I think another concern with the Marvel/Netflix shows is consistency with tone. They’re trying to keep things grounded and low-powered in these shows, and if you have a big setpiece with an animated dragon in a mystic dimension it’s going to break the “street-level” aesthetic. Of course, I’d argue that the whole thing is kind of dumb when you start with Kingpin blowing up a bunch of buildings in New York and The Avengers don’t take even a minute out of their day to do something about it, but comics gonna comics, I guess.
You’re probably right, but that doesn’t make me less angry, or answer the question: why do Iron Fist at all if you’re not going to do it right?
Why not just have the Punisher as the fourth “Defender”? Okay, that one may have been a rights issue that wasn’t resolved back when the original plans were made, I don’t know. But still, if you shy away from what makes Iron Fist unique, well, no wonder it sounds like you’ve got a dud on your hands.
The weird thing about insisting on keeping Danny Rand as whitebread blonde-ish American is it is literally the least interesting thing about the story. You could 100% swap in an asian guy and it would be perfectly fine and avoid the issues surrounding appropriation.
The bigger problem, of course, is that Iron First is and always has been stupid. The only way to adapt a stupid property is to go out of your way to make it smart (see: Star Lord).
I’m sure no nerds would rage if they made him Asian, nope. Definitely not.
Comic book nerds comprise exactly 0.000153% of the audience of Marvel TV and movie properties. Hell, I bet I could construct a mathematical proof that doing exactly the opposite of what comic book nerds want will lead to greater profits.
Hah, that’s a great point. But they still get all up in my internets.
I’m looking out for number one, here.
Yeah, like I said elsewhere, as far as I can tell there is literally no aspect of the story where him being white is fundamentally important. I think making him a native of K’un Lun or whatever it’s called would change things quite a bit and possibly too much, but just being an Asian American would be basically the same from a culture clash perspective, etc.
Comixology is running a sale this week on Iron Fist stuff. If anyone was on the fence or kept meaning to check it out, now’s a great time:
I highly recommend the first three trades of The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story, The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, and The Book of the Iron Fist.
Listening to Marc Bernardin talk about Iron Fist and… well it sounds pretty bad. He liked all the other Marvel shows, though he had some issues here and there, but so far he hasn’t said a single good thing about Iron Fist. I’m 15 minutes in out of an hour so maybe it turns around, but his opening was literally: “It is not good. It is a bucket of not good. It is a never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden of not good.”
Edit: He’s only up to 6, but he had… nothing good to say.
“It’s not horrible, it’s just boring.”
Yeah, I listened to part of that this morning, but swapped over to the excellent How Did This Get Made?! so his views wouldn’t color mine while I watched it tonight with the boy. I’m not going in with much optimism though.
Starting to sound like this isn’t a show for critics, but for fans, from what I’m hearing now. Interesting.
What does that mean?
Meaning a lot of folks I know in real life are really enjoying it, and my son told me the show runner said (in response to the bad reviews) that this show isn’t for critics, but rather fans. I know what he means - a lot of times (with any entertainment media) those that watch with a critical eye find many faults when those that just like the source materials just want to have fun. I’m hopeful this means it will appeal a bit more directly to me, but I haven’t wanted to venture out and look around for any information until I’ve watched some episodes.
EDIT - It was the actor, not the show runner, it turns out. More here.
The problem here, of course, is guys like Marc Bernardin that are super fans not liking it. I’ll know more in a few hours.
I was being half rhetorical because I always push back against that line of thinking. I get where you’re coming from, and I really hope I like Iron Fist better than it sounds like the critics do.
There will always be some critics that don’t get some shows (movies/music/video games), and maybe there’s some of that going on, but I think in most cases saying something isn’t for critics is a fan reaction to convince themselves a thing they like is better than it is.
And it’s not wrong to enjoy a bad show. If it’s about a character you like or provides some other element you’ve got a strong affection for and there’s nowhere else to get it, that’s a-okay. But saying something’s for fans and not the critics usually just means it’s bad enough only fans will like it, because they’re bringing their own context and enjoyment to the table. It’s usually making excuses because you don’t want to admit you like a bad thing.
All of which, 100%, I am guilty of elsewhere.
Thing is, Marc is kind of a massive fanboy, so I’m not sure that analogy works.
oh i forgot about this series. Will have to check out it out tonight.
I don’t know anything about the lore, so going in to this fresh. I did like Daredevil and Jessica Jones though and have been meaning to check out Luke Cage as well, which are i guess related.
The exuberance is insubstantial!
I’m halfway through the second episode and it’s not looking good! (This is from someone who’s very much a fan of the more recent iron fist trades and had fond memories of the old power man and iron fist books)
On Episode 4 and it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
It’s sort of slow, but it’s also a brand new character that has a lot of stuff you sort of have to resolve before you can get into the whole “crime fighter” thing. I mean here is what I know about Iron Fist: he’s a guy that does kung fu stuff. I imagine I’m not alone in this camp and for those of us with literally no history or background on the character you have to do some of the origin storyish stuff.