Let’s address the elephant in the room immediately. The first season of Iron Fist from the Marvel/Netflix line of shows while not a complete disaster (unlike Inhumans), was first time a Marvel show left both critics and fans feeling cold. Between the potential problems of cultural appropriation and the less than stellar fight scenes, it didn’t seem that viewers were too eager to follow the continuing adventures of Danny Rand. Based on the tremendous enthusiasm from Netflix: Marvel’s Iron Fist panel at SDCC in Ballroom 20 yesterday, it seems that audiences are willing to give Iron Fist another shot.

After entering playing the teaser announcing the September 7th release date of Iron Fist Season 2, moderator Jeph Loeb, Head of Marvel Televison, introduced the panelists which included showrunner Raven Metzner, fight choreographer Clayton Barber, actress Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing), actress Simone Missick (Misty Knight), and Danny Rand/Iron Fist himself Finn Jones.

Barber, who replaces Season 1 fight choreographer Brett Chan, said he wanted to the fights in the show to have a “punk rock” flavor. With past credits that include Creed and Black Panther, Marvel Television appears to have taken the lackluster fight complaints seriously in recruiting Barber. In a clip shown at the panel, Danny uses his martial acts skills and of course his namesake “Iron Fist” to stop an armored truck. According to Jones, the majority of the fight scenes are performed by the actors themselves. According to Jones, the armored truck fight scene was particularly brutal to film in cold weather that felt like -15 degrees.

I believe that scene is from the first episode, which was directed by David Dobkin whose credits include the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn comedy Wedding Crashers and the AMC series Into the Badlands.

Teased in Season 2 of Luke Cage, it was confirmed the Daughters of the Dragon team of Misty Knight/Colleen Wing will be a proponent element in the new season. Missick said that when Misty comes to Chinatown and some “ass-kicking ensues.” Henwick cited how both Colleen and Misty bring out the best sides of each other and when Iron Fist begins, Colleen will be in a similar situation as Misty was at the beginning of Luke Cage Season 2. Whereas Colleen came to Harlem to tell Misty to pick herself up, Misty will do the same for Colleen.

As a hardcore comics fan himself, Metzner was eager to show more of the mystical hidden city of K’un-Lun that had been glimpsed in Season 1. However, he wanted to do more than simple snowy peaks but get inside the city. To illustrate what he meant, more footage was shown that showed a flashback to Danny and his K’un-Lun brother from another mother Davos (better known by aficionados as Steel Serpent in the comics) played by Sacha Dhawan competing in a fight to the death for the chance to face the dragon Shao-Lao to claim the Iron Fist mantle. It’s here that we finally see both Danny and Davos sport those trademark yellow masks like in the comics. Whether or not we’ll see the masks pop up in the series remains to be seen. Actor Hoon Lee, who briefly appeared in Season 1 as Lei Kung, will be reprising the role

In the middle of the panel, actress Alice Eve who had been cast in a mysterious role back in December, appeared on stage to reveal her character with a series of clues such as having “sick ass machetes,” “violent,” and having multiple personalities whereupon audience could tell it was Mary Walker a.k.a. Daredevil villain Typhoid Mary. A clip featuring featuring Eve was shown, involving Colleen and Misty paying a visit to Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) and confronting Mary. Praising Barber, Eve cited him teaching her that how discipline was a path to success and “changing her relationship with pain.” For those wondering, no, the character didn’t have white makeup on the right side of her face like in the comics, so we’ll have to wait until September if we’ll be seeing Typhoid Mary’s trademark comics look during the season.

At the end of the panel, one final clip was shown introduced by Sacha Dhawan via video with his character Davos displaying his martial arts skills in the midst of a fight at a club. To the shock and awe of the audience, Davos will be obtaining his own “Iron Fist” the circumstances of which we’ll discover when Season 2 airs. As fans had hoped and anticipated base on the marketing, Davos will likely be adopting the Steel Serpent persona like in the comics. Perhaps most noticeably, Davos’ fist glowed red hinting at the Serpent’s Sting power like in the comics.

An official synopsis has also been released-

Season 2 furthers the transformation of Danny​, a character with a fish out of water coming of age story making his way in a harsh new world, battling to work out who he is. This season, Dann​y​ has promised that with Matt Murdock gone, he will step up and protect his city. ​But a sinister plot twist threatens his very identity ​and he must conquers his villains to protect the town and people he holds close to his heart.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. And the internet gets it wrong again (which is why I never listen to it). Thought the combat was more than fine in IF, except perhaps for the last fight with David Whenam. Could feel the phase interlocking of IF with the other Netflix series to the point that IF felt like another volume of DD; which I kind of dug, that effect. IF also seemed to homage Crouching Tiger between Danny and Colleen, except that this version was fan-fic nicely rewarding that Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh’s characters might get to be together (and I didn’t know just how much I was longing for such a version). Overall, the Hand was delved into more and made more complicated in a smart way, with actual little changing in set-up for what’s next. Nice (and I kept wanting to compare it to Arrow, which is another series I favour

  2. Maybe because of my age (early 40s), names particularly aren’t always ready for me like they used to be. But I got it! comes to me inevitably later: Li Mu Bai, Fat’s character name from CTHD. Can’t for the life of me remember Yeoh’s, but her name wasn’t spoken as much as Mu Bai’s.

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