Marvel Doesn't Know How To Prioritize Its Legacy Heroes
As familiar Marvel Comics heroes like Iron Fist Danny Rand and Daredevil Matt Murdock have reached the tail end of their masked careers and Marvel finds new characters to step in, their successors are struggling to connect with readers.
Several of Marvel's most iconic mantles have passed onto new characters in recent years, and while wholly new characters, like Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel and Miles Morales as the main-universe Spider-Man, are thriving fresh faces, some previously established characters are struggling to find their own under an established mask. In Iron Fist (2022) by Alyssa Wong, Michael Yg, and Sean Chen, martial arts master Lin Lie has taken the mantle of Iron Fist, marking him as Marvel's first new Asian character to don the mantel of Iron Fist in the present day. While this change has garnered wide praise for embracing the cultural influence of the Iron Fist's backstory, Lie's own established backstory as the Sword Master means fans have catching up to do if they want to know the new 'Fist's full story.
Related: Marvel's New Iron Fist Has a Major Weakness the Original Didn't
Inherently, this is a good thing: More backstory means more reading for fans, more comics sold for Marvel. The issue, however, is getting fans connected with those stories. Lie's origin as the Sword Master, beautifully captured in the eponymous, 12-issue series by Shuizhu and Gunji, with translations done by Greg Pak, wasn't highly marketed by Marvel at the time, and while Lie also made appearances in some smaller titles, the former Sword Master wasn't given a big platform until his debut as Iron Fist, where his name wasn't revealed until the end of the first issue. The surprise reveal lacked punch, not only because Danny Rand was
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