BHOC: POWER MAN AND IRON FIST #58

I had picked up POWER MAN AND IRON FIST #57 thanks to the guest appearance of the X-Men in that issue. But having cracked the seal, that meant that I almost automatically began buying the book regularly, even though I was only lukewarm on that prior issue. I had sampled an issue or two of both POWER MAN and IRON FIST in the past and found neither of them especially compelling. But I was getting to the point where I had more disposable income to play with and so it didn’t take much to get me to start following one more comic book series. As it happened, this infatuation with POWER MAN AND IRON FIST only lasted for a little over half a year, and I would wind up kicking it to the curb again, only checking it out occasionally when something of note was on its cover or filled its pages.

POWER MAN AND IRON FIST was at this point being written by Jo Duffy, who had succeeded Chris Claremont after he and John Byrne left the series to focus on their other assignments, principally X-MEN. She was a good fit for the book and brought an easygoing charm to Luke Cage and Danny Rand and their shared cast and world. And under her, the title began to perform better, with sales picking up. The artwork in this issue was done by Trevor Von Eeden, but it isn’t really a true accounting of his capabilities. In just a few years, he’d develop his style in wild graphic directions that made a bit of a small splash. But at this moment, and working for Jim Shooter’s Marvel that stressed six-panel pages and medium shot storytelling, his work was competent but undistinguished. Inker Dan Green gave it all a lovely polish.

Von Eeden did tend to break his pages in this issue down into a far greater number of panels than six, whether in emulation of the kind of storytelling that Bernie Krigstein practiced or simply because he felt like Duffy’s plot had so much going on that he needed the extra space is tough to tell. But it meant that this issue was full of a lot of tiny panels conveying the action. The story opens with Luke and Danny enjoying a night out at a local disco. But their night, and those of the patrons, is interrupted by the arrival of a costumed vigilante, El Aguila. His target is a drug kingpin, Hayes, who is also at the disco. El Aguila is a Zorro-like crusader for justice, and he robs the druglord of his money and possessions but leaves everybody else untroubled. When Hayes’ men bring out artillery, Luke winds up saving El Aguila’s life–only for the masked man to strike him down with a zap-blast so that he can make his escape.

Over the course of the next few weeks, El Aguila makes his presence known in the neighborhood, striking out against slum lords and drug dealers and their ilk. Luke and Danny have an interest in taking him down due to their altercation at the club, but that interest steadily diminishes as they begin to learn of the scope of his activities. Unfortunately, it turns out that Heroes for Hire has been put on retainer by the local Property Owners’ Association in an ironclad and unbreakable contract. The Association members want to see El Aguila brought to justice, which means that Cage and the Fist have no choice but to try and bring him in.

But despite their best efforts, Luke and Danny have little luck in tracking down El Aguila–he strikes and then disappears, and there doesn’t seem to be enough of a pattern to his activities to predict. Left with little other recourse, the team stakes out J.P. Preston, the head of the Property Association that hired them, figuring that it’s only a matter of time before El Aguila takes a shot at him. And eventually, they’re correct–El Aguila accosts Preston as he’s leaving his office, and attempts to relieve him of his valuables. Luke steps in at this point, but El Aguila drops him with a blast from his sword.

Leaping from cover, Iron Fist takes El Aguila down with a single well-placed strike, then moves to check on his partner. While he does so, Preston’s security detail of goons shows up, and at his direction, they begin to beat the hell out of the defeated El Aguila. A recovered Luke and Fist approach, telling Preston to back off and leave El Aguila to the cops, but the slumlord isn’t down with that kind of justice, and he pulls a pistol, shooting at Luke. Dumb move against a guy with bulletproof skin, as this only makes him mad. What’s more, El Aguila reveals that the electrical power he directs through his sword isn’t some mechanism but rather his own innate power, and in the confusion, he’s able to zap the thugs holding him.

So El Aguila makes his escape–and he gets away with Preston’s briefcase and valuables in the bargain. Heroes for Hire is still under retainer from Preston, but Luke tells the man that it’s after five o’clock, so it’s officially quitting time, and he and Iron Fist let the vigilante go on his way unmolested. Given that Preston tried to shoot Cage just a moment ago, he gets off pretty easily here. But that’s the issue. It’s a nice, grounded story with relatively low stakes but an interesting moral conflict for our two heroes. But it wasn’t quite the sort of thing that I was into as a comic book reader of the time, so I can’t say it made a huge impact on me. I’d keep following the title for the next few months, but as nicely as it was being done, it wasn’t really for me.

The Power/Fistfuls letters page this month included a correspondence from Peter Sanderson, future comic book historian and librarian for Marvel. Peter was a regular letter-writer during this period, and his missives were always long, well-written and thoughtful. You can see why the various creators and editors began to become familiar with who he was.