Crack concept: Netflix makes a “What If: All-Different Defenders” miniseries.
Basically, it’s the same universe but with these differences. Matt is the one who was killed by the mob and Jack Murdock became Daredevil. Alisa Jones was the one who fought Kilgrave (and by default, Jessica became the crazy serial killer). Luke never escaped prison. Instead, Comanche was the one who went through Noah Burstein’s experiment. Last, Danny died in the plane crash. Wendell and Heather Rand survived and became the duo known as the “Iron Fists”.
The miniseries features Jack, Alisa, Comanche, Heather, and Wendell teaming up to stop the Hand. But instead of Sigourney Weaver leading (forgot her character’s name), it’s Colleen Wing. In this universe, Colleen killed Bakuto to take his place as one of the leaders of the Hand. Over time, she became the main Hand leader.
Fasten your seatbelts, everybody... this one is wild.
The Iron Fist is a legacy character, and Danny’s story began long before he was born. We could go all the way back to the very first Iron Fist, but we’re going to be covering a lot of that in our post on K’un-Lun, so for now we’ll start with Wendell Rand. Wendell is one of those characters who suffers from multiple, conflicting continuities, but in the most up-to-date version of his life story he lived as an orphan in the Himalayas before being adopted by Orson Randall.
Wendell: “My name’s Wendell, an’ you better back off.”
Orson: “Oh, a little dragon, hunh...? [...] Well, I’m not gonna hurt you, Wendell... I just wanna talk... Those celestial slave-masters feed you anything today?”
[Immortal Iron Fist #6 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Russ Heath]
Orson is the Iron Fist-- the champion of K’un-Lun-- who fled the city and his responsibilities in disgrace and is now on the run. He raises Wendell, teaches him to fight, and brings him along on all of his adventures. As Wendell grows, he becomes more and more intent on following in his father-figure’s footsteps and becoming the next Iron Fist.
Wendell: “Such menial labor is beneath one such as I-- the Immortal Iron Fist!”
Orson: “Dammit, Wendell-- I told you-- You’re not Iron Fist. You’re not gonna be Iron Fist. And the sooner you get that damn fool idea out of your head-- the longer you’ll live. Got it?”
[Orson Randall and the Green Mist of Death by Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, and Russ Heath]
Orson, who is sick and traumatized by the violence he has seen throughout his career, and is disillusioned with the messy politics of K’un-Lun, warns Wendell that the city will destroy him. But Wendell goes for it anyway. The trek into the mountains nearly kills him, but he finds his way to the gates of K’un-Lun on the one day every ten years that it is accessible from Earth.
Once there, he is adopted into the family of Tu-An, the ruler of K’un-Lun, and trains alongside the city’s other young men. Orson Randall isn’t exactly popular in the eternal city, given his rejection of his Iron Fist duties, so Wendell keeps that particular part of his backstory a secret. While in K’un-Lun he makes several vital connections-- not necessarily in this order: He marries a woman named Shakirah/Shakari (as we said-- contradicting continuities. Gotta love ‘em) and has a daughter named Miranda. He makes an enemy of his adopted brother Nu-An, who later becomes the next ruler of K’un-Lun. And he becomes best friends with Davos, the son of warmaster and all-around chill guy Lei Kung the Thunderer.
Wendell: “Only thing worse than eating with the outworlder is getting beaten by him, hunh? So... did you throw that match? Did you take pity on me, maybe?”
Davos: “...I didn’t and I never will... I demand the best of you, and you shall know only the best of me.”
[Immortal Iron Fist #9 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Scott Koblish, et al.]
Davos later becomes the antagonist Steel Serpent. He has a terrible falling-out with Wendell, and gets kicked out of K’un-Lun after illegally fighting the dragon Shou-Lao... but that’s another long story.
When the time comes, Wendell defeats his peers in combat and wins the opportunity to face the Shou-Lao the Undying and become the Iron Fist. Though this is a chance he has longed for his whole life, when the time comes he is beset with fear and self-doubt. It’s supposed to be a scary experience, of course, and many who attempt to gain the chi of Shou-Lao die trying, but there’s more to it than that. Wendell can’t forget all of Orson’s warnings about the pain and danger of becoming the Iron Fist. He gets to the cave’s entrance, but he wimps out at the last minute and can’t bring himself to fight the dragon.
Wendell: “Davos... I couldn’t do it, Davos. I got to the doors of the cave... I could feel him... feel him move beneath my feet. But all I could hear were my old mentor’s words... and all I could see was what the dragon had done to you, Davos...”
[Immortal Iron Fist #12 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Kano, and Matt Hollingsworth]
It may be because of this, or because of the sudden death of his wife (that dang dual continuity strikes again), but Wendell flees K’un-Lun in anger and despair the next time it intersects with Earth.
