The Marvel Netflix shows have consistently introduced new characters and fleshed out their stories. Each one shares a common trait--they contain hardcore grittiness and action. In the latest one, Iron Fist, we'll meet Danny Rand. Trained in martial arts, the character and the story continues the high-octane tone and fight scenes we've come to expect.

Despite being the fifth Marvel Netflix series, it's not simply more of the same. We are seeing some new ground explored as another comic book character is brought to life. However, there will also be some familiar faces and concepts to ensure the show fits in with the others. We watched the first six episodes. Here are five reasons you'll want to catch Iron Fist when it debuts on March 17.

Iron Fist Isn't A Mopey Character

Imagine being a kid, having your parents die in front of you, and finding yourself in a strange city. We know what happened to Bruce Wayne when he witnessed his parents' death--he became an obsessed and brooding vigilante. Danny Rand's story is a little different. Even though he returns home 15 years later and discovers how much has changed, he's still pretty upbeat. Maybe it had to do with the training and upbringing he received. Perhaps he's had plenty of time to unleash any anger or frustration during his experiences. Whatever the case, he is simply more well-balanced than characters like Daredevil and Jessica Jones. It's refreshing to see a character that has a more positive outlook on things.

This isn't to say Danny will sit around with a big smile on his face. When it comes down to it, he won't hesitate to act. That means kicking a lot of butt. Along with his martial art skills, he has the ability to channel his chi so he can draw upon the superhuman energy derived from the heart of the mystic serpent Shou-Lao. At least, that's the explanation given in the comics. The bottom line, though, is the same: His fist glows, and he delivers a massive blow.

The Mystical City Of K'un-Lun Exists

In the comics, K'un-Lun is one of the "Capital Cities of Heaven" and exists in another dimension. The city only appears in the earthly realm every 10 years. This has changed to 15 for the show. Comic fans may have wondered how K'un-Lun would be utilized and if it would actually exist in another dimension. He does explain this to a doctor early on. Often elements from the comics have to be changed. K'un-Lun and Danny's time there is a huge part of what shaped his character.

The Defenders Are Being Set Up

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During 2016's San Diego Comic-Con, Netflix showed a teaser for the team show, The Defenders. It's been known that Iron Fist will eventually join Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage to take on a threat. While we do see different parts of New York City, there are some familiar faces to tie the characters together.

Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson, is friends with one of the characters Danny meets. Temple is the former nurse who has put her abilities to use helping out Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. She's becoming the Stan Lee of the Marvel Netflix Universe, making an appearance with each character.

Jeri Hogarth, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, was introduced in the Jessica Jones series. Her character was loosely based on Jeryn Hogarth, an attorney for Danny Rand in the comics. You can imagine knowing a lawyer could useful when the world believed you were dead for 15 years.

Misty Knight, introduced in Luke Cage, is also listed as appearing in a later episode.

Then there are a couple of villains...

The Hand and Madame Gao

Remember Madame Gao from Daredevil Season 1 and 2? She was selling heroin that had a serpent symbol. That symbol is similar to Danny Rand's chest "tattoo." When Daredevil confronted her, she easily sent him flying with the palm of her hand. It's been theorized that perhaps she had visited K'un-Lun at some point. It's possible she may even turn out to be a version of the Crane Mother from 2007's Immortal Iron Fistseries. The Crane Mother was a mystic and ruler of one of the other Legendary Cities of Heaven. If any of this plays out in the Netflix series, Iron Fist is going to definitely have his hands full.

The Hand also makes its return. An army of evil ninjas is never a good thing. The Bride of Nine Spiders is also a great addition.

Plenty Of Action And Violence

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If you have a main character trained in a mystical city to become a living weapon, you can imagine the fighting to expect. Danny is quick to action. He fights with ease and grace. You'll even see him fight against multiple foes at the same time.

The great thing is he is not the only one that can fight. Colleen Wing, the Daughter of the Dragon, as she calls herself, makes the jump from the comics as well.

Colleen runs a dojo and trains others to fight and defend themselves. There is a connection between her and Iron Fist, and she also forms a strong friendship with Misty Knight in the comics.

Colleen gets plenty of time to show off her fighting abilities. Danny will absolutely need her help to take on the incredible odds stacked against him.

You have all this and more to look forward to when all 13 episodes of Iron Fist Season 1 debut on Netflix on March 17.

From what I hear it's getting bad reviews, which is surprising.

Yeah I'm seeing nothing but bad things about this show...

A show about a guy who knows kung fu starring a guy who doesn't know kung fu, led by the same showrunner who arguably made the worst seasons of Dexter. What possibly could go wrong?

Super bummed about this since IF is my favorite Marvel hero, though not surprised that this kind of character would not translate well for life action.

Is the negativity about how the show is handled or another PC thing about the character not being Asian?

Cause I'm hearing more about the PC crap then anything about the show itself.

Which is stupid to begin with. Considering that Danny Rand has always been a Caucasian from the very beginning. So suddenly making him Asian or whatever just for some PC nonsense, is rather silly IMO.

The biggest complaint seemed to be that he's played by a white actor.

@xwraith:

The one I read said it was just boring and not well written.

This is the one.

