Freedom!

POWER MAN AND IRON FIST — Issue no. 50, January 1978

Book: Power Man and Iron Fist

Issue No.: 50

Published: January 17, 1978

Title: “Freedom!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Digital scan

“Beginning: a new era of greatness!” So claims the hype text on the cover of this book. I checked the ever-handy Fandom.com Marvel wiki and saw that, even though this is issue no. 50 of Power Man and Iron Fist, it’s also the first issue of Power Man and Iron Fist. Issue no. 49 of this book was just called Power Man. I haven’t read that one, but, based on the cover, it looks like Iron Fist was just a guest star in that issue. But as of issue no. 50, he’s been promoted to full-fledged co-star. I looked back a little further and found that, up until issue no. 17, this book was titled Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.

It seems that, in more modern times, comic book companies publish new “first” issues all the time, thanks to mini-series and series restarts. For example, apparently Daredevil volume 7 is wrapping up with issue no. 14 next month, and then the “first” issue of Daredevil volume 8 is coming out in September. So I appreciate that Bronze Age comic books were allowed to evolve while retaining the continuity of their issue numbering. I mean, in one sense, the issue numbers are kind of arbitrary. But it’s also simpler and more practical when there is only one “first” issue of Daredevil, as opposed to us now having seven (going on eight) “first” issues of Daredevil.

I’m not an expert on Power Man or Iron Fist. I mostly know Power Man (AKA Luke Cage) from the Netflix Jessica Jones TV show, where he was portrayed by the excellent Mike Colter. But I do know a little about 1970s pop culture, and, based on that, teaming up a martial arts character (Iron Fist) with a character who was at least partly inspired by blaxploitation heroes like Shaft and Foxy Brown (Power Man) makes a lot of sense. Because martial arts movies and blaxploitation movies were all the rage in the 1970s.

Reading books for Marvel Time Warp, I discovered that Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the writer/artist team responsible for some legendary X-Men stories (including the “Dark Phoenix” storyline that’s been adapted for movies a couple of times) also worked together on other Marvel books, including Marvel Team-Up and Power Man and Iron Fist. Though I found out, thanks to an editor’s note on the “Comments to Cage” fan-mail page, that this is Byrne’s last issue of Power Man and Iron Fist, because he’s leaving to spend more time on X-Men. Which is cool, because, thanks to hindsight, we know that Byrne’s time on X-Men will be very well spent.

As this is sort of a “first” issue, it provides a good jumping-on point for new readers (like me!). It starts with a recounting of Luke Cage’s origin — basically he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and ended up being a guinea pig for an experiment that gave him super-strength. After many years, he was recently re-tried and found not guilty. But that doesn’t stop the story’s bad guys from trying to kill Power Man. Basically, they are “law and order” vigilante types who don’t believe in the actual U.S. criminal justice system, and they turn against actual police officers when they disagree with them. These guys (called Discus and Stiletto) try to kill a cop when he gets between them and Power Man.

These “law and order” guys going after a Black man like Luke Cage for no good reason and also trying to kill a police officer… it’s an unfortunately timely plotline for 2023, as white nationalism (tangled up with “law and order” politics) is on the upswing in the U.S. Then again, if it’s timely now and it was also timely in 1978, maybe it’s been a problem this whole time.

Next time — I’ll be back Tuesday with a Marvel adaptation of a late-’70s TV show!