Apocalypse Series: Iron Fist!

01.10.2013 – Iron Fist is the creation of Roy Thomas and Gil Kane appearing in Marvel Premiere #15 back in May 1974. This was inspired by the popularity of the Martial Arts genre that became known in the 1970s. Marvel had Master Kung Fu as the other comic book series. Though not as popular as Captain America or Spider-Man this fearsome adventurer is quite unique. His origins inspire by Eastern culture and folktales that came from countries like China, Japan and even Korea.

Iron Fist may seem less impressive but when you look at the character there’s something there.

Known as Daniel Rand-K’ai who inherit the power of the Iron Fist through the flaming heart of Shou-Lao the Undying who had his own solo series and teamed up with Luke Cage better known as the original Power Man. The 1970s heroes where quite gritty back then which defined that particular era. Iron Fist was one of them and has been also an Avenger. If you look at it now his costume is a bit campy having worn the traditional ceremonial garb of the Iron Fist. But there’s already a modernized costume of the Iron Fist that has appeared recently









The action figure of course has Marvel Legends to thank for having released along five other characters to build Apocalypse back when Toy Biz WAS the toy manufacturer who made great toys. Toy Biz released under the Apocalypse Series which Iron Fist came out with his first detailed action figure. It had two flame-like accessories to simulate his special abilities.

Back then Toy Biz has Marvel Legends and was ahead of its time in making detailed well-articulated action figures. Iron Fist was release in 2005 in his original traditional costume. The current one of course came out sometime in 2012 under the smaller scaled Marvel Universe series by Hasbro.







Like any action figure none of them is perfect but for Iron Fist he’s just about right who came out a year before the classic Luke Cage under the Mojo Series. Evidently the team-up of Heroes For Hire Inc. makes it in toy form inspired by the comic book started with issue #50 which was original “Luke Cage: Hero For Hire” which lasted until issue #125.

Iron Fist has 36 points of articulation which can achieve some difficult action pose. But was the less interesting character in the Apocalypse Series that had Astonishing X-Men Wolverine, X-23, Maestro, Bishop, and Sasquatch.









In this series Iron Fist has a variant figure having colored red instead of his traditional green and the head has the “angry” expression. But the original figure is enough to appreciate the character’s popularity that inspired the pop culture of martial arts.

Besides the “flame” accessories what Marvel Legends was so popular about is the free comic book or the poster that was packaged with the action figure plus the leg of Apocalypse. If you missed appreciating the original Marvel Legends by Toy Biz this is one character that would be great to have as part of the current Avengers team.

Iron Fist is part of the Apocalypse Series (ML Series XII) under the Marvel Legends toyline manufactured by Toy Biz which eventually re-continued by Hasbro in winter 2006. This was originally released back in 2005 locally distributed by Playkit Inc. in the Philippines.