It’s been over a week since I posted, so I thought I’d give you an update:

I had surgery on Monday to remove a growth and have it checked out. It wasn’t too bad, but I’m in a fair amount of pain now. I go back in two weeks to get the results and stitches taken out. Unless of course it turns out to be something serious, in which I’ll hear from the doctor right away (I hope).

Let Me Write Iron Fist Next Time!

Powerman (Luke Cage) and Iron Fist was one of my favorite comics growing up. It was one of the comics that the Lampstons by my apartment building always carried, so it became a fav by default.  My friend Frashard and I used to run around the playground in front of our highrise (we lived in Co-Op City, in the Bronx) and fight the Kingpin and his dastardly thugs. He even had a tiara made of tin foil, like Powerman. Growing up in the Bronx in the early 80s, it wasn’t that hard to imagine their world.

I was thoroughly disappointed with Iron Fist. It’s not that it was terrible, but it wasn’t nearly on the level of the other Marvel shows, and they didn’t even try to get his character personality right. They took the most mellow, unflappable, most in control of his emotions character and made him a loose cannon anger ball. Danny Rand is supposed to be the voice of reason, not reckless anger. I feel like they rushed through the whole writing and shooting process just to get it done. Not to mention that the fight sequences were mediocre, and Danny was humorless. I mean, he’s not a wisecracker in the comics, but he has a certain amused persona.

I understand that he needs some sort of conflict. If I wrote the show, I would’ve had his conflict as more of a “fish out of water type,” confused at how the world has changed in the 15 years that he’s been gone. He should be trying to figure out how a smart phone works, and asking people to drive him around (there’s no way he should drive a car). He should be giving money to the poor, simply because he lived the last 15 years in a cosmic monastery. He should be confused by the internet (where’s the dial-up sound when you connect to AOL?) and why is there a starbucks on every corner?

I liked that he was easily duped and manipulated though. That made sense.

I would’ve also made a secondary internal conflict be whether he’s a man or a weapon. He said that fighting gives him focus (and that’s true to the comics) but what is he if he can only find peace in pain? There should’ve been more flashbacks to K’un L’un, to show how different his life was there, and the extremes of his training.

Oh well, memories are like food: you leave them out too long, they go bad.