Eventually, he makes his way to New York, taking with him Orson Randall’s family inheritance and half of his last name. There, he starts up a business venture with his new friend Harold Meachum, gets married, and has a kid (yes, Danny has finally entered his own origin story!). The business makes him incredibly rich, and he loves his family very much, but as time goes on he becomes more and more obsessed with thoughts of the life he left behind in K’un-Lun. Finally, ten years after leaving, he decides that he has to try to return home. So he organizes a fun trip for Harold and his family to go wandering through the Himalayas in search of a magical city. As you do.
The trip goes as well as you might expect. Way up in the mountains, nine-year-old Danny slips off a ledge, dragging his parents with him.
Caption: “Your father was a strong man... strong in body, strong of will. It took long seconds for the crushing pressure of Harold Meachum’s boot to loosen his grip on the ice-cold rock. But, at last, your father fell.”
[Marvel Premiere #15 by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Glynis Wein]
One can only assume that Harold didn’t actually think this whole thing through, because right after murdering her husband, he tells Heather Rand he loves her and pleads with her to come back to New York with him. Little traumatized Danny probably would have been okay with that, but Heather isn’t having it, and she flings rocks at Harold until he gives up and leaves-- abandoning them to what he logically assumes to be their deaths.
Heather deserves a massive amount of credit. She pulls through in an impossible situation, and though she personally doesn’t believe in K’un-Lun, though she knows they’re both going to die, she keeps going, trying to keep Danny’s spirits up as they trek further into the mountains.
Heather: “Danny, I... I want you to promise me something. Promise me you don’t hate your father for bringing you here! For, he had a vision of a better world, waiting somewhere for the three of us... somewhere always just beyond the next ridge. Promise me, Danny!”
[Marvel Premiere #15 by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Glynis Wein]
And more to the point, she actually finds K’un-Lun, just as it undergoes its natural intersection with Earth. She doesn't get there alive, but she does find it, and that’s commendable. As they reach the bridge leading into the city, the wolf pack that has been tracking them for the past few days becomes emboldened. Realizing the dire nature of the situation, Heather turns around and throws herself to the wolves-- sacrificing her life to give Danny time to make it to safety.
Caption: “You paused then-- not quite on the other side of the bridge. You turned, confused... You saw then-- what you saw. And you’ll never forget it...”
[Marvel Premiere #15 by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Glynis Wein]
The real miracle of Danny’s origin story is that he grows up to be as well-adjusted as he is after all of this.
Much, much later, Danny learns that Nu-An, the ruler of K’un-Lun at this point (who, as we mentioned above, hates Wendell’s guts and is kind of a jerk) didn’t send the city’s guards out to chase off the wolves until after Heather was dead, because he was only interested in Danny. But that’s a whole other story. For the moment, Danny’s life is miraculously spared, and he is welcomed into the eternal city with semi-open arms.
Lei Kung: “Three days ago you watched your mother fall to a pack of beasts. The night before, your father fell into an icy abyss. But your descent has just begun... [...] Good. You can stay. I am Lei Kung, the Thunderer. And today you are reborn, Daniel Rand-K’ai, reborn in K’un Lun.”
[Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #3 by Kaare Andrews]
Danny’s life in K’un-Lun can be described as tough-yet-idyllic. He remains haunted by his parents’ deaths and by the revelation of Harold Meachum’s homicidal nature, but he also becomes quickly enamored of the wonder of his new home.
Danny: “Miracle of miracles. I’d almost forgotten how different K’un-Lun could be... Yet it’s all I could think of as a child running through these alleys. How magical it was. How the spires reached higher to the heavens than seemed possible. How anything seemed within reach here...”
[Immortal Iron Fist #8 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth]
Danny acutely feels the effects of being an outworlder in what is, by necessity, an insular society. He is bullied for it, and suffers from feelings of loneliness and isolation, just as his father did. But he actually builds a slightly bigger support system than Wendell’s, including making a whopping three friends. One is a slave girl called Sparrow-- another orphaned misfit, and the adopted daughter of Lei Kung the Thunderer, who shows Danny the ropes shortly after he arrives in the city.
Sparrow: “Then come with me.”
Danny: “Is it dangerous?”
Sparrow: “Only if we get ourselves killed... or caught. Or caught and then killed.”
[Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #7 by Kaare Andrews]
His two other friends are Conal, one of his peers, and Miranda, who is actually Danny’s half-sister, mentioned above (though she chooses not to tell him until literally the last possible second). Their friendship is not explored in much depth in the source material, but we do know that the three of them are very close.
Caption: “She fought like an unstoppable force until she was unmasked-- and revealed to be Miranda. [...] More help came from another friend... Lord Conal D’Hu-Tsien. You thought yourself bound to them for life.”
[Iron Fist vol. 3 #2 by Dan Jurgens, Jackson Guice, and Tom Ziuko]
Like Sparrow, Miranda is one of the many women in K’un-Lun who has secretly learned martial arts, despite the city’s strict rules against such things. This eventually gets both her and Conal, who trained her, into big trouble... but that’s another story.
