeping notes, we’ll be discussing the story’s conclusion in #103 in this post as well, so please plan accordingly.  Read More

Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #1 (September, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

While this blog has briefly touched on the matter of Marvel’s 1974-75 line of “Giant-Size” comics in a few previous discussions, this is the first time we’ve devoted a post to a book in that fairly short-lived format.  So, I hope you all won’t mind if we take a little time here at the top of the page, before we flip past Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #1’s Ron Wilson-Mike Esposito cover to take a look at this issue’s specific contents, to get into a little background on the introduction and early days of the “Giant-Size” format in general.  It’s an interesting story (at least in my opinion) that seems to indicate a certain degree of disorder in the Marvel offices around this time — disorder which might rise to the level of full-on chaos, but then again might not, depending on your point of view.  Read More

Marvel Premiere #15 (May, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In early 1974, when a slot for a new continuing feature opened up in Marvel Premiere (due to the previous tenant Dr. Strange having vacated the premises to return to headlining his own title), it must have seemed a virtual no-brainer to offer it to a character who could help Marvel Comics cash in even further on the burgeoning martial arts craze than they were already doing with the Master of Kung Fu series (which had debuted in September, 1973) and its brand-new black-and-white magazine spinoff The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (which launched in early February, just a couple of weeks prior to the release of today’s featured fifty-year-old comic).  But for Marvel to do that, someone was first going to have to invent such a character; and in this instance, that process of invention began with the company’s then-editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas.  Read More