The introduction to the Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus is best described as a $75 intro. I don't care if you have the issues, I don't care if you have the premiere hardcovers, and I don't care if you have the trades. If you don't have these two pages of winding, non-sensical prose, you've got nothing.
Iron Fist writer Matt Fraction barely made it through the first half at HeroesCon without cracking himself up.
I opened the Immortal Iron Fist bust while I was sitting in my favorite spot to read comics with no intent of getting up for the remainder of the evening. The fact that I was even holding an IMMORTAL IRON FIST OMNIBUS in my hands was vindication for all the times I was called fool-hardy and misguided.
You see, while my friends were buying premiere hardcovers and trade paperbacks for the Eisner award-winning series, I held out and hoped-against-hope for an oversized compendium. "Omniboo are for the greats," they all chided, "like Captain America, and the X-Men, and Howard the Duck!"
Then the solicites came and I was validated. I wanted what the folks at Marvel did: IT ALL!
So I hunkered down with my #1-16 plus the Annual, Orson Randall and the Green Mists of Death, and the Origin of Danny Rand prepared to knock it out in one sitting. I opened to page one...
And I couldn't stop laughing.
I read the intro. Then I read it again. Then I got up, abandoning my post, barreling down the stairs, and stood squarely in front of the TV that Carly was clearly in the middle of watching. And it read it aloud to her. And she laughed.
The next day at the store, I halted everything, in the middle of a Wednesday, I believe it was, and re-read it for everyone within earshot until my voice was sore. And the next day I did it again for another group of patrons.
Then Jermaine came to me and told me I would be filming Fraction read the intro out loud himself down at Heroes. And it was perfect.
For further fantastic Fraction forewards, please check out Teenagers from the Future, a collection of essays surrounding the Legion of Super Heroes.
