I’ve been reading Immortal Iron Fist since the current series began and I have dug it a lot. It’s probably one of my favorite series right now (next to X-Factor and Invincible) and this week I was just blown away.

Given that Matt Fraction ended his run with issue #16–which I was dumb and somehow didn’t realize–I was a tad skeptical at how this new arc was going to take off. Lucky for me, it ended up being fucking amazing and it seriously blew my mind. From what I’ve been hearing from Comic Con in San Diego, Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker (who co-wrote the first 16 issues together) are saying their series is going to look lame compared to what is coming from Duane Swierczynski in the near future… Really with one issue in I can already see it getting amazing. (Although, I loved the tournament from Fraction and Brubakers run).

**more review and spoilers after the break**

Let me sum up the issue real quick:

We start with 10 years in the future in K’un-Lun. A child runs to his mother (it’s too obvious to NOT be Misty Knight) asking “How did my father die?”. Cut to Danny Rand and Luke Cage fighting some bad guys. Suddenly we meet a new bad guy–he goes into his apartment and talks to a Dragon that magically appears (I believe it’s his “master”). We jump to 1878 in the old west with another Iron Fist. He ends up in a bar… Cut to Danny Rand’s 33rd birthday (where Fraction and Brubaker left off). Some sexual things ensue ;). You read about Danny’s leaving his company when we suddenly cut back to the old west and the Iron Fist is fighting for his life. Cut again to Times Square… we see out baddie–Ch’i-Lin–talking to his master who is a dragon that magically appears on a wall. Then before you know it, he and Danny Rand are fighting, Ch’i-Lin is kicking Danny’s ass and it comes to the end when Danny is on the ground and we find out…… DUN DUN DUN!! This Ch’i-Lin guy is the killer of Iron Fists!

Talk about wow. I know I’m a terrible summerizer–if that is even a word–but I’m skimming the issue and typing so give me some credit.

This is a cool way to lead into things because in my mind, I had no idea what was going to kill Danny Rand. If you remember from last week, we found out that after all the craziness with the almost-attack on K’un-Lun and such it was Danny Rand’s birthday and right before he realizes it, he finds out that all but one Iron Fist before him died at the age of 33. So boy-oh-boy am I excited to see where this story is going now since this Ch’i-Lin guy has Danny Rand on the ground. I’m sure he’ll get out of it somehow (as comic book characters do) but wow, this was a twist I was definitely not expecting.

In my mind, I thought this series was going to continue with something along the lines of Danny’s luck just running out or the Iron Fist just getting either weaker exponentially or just going out of control causing him to become reckless. So good for Duane Swierczynski for blowing away the story and going with something way cool.

With that said, the art in this new issue changed from the previous 16 issues. New artist Travel Foreman was a bit odd at first. It made me think X-Factor #33–which had kind of “blah” art if you ask me–but ended up being pretty good at the end. It is a bit sketchy at times where the view in a panel is ‘zoomed away’ from a character and it had me a tad annoyed but, as I said, it got better as the comic progressed and I liked how he drew Danny Rand in the last 3-4 pages of the issue.

So, if you’re not reading Immortal Iron Fist, start right now and go pick up issue #17 because it’s a great beginning to what I assume is going to be an incredible run in the series.