SDCC '11: Marvel Teases: Iron Fist

Marvel released the above teaser this morning indicating that the project will be announced at the Fear Itself panel at San Diego Comic Con on Sunday July 24th at 1230PM PST.

It seems pretty clear from the image that this will be a new Iron Fist series and I have an extremely strong idea of who the writer will be: Matt Fraction. Fraction of course had an extremely successful run on the character with Ed Brubaker and David Aja that seemed to short for most people. On several occasions since the series' conclusion Fraction has stated that he wanted to leave the book on an extremely high note without the risk of overstaying his welcome (he often said it would be like if The Clash had broken up after London Calling). However, several months ago, on one of Wordballoon's episodes, Fraction said that he had just come up with an idea for Iron Fist that was worthy of coming back to the series for and that he would pitch it to Marvel. In my mind, there's absolute no doubt that he'll be writing this new series.

Max Beckman is a manager at Pulp Fiction in Long Beach, CA and CheapGraphicNovels.com. You can follow him on Twitter @CheapGNsdotcom and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pulpfictioncomics. Pulp Fiction can be found on the web at www.pulpfictiononline.com and at 1742 Clark Ave. Long Beach, CA 90815.

Hire Date: December 2010

Every company has a library of beloved characters whose ongoing titles have a shelf life of one or two years, regardless of the talent behind it. The best way to handle these properties, besides a well executed mini, is to put them all in a team book—no matter how ill fit some of the characters may be. So far I like the teasers I’ve seen for the new Heroes for Hire book; Marvel is due to announce it tomorrow. The best thing about a team of also-rans is that the creators are allowed more flexibility with how the writers handle (or mishandle) the characters. The original Heroes for Hire consisted of Power-Man and Iron Fist. This time Iron Fist is back, accompanied by a group of such 70’s mainstays as Paladin, Ghost Rider, Falcon, and Moon Knight. With Elektra and Punisher thrown into the mix, I’ll assume this is not an “all ages” title.

Writing team Abnett and Lanning (Majestic and The Authority) are behind this book, so let’s hope they regularly play up the stakes. Heroes for Hire is released this December.