Danny Rand has had many thrilling martial arts adventures as Marvel‘s superhuman kung fu master Iron Fist, and one of his greatest comic book tales is perhaps the first example of a Marvel Comics manga. In his superhero backstory, billionaire orphan Danny Rand arrives in the otherworldly city of K’un Lun after a plane crash, and is taken in to be raised as a Buddhist monk and kung fu student. Eventually, the grown Danny defeats the mystical dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, gaining the power of the Iron Fist. Later, Danny brings his chi-based powers and martial arts skills back to his home in New York City, becoming the superhero Iron Fist and even uniting with superhero teams like the Heroes for Hire and the Defenders.
Iron Fist’s solo comic book stories have delved deep into the mythos of K’un Lun’s Immortal Weapon, but the 2004 six-part Iron Fist miniseries Breathless is arguably Danny Rand’s most underappreciated comic book tale. Not only does Breathless tell one of Danny’s most personal stories, it also brought the flashy artwork style of Japanese manga into the Marvel Universe.
Breathless Gave Danny Rand a Superhero Existential Crisis
Breathless kicks off with Danny intervening to stop a street gang’s activities, but in the ensuing brawl, one of the criminals pulls a gun, and though Danny dodges the bullet, it ends up striking and killing a single mother in a nearby apartment. With the deceased mother’s young child taken in by child services, Danny experiences nightmares and PTSD about the incident, blaming himself for the mother’s death and ultimately deciding to retire as a superhero. However, Danny is soon pulled back into action when a runaway girl from South Dakota named Mary Blue Cloud arrives at Danny’s new home in Colorado.
With Mary being pursued by a mysterious exile from K’un Lun named Chi and his band of minions known as the Shadow Thieves, Danny only agrees to protect Mary as far as getting her back to her family in South Dakota, but his sense of responsibility as a hero gradually leads him back to properly returning to his Iron Fist persona. In all, Breathless gives Iron Fist something that can almost be considered a superhero rite of passage in having him grapple with the tragic fallout from one of his heroic deeds and being forced to ask himself if he even wants to continue in his heroic life. In the end, Mary’s arrival and Danny’s battle to save her and K’un Lun from Chi and the Shadow Thieves helps him to realize that the mother’s accidental death was not his fault, and the world is a far better place with the Immortal Iron Fist in it.
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Breathless Brought Manga-Style Artwork Into Iron Fist’s Comic Book Canon
Iron Fist’s mythos has long been heavily influenced by Asian culture. Most prominently, that’s seen in the innate presence of martial arts as a core of Iron Fist as a character, going back to his ’70s origins when the average Iron Fist comic was designed to read like a kung fu movie illustrated on the pages of a comic book. Asian mythology, dragons, Buddhism, Taoism, and the concept and nature of chi also play into the essence of Iron Fist, but Breathless was the first Iron Fist story to take it a step further by bringing in a direct influence from Asian comic book storytelling by explicitly illustrating the six-part story in the style of a Japanese manga.
Illustrated by artist Kevin Lau, colorist Omar Dogan, and inker Alan Tam, Breathless stands out as an entirely unique Iron Fist story with its manga-style artwork. Future Iron Fist stories would try a similar approach of incorporating Asian-influenced artwork, most notably Danny’s grandest comic book tale ever in the Immortal Iron Fist run, the artwork of which was clearly predicated on Chinese-style art and painting. Still, it was Breathless that first started the trend of Iron Fist, as a superhero with a heavy influence by Asian culture and mythology, being able embody the artistic style of Asian popular culture with manga-style artwork that was a novelty for both Western comic book readers unfamiliar with manga, and manga fans taking a plunge into Marvel Comics.
Why Breathless Deserves More Recognition as an Iron Fist Story
Breathless brings a lot to the table as an Iron Fist story, and it arguably acts as a complimentary flipside to Danny’s subsequent tale in Immortal Iron Fist. If that epic comic book run exploded the Iron Fist mythos and placed Danny into a grander pantheon of Immortal Weapons and a legacy as one Iron Fist following many before him, Breathless is, first and foremost, a deeply personal Danny Rand story. K’un Lun itself is only shown fleetingly when a portal to the city is briefly opened near the end, and Danny’s retirement after the single mother’s demise has himself largely forsake his costume and mask until he crafts a make-shift one for the final battle. Breathless, in short, takes the Iron Fist legacy out of the spotlight and makes Danny’s internal struggle its real story.
There’s still plenty of chi-powered Iron Fist action throughout Breathless, with Danny kicking down Shadow Thieves, punching through moving cars, and chopping blocks of wood with his bare hands, but Breathless is a pivotal Danny Rand tale for its real focus on Danny’s perception of himself. Danny begins Breathless with guilt and shame after the death of an innocent bystander that he blames himself for, but he ends it with a sense of renewed faith in himself, what he can do as the Iron Fist, and what he can do for people in need like Mary. Sooner or later, every superhero has to go through the existential question of whether they want to continue or not after a harrowing incident shakes their faith in themselves. Breathless is that very story for Iron Fist, and along with the book’s fantastic manga-style artwork, it’s a great and important tale in the legacy of both the Immortal Iron Fist and Danny Rand himself.
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