Power Man and Iron Fist #1 Review

Writer: David Walker / Artist: Sanford Greene / Marvel Comics Riding high off of his ascendance to DC where he has been heralded for his revival of Cyborg, Walker is now taking on one of Marvel’s most popular Black characters in Luke Cage along with Danny Rand. Given the success and visibility of Walker over the last year so with Cyborg, but also his brief run on Shaft, there are a lot of eyeballs on this particular book; especially with Luke Cage’s popularity growing towards A-Tier levels with his inclusion in the previous Mighty Avengers books from Al Ewing and, of course, his appearance on Jessica Jones and the forthcoming series on Netflix. The pairing of Cage and Rand as partners is a throwback like just about everything else in this first issue. This isn’t so much a rebooted storyline that happens to incorporate these two characters; this is more of a direct sequel to the old Heroes for Hire days, with plenty of little heard from and old school characters. You can tell early on that Walker’s aim is to draw the odd-couple/buddy-cops feel between Luke and Danny by making them often at odds about everything (which is true to form). Iron Fist is upbeat, talkative, and eternally optimistic. Power Man is cautious, guarded and perfectly fine with silence that never gets its due in Danny’s presence.

The stories centers not on the rejoining of the partnership, but the two heroes retrieving an old friend from prison (another flashback character). She asks them to help her with s…