rayaan54's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.25
rnbhargava's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Power Man/Luke Cage and Iron Fist are two of my absolute favorite Marvel characters. This is my first time though reading the original series that paired them up. It’s absolutely dated in some very notable ways but it’s also a lot of fun.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Grief, Blood, Body shaming, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Trafficking, Violence, Body horror, Misogyny, Gun violence, Racism, Sexism, and Torture
All the trigger warnings are actually quite light and can be explained by outdated cultural beliefs in the writing that honestly even a lot of people involved in the book if they’re still around would say they don’t still believe in. It’s a fun, mostly street level, action adventure comic. I’m giving a 3.75 mostly because of the dated aspects and each arc being quite the mixed bag because of all the times creators involved changed up. On to volume 2 & 3 of Power Man & Iron Fist in the Epic Collection.captwinghead's review against another edition
3.0
I'll divide this into the portion written by Claremont and then the portion written by Mary Jo Duffy.
One note: this entire book suffers from the time period. It's very dated; not just in terms of art and style but in terms of language. I hate, hate, hate the way Luke's dialogue was written. There are several words here that made me cringe, especially towards Asian characters. The "g" slur is used and Jeryn refers to an Asian character as "oriental". All of this in a book co-starring a white character who's an expert in martial arts... it's a lot to take in. But again, this is stuff that was deemed totally ok by 1970s standards. Doesn't make it right but I would be remiss to not mention it.
Claremont:
This is a much more likable Danny Rand. He gave his shares of the company to Joy Meachum because she earned her place and he hasn’t yet. This is a much more humble and respectable Danny.
Luke and Danny’s friendship is classic comic book cheesy but they’re adorable. Especially when Danny worried Luke wouldn’t want him to be a part of Heroes for Hire. Danny worries about Luke a lot and, surprisingly, there's a lot of Luke being damsel'ed and Danny saving him. I guess, when the female characters aren't here, the men have to save someone.
Luke feels machismo style sympathy for women which is quite annoying to be honest. A lot of "sugar", "darling", etc.
Nightshade was a surprisingly progressive villain. She was a woman that built robots to be her henchmen and tricked the men into thinking she was just a pawn. Black female genius. I can dig it.
Mary Jo Duffy:
Switches over to Mary Jo Duffy and I really like her style! Luke gets to use his brain. There’s a discussion of privilege between Luke and Danny. It was quite progressive for the time. Danny seems to actually try to understand where Luke's coming from. Several times throughout this portion, Danny tries to buy their way out of trouble and give Luke money and Luke turns him down.
The sparring scene was genius! It was all about their different styles. Luke uses his strength and is a lot more straight forward. When he needs information, Luke goes to people on the street for information. He even lives above a theater in Harlem so that the people always know where to reach him. Danny is much more stylistic, stealthy and he goes through official channels for information.
Luke and Danny’s chemistry is better in Duffy's portion. It felt a lot more even towards Luke's skills.
I don’t like this arc that basically says Misty’s crazy for not trusting a guy that used to make bombs. His bombs killed people so, excuse me for not feeling any sympathy for him because Misty's being mean to him. Yeah, maybe it's not his fault that Misty lost her arm but he still killed people. He's still a bad guy and the arc makes it seem like Misty's just being a meanie pants for not welcoming him into the fold.
I don’t love the idea that Misty and Colleen lose business because Luke and Danny are in business. They refer to the boys as "superheroes" and act like they're lesser than even though they seem to have been doing their jobs more efficiently.
There are a couple 2-bit heroes and villains I'd never heard of here like La Acquino and Muerte. There's a point where Luke is buried alive. Luke is a famous super hero. If you were planning on burying him to get rid of him, why would you go through the trouble of making a fake tombstone?
There’s a deeper relationship going on between Luke and DW Griffith. I had a lot of questions and I kind of wanted more of them. I'm interested in Luke's life outside of cases.
Issue 65 is the least feminist in the bunch. Luke’s a misogynist and there’s some questionable stuff about when it’s okay to hit a woman. Also, Jeryn’s a dick.
Summary: So, this was pretty much like most older Marvel comics. The stories are a bit meh, the characterization is okay and the art was fine. It's not something I can see myself re-reading a lot but I enjoy Luke and Danny's partnership. I liked seeing more of the background characters that pop up in later series. It's easy to see that David F. Walker pulled a lot from the early books for his Power Man and Iron Fist series. I think that one is a lot better, not just because it's a lot more recent but because the writing was a lot stronger and Luke and Danny were more evenly matched.
