Power Man and Iron Fist #51 – “A Night on the Town”

Original Release Date: June 1978
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Mike Zeck
Inker: Ernie Chan
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: M.E. Beveridge
Editor: Jim Shooter

Harlem, a place Danny Rand, Caucasian millionaire and the hero known as Iron Fist, is not too familiar with. Luke Cage, Power Man, however, is all too familiar: it’s his home neighborhood. Tonight, Cage is offering Rand a lesson in culture; he’s showing him the old stomping grounds.

Not long into the tour, Cage and Rand are shocked to see two bouncers thrown through the plate glass window right in front of them from one of Cage’s old haunts! Cage tells Rand to run around back and enter a side door while he takes a more direct route: fists pounding right through the front door!

The scene inside angers Luke; he sees his old pal Leroy, owner of the establishment, being harassed by three identical guys. Leroy pleads to Luke to stay out of it and then one of the baddies tells him to keep his nose out of it too. Cage has other ideas; he slams a fist into one man’s face, but is shocked when it doesn’t cause the guy to so much as flinch; instead, the no-good-nik simply backhands Cage to the floor.

After an exchange of punches, two of the baddies have Cage down and almost out. As they close in for the kill, Iron Fist arrives on the scene! He apologizes for being late as the side door was a bit harder to get in than he expected; it was solid steel… and locked! Iron Fist exchanges punches and kicks, thinking he has the upper hand, but one of the guys rushes him and puts him up against the wall with the smash of a chair on his head.

The identical hoods close in on him and, unfortunately for them, Rand has had enough! He charges up his hand using the power of the iron fist and makes mincemeat out of the trio. When the smoke clears, everyone is surprised to see that the trio of baddies are actually robots, something Iron Fist comments as being out of place in an urban ghetto.

Before anyone can catch their breath, the doors to Leroy’s bar burst open and cops enter, telling everyone to freeze! They demand to know what happened and one of the bystanders tells them that Cage and Rand entered the place and started busting it up. Leroy agrees, apologizing to Cage, telling him that he’s got to protect his business. Iron Fist is outraged, but Cage tells him to back down. They’re going to take the fall because he knows this turf and its rules too well; he understands why Leroy is doing what he’s doing.

Outside the two enter a police car and the crowd disperses… all save one who watches and then gets into a rather out-of-place luxury Cadillac and makes his way uptown. The car stops at Liberty Towers and we next see the man entering a rather plush room occupied by one rather heavyset and sinister crime lord and his female companion, a woman by the name of Nightshade.

The man, who is identified as Simon Shreeve, fills the crime lord in on what’s happened and Nightshade walks off to grab a drink. Unseen by the hood is what Nightshade does when she’s off to the side; she speaks into a hidden communicator, telling the crime lord exactly what to say, which is to keep an eye on the two super heroes and make sure that anyone that talks to them ends up dead.

On the other side of town at Danny Rand’s house, the cop that happened to be driving the patrol car our two heroes entered is none other than Lt. Scarfe, a friend of the two. He explains that the cops have been unable to handle the robots, which began showing up just a couple of months ago, scamming all the business owners of Harlem with “protection” rackets. He admits the cops have no idea who is behind it and they have no idea where to look; that’s why they need Cage and Rand.

The next day our heroes spread out, attempting to find out any information that they can. Danny is accompanied by the always awesome Misty Knight while Cage goes it alone. At the end of the day, they come up with not a thing; zilch; nada. After dinner at a local restaurant, the three split up; Cage heads to his girlfriend’s house and Misty goes undercover on the streets.

Later that afternoon, Misty’s disguise as a prostitute turns up something interesting. From the other working women, Misty is fed information about a certain high-roller named Simon Shreeve; apparently he’s connected to a lot of information. Misty spots the man and jumps in the car with him, demanding information.

At the same time at the Rand-Meachum building, Danny arrives at the penthouse on the upper level, hoping to see Joy Meachum, manager of the Rand-Meachum, Inc. Something is immediately wrong as Gus, the normal security guard, doesn’t recognize and won’t allow Rand to enter the penthouse level. There are at least a dozen other security guards around when there are usually only two… Danny catches on to Gus’ warning and does not identify himself as Danny Rand; instead, he exits the room and slips up through the elevator shaft through the air ducts to a high vent on top of the penthouse.

Rand sees that the place is crawling with gunmen and, using his instincts to figure out this is a bad scene, attacks! He works his way through them, seeing that they’re pretty good, but not good enough. Before he can get through all of them, someone from behind shouts a warning; Fist turns to see a man who identifies himself as Morgan, crime lord of the Harlem rackets (and the man seen before with Nightshade and Shreeve). Standing beside Morgan is a man holding Joy Meachum at gunpoint; Morgan tells Rand not to make any stupid moves or she’s dead!

*****

It’s kind of evil of me to cover a comic with a cliffhanger ending, isn’t it? Ah well, the fun of it is getting you interested enough that perhaps you’ll seek out this specific issue and its follow-ups to get the whole story. So, not entirely evil here, I say!

There’s not much I need to say about writer Chris Claremont. It is, however, true that so many people know him for his amazing work on the Uncanny X-Men that they tend to overlook his more obscure work (relative to X-Men, that is). This book is a shining example of some of the better stuff he produced while at Marvel that doesn’t have an “X” in the title.

Seen here is the grasp Claremont has on a book’s main characters and their supporting line-up, which is very obvious in his Uncanny X-Men work. Also seen here is a pretty fun and interesting romp through a more down-to-Earth story (okay, minus the robots) that sees Cage and Rand doing more than just fighting super villains.

The art is courtesy of the always-fantastic Mike Zeck, who did lots and lots of fill-in work for Marvel and DC, but you might know better as the guy on art for J.M. DeMatteis legendary Kraven’s Last Hunt story (a personal fave of mine). It’s top-notch, to be sure.

And finally, what’s my opinion on the rest of this particular arc? It’s rather good and worth the money you might spend on these old issues, especially if you’re a Marvel freak or just like Power Man and Iron Fist. There are also some Claremont people out there that should check this out to see that he’s done good stuff outside of X-Men.

Anyway, I’m off to prepare for exams. I graduate in two weeks from the University of Alabama. So, if anyone’s been wondering why I haven’t been updating this column, you can understand how busy I’ve been. No excuses, though (except for the one I just gave you!). See you soon!