Warning! This article contains spoilers for Devil's Reign #2
The Netflix adaptation of Iron Fist was not as well received by fans as some of the streaming service’s other Marvel shows including Daredevil and Jessica Jones, and now Marvel Comics just showed Netflix how they messed up the character. The culmination of the separate Netflix/Marvel shows was the limited series The Defenders in which all of the introduced heroes have to team up to take down the villainous group known as the Hand. In Marvel’s current continuity, the heroes of New York City are in a similar predicament, and Marvel Comics used the storyline to show how Netflix truly dropped the ball on Iron Fist.
In Devil’s Reign #2 by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Man are trying to reach Danny Rand aka Iron Fist as a new law was just put into effect outlawing superheroes. Iron Fist tells the other heroes on the phone that he isn’t worried about getting arrested as he plans on leaving the area for a time until the situation blows over. Before Iron Fist can even hang up the phone, he is bombarded by Crossbones and his team of corrupt law enforcement officials. Iron Fist fights them back before getting arrested and shipped off to a high security prison designed specifically for superhumans.
Iron Fist’s whole approach to handling a situation involving multiple heroes is completely different in the comic than it was in Netflix’s The Defenders series. When Danny Rand finds out the Hand had infiltrated his own company in the show, he alerts all of them to the fact that he knows who they are and he’s coming after them. Iron Fist’s tactics in The Defenders completely gave the villains the upper hand as he lost the element of surprise and gave himself and his fellow heroes less time to come up with a plan to stop them.
In Devil’s Reign, Iron Fist plans on flying under the radar and moving away from the situation to give himself time to assess and react accordingly without giving his enemy the chance to catch him off guard. Unfortunately in the comic, Iron Fist is caught off guard regardless, but his initial planning was solid and could have given the heroes the upper hand they so desperately needed.
Iron Fist is more cautious when faced with the impossible situation presented in Devil’s Reign which is a much better play than being reckless as he was when faced with a similar threat in Netflix’s The Defenders. Iron Fist’s only problem in the comic is that he didn’t move quick enough to counter his enemies attack, though that can be chalked up to the villains being overly prepared to take down the heroes rather than shortcoming of the heroes themselves. Marvel Comics showed Netflix how they messed up Iron Fist as The Defenders’ version was reckless and impulsive while Iron Fist in the comic was cautious and calculating.