So, it's not quite a recommend. If you have Marvel Unlimited and feel like checking it out, just skim it some and see if you like it.
One note: this entire book suffers from the time period. It's very dated; not just in terms of art and style but in terms of language. I hate, hate, hate the way Luke's dialogue was written. There are several words here that made me cringe, especially towards Asian characters. The "g" slur is used and Jeryn refers to an Asian character as "oriental". All of this in a book co-starring a white character who's an expert in martial arts... it's a lot to take in. But again, this is stuff that was deemed totally ok by 1970s standards. Doesn't make it right but I would be remiss to not mention it.
Claremont:
This is a much more likable Danny Rand. He gave his shares of the company to Joy Meachum because she earned her place and he hasn’t yet. This is a much more humble and respectable Danny.
Luke and Danny’s friendship is classic comic book cheesy but they’re adorable. Especially when Danny worried Luke wouldn’t want him to be a part of Heroes for Hire. Danny worries about Luke a lot and, surprisingly, there's a lot of Luke being damsel'ed and Danny saving him. I guess, when the female characters aren't here, the men have to save someone.
Luke feels machismo style sympathy for women which is quite annoying to be honest. A lot of "sugar", "darling", etc.
Nightshade was a surprisingly progressive villain. She was a woman that built robots to be her henchmen and tricked the men into thinking she was just a pawn. Black female genius. I can dig it.
Mary Jo Duffy:
Switches over to Mary Jo Duffy and I really like her style! Luke gets to use his brain. There’s a discussion of privilege between Luke and Danny. It was quite progressive for the time. Danny seems to actually try to understand where Luke's coming from. Several times throughout this portion, Danny tries to buy their way out of trouble and give Luke money and Luke turns him down.
The sparring scene was genius! It was all about their different styles. Luke uses his strength and is a lot more straight forward. When he needs information, Luke goes to people on the street for information. He even lives above a theater in Harlem so that the people always know where to reach him. Danny is much more stylistic, stealthy and he goes through official channels for information.
Luke and Danny’s chemistry is better in Duffy's portion. It felt a lot more even towards Luke's skills.
I don’t like this arc that basically says Misty’s crazy for not trusting a guy that used to make bombs. His bombs killed people so, excuse me for not feeling any sympathy for him because Misty's being mean to him. Yeah, maybe it's not his fault that Misty lost her arm but he still killed people. He's still a bad guy and the arc makes it seem like Misty's just being a meanie pants for not welcoming him into the fold.
I don’t love the idea that Misty and Colleen lose business because Luke and Danny are in business. They refer to the boys as "superheroes" and act like they're lesser than even though they seem to have been doing their jobs more efficiently.
There are a couple 2-bit heroes and villains I'd never heard of here like La Acquino and Muerte. There's a point where Luke is buried alive. Luke is a famous super hero. If you were planning on burying him to get rid of him, why would you go through the trouble of making a fake tombstone?
There’s a deeper relationship going on between Luke and DW Griffith. I had a lot of questions and I kind of wanted more of them. I'm interested in Luke's life outside of cases.
Issue 65 is the least feminist in the bunch. Luke’s a misogynist and there’s some questionable stuff about when it’s okay to hit a woman. Also, Jeryn’s a dick.
Summary: So, this was pretty much like most older Marvel comics. The stories are a bit meh, the characterization is okay and the art was fine. It's not something I can see myself re-reading a lot but I enjoy Luke and Danny's partnership. I liked seeing more of the background characters that pop up in later series. It's easy to see that David F. Walker pulled a lot from the early books for his Power Man and Iron Fist series. I think that one is a lot better, not just because it's a lot more recent but because the writing was a lot stronger and Luke and Danny were more evenly matched.
So, it's not quite a recommend. If you have Marvel Unlimited and feel like checking it out, just skim it some and see if you like it.
bemerson's review against another edition
4.0
Really fun and surprisingly lighthearted run of two not-so-popular (at the time) characters. Worth mentioning that the bulk of this run was written by a female (Mary Jo Duffy). I think that's pretty awesome. Not a ton of action, but very interesting, character-driven scripts. Definitely worth picking up if you want to learn more about the characters before their respective shows come out on Netflix, though I imagine they will be much, much darker than the comics.
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