Danny, as a boy, is expected to learn to fight, and he takes eagerly to his training as a method of both distraction and self-empowerment. It gives his life a purpose, and counteracts some of the lingering helplessness he feels in regards to his parents’ unjust deaths. Under Lei Kung’s firm but fair tutelage he becomes a powerful fighter, and ten years after arriving in K’un-Lun he wins the chance to try and become the Iron Fist. Unlike Wendell, who was plagued with doubts about this moment, Danny approaches the challenge with complete confidence. And this gives him the edge he needs to survive.
Danny: “For me, it seems almost a lifetime ago... standing in the caves of Shou-Lao the Undying... after I had fought for the honor of facing certain death. I was the champion of K’un-Lun... and this was my destiny [...]. To seize the power of the dragon... to plunge my hands into his molten heart... to change them into things... like unto iron.”
[Immortal Iron Fist #1 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth]
Having killed Shou-Lao and absorbed the dragon’s chi, Danny then faces the Challenge of the Many and the One-- the final tests. Of course, he passes. Finally, he is granted the honor of becoming immortal-- the equivalent of getting official K’un-Lun citizenship. Danny loves the city and wants nothing more than to stay there, but he has never been able to make peace with his parents’ deaths, and he feels compelled to act on this lingering anger. At this point K’un-Lun is about to intersect with Earth again. And so, nineteen-year-old Danny turns down immortality and, with the painful knowledge that he might never see his adopted home again, he returns to New York to hunt down and kill Harold Meachum.
And that’s a story for another post.
We already know that some of this will be changing in the Netflix show, thanks to the (in some ways) extremely thorough promo material released so far. We know that the Rands make the trip into the Himalayas seemingly without Harold, in a plane, and that Wendell and Heather are killed when the plane crashes. This removes some of the drama (if not the trauma) of their deaths, and quite a bit of Heather’s heroism, but we understand why the change was made. When you get down to it, a plane trip just makes more sense.
We also know that the timeline has been shifted. Danny is ten, rather than nine, when he arrives in K’un-Lun, and he is there for fifteen years instead of ten. This puts him at twenty-five, rather than nineteen, when he returns to New York-- which is a significant age jump, but still makes him significantly younger than most of the other Marvel Netflix protagonists.
They have also changed a few details about the actual process of becoming the Iron Fist-- but, seemingly, not as many as we’d feared! Most notably, Finn Jones has heavy implied Shou-Lao’s presence in the show. (Danny’s fight with the dragon, if handled properly, would be mind-blowing in live action). We also know that the dragon brand will not actually be a brand in this universe. Shou-Lao having a dragon-shaped hole in their chest has always been a weak bit of worldbuilding, so we’re not surprised they changed that... though it does suggest a significant change in how one might go about killing the dragon.
And finally, we know that Danny’s revenge quest has either been shifted to take place later in the story, or is being scrapped altogether. Because of the seemingly accidental nature of the Rands’ tragic demises in the show, if Harold was somehow responsible, Danny doesn’t know about it yet. This leaves his motivation for leaving K’un-Lun a complete mystery. Whatever it is, it’s got to be something urgent and, presumably, serious.
We’re back into watching a Netflix series, this time with the Netflix/Marvel original, “Iron Fist,” starring Finn Jones. The series is about Danny Rand who returns to civilization after having been thought dead for the previous 15 years. What’s more, he has 51% ownership of a company and is worth billions of dollars. He’s got an ability where he can channel his chi into his right hand (his ‘Iron…
And then there's Heather. The other half of the Rand Corp power couple. She might not have married Wendell if she knew him-- if she really knew him. But she only knew the Wendell that came to be. The Wendell of the real world.
Not the man who lived and loved and learned in a mythic city. Not the warrior. Just... Wendell.
She didn't know what she was getting herself into when she followed him into the mountains, that much was certain. She didn't know Harold loved her. She didn't know he would kill her husband to steal their company and to have a "chance" with her. She would rather die than do that.
Hell, she would have let herself freeze solid if not for Danny. He needed her-- he was so handsome. Looked just like his father; it was like she'd had no part in creating him. Maybe his hair was closer in tone to hers, but that was all.
She would do anything for him. A mother's love cannot be limited.
So she didn't allow herself to grieve her husband's death. She picked up her son and she kept moving forward until she found that bridge. And when the wolves came after her, after her Daniel? She didn't hesitate to put herself between them. To die for him.
And when she was so rudely brought back and brainwashed, it was that same love that kept her from killing her own boy. When she looked in his face, she didn't just see him. She saw his father. She saw the life that she was robbed off. But she saw a Daniel that had grown and become such a good man. Both times Heather Rand died, she was so proud of her son for being brave. The second time, she even died happy.