Link

While I'm not expecting Daredevil or Jessica Jones, I hope it's better than Luke Cage.

@xwraith: people who make that complaint are super stupid

The negative stuff I'm hearing seems mostly about having a white male cast as Iron Fist. As an 53 year old Asian male (American born of Chinese descent) who is a long time comic book fan since the 70's, I have no problems and approve of the casting of Iron Fist. He's a white guy in the comics and should be played by a white male.

I'm really sick and tired of the social justice warriors creating needless controversy. A lot of the complainers aren't even Asian and I think it's ridiculous when they try to lecture me on why I should be offended. The whole concept of cultural appropriation is stupid. People have been adopting elements from other cultures they have encountered throughout history and every race/culture has done it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I just realized the articles I've seen said it was boring and poorly written mostly start off with saying it's "racially uncomfortable" or something about race. That doesn't make sense though, the character has always been of the Caucasian persuasion. I guess that's what you get when there's people judging these shows/movies with zero knowledge of the source material.

@the_stegman: Totally agree. The plot wasn't well thought out. I was whatever with iron fist being Caucasian because he is supposed to be half Asian. The real pity is they didn't have the actual Steel Serpent involved or dragons or even those plant people that inhabit kun lun. With a movie like iron fist, you need to go all out or don't bother.

@ravenvice01: I haven't seen it, so I'm going off of stuff I've read, but it appears to be TOO grounded in reality. It can work for the other Netflix shows, but Iron Fist needs mysticism.

If you read the article they quickly go into race. They bash the main actor for having a stunt double and training just for the series. This all seems like petty band-wagon hopping to me. I'll wait for the show to decide.

The show is getting a lot of negativity for the wrong reasons, the main actor even got driven off twitter by SJW's attacking him for being white...

@the_stegman: totally agree. You know what would make the iron fist series memorable is if iron fist went up against the actual Mandarin and was searching for the Makulan rings

wow really...

@ravenvice01: I'm still hoping we see the Mandarin appear again. Iron Fist or Doctor Strange would be the perfect place to introduce the real deal.

@Feartheliving: more then likely iron fist or if they do a shang-chi series. Doctor strange will have his hands full with nightmare, shuma gorath, mordo and dormammu. Maybe Scarlet witch if she goes bad.

@ravenvice01: Keep this in mind though, they only reviewed the First 6 episodes. The later half could change things.

Racially uncomfortable lol

@the_stegman: Very true but I mean if the first 6 episdoes don't grab you then you feel kind of reluctant to watch the rest.

Don't think it's about race guys, it's just sh*t writing and editing. But seems like y'all already have an agenda here to bash SJWs or whatever.

lol the people pissed at him being white don't know shit about comics and are the ones being racist assuming a guy who knows martial arts should be Chinese getting ridiculous now

Hopefully this show is good you already have talking heads claiming it to be marvels first flop

And you are quick to jump to conclusions. At least there is a reason to suspect race seeing as that the actor being white was the main complaint. No one in this topic is even saying that the bad reviews are based on racism. Someone only asked if it was.

Half Asian???

I know Danny has a sister that's half Asian. But both of Danny's parents are Caucasian as far as I recall. Considering that they were both blonde an all.

@NukeA6: Not sure if you're reading the same thread that I am, seems like most of the posts are talking about the negativity being about race.

Is the negativity about how the show is handled or another PC thing about the character not being Asian?

Cause I'm hearing more about the PC crap then anything about the show itself.

The biggest complaint seemed to be that he's played by a white actor.

I'm really sick and tired of the social justice warriors creating needless controversy. A lot of the complainers aren't even Asian and I think it's ridiculous when they try to lecture me on why I should be offended.

And that's just from 3 posts.

Anyways, from the reviews I've been reading, doesn't seem to mention anything about race, just the quality of the storytelling, editing and fighting choreography.

People are getting way too protective before even seeing the show. It's ok if it isn't incredible, sometimes mistakes are made and things don't turn out quite right. I'm sure people will still enjoy the show and more importantly The Defenders after it.

@texasdeathmatch: -

Iron Fist is a fine addition to the Marvel universe but suffers from its white lead

And these are the reviews that most are complaining about

@rahi3m912:Eh, I read this one first: http://uproxx.com/sepinwall/iron-fist-review-netflix-marvel/

It's a brutal review but pretty much confirmed my doubts about this show. Apparently the main lead is super "noodly" when he fights, and its a shame that he doesn't wear a mask because he basically has to be on camera for most of his stunts rather than have a stunt double like DD.

Also for the record, I think complaining about the race of the actor is dumb as all hell, I just think they chose poorly on the talent to play Danny Rand.

@texasdeathmatch: yeah i can agree with actual criticism about the show other than hes white not asian it got to the point where the actor deactivated his Twitter account because of the hate he received

Ha, as if I needed five reasons.

I don't know, I heard GREAT things about Luke Cage and I was disappointed.

I'll wait and see what actually appears with Iron Fist.

I was really disappointed with Luke Cage too. I didn't like the writing (stuff like the "swear jar" to make it seem like Luke and Pops were really close but they only knew each other for a couple of months) with a lot of bad dialog. The fight choreography was really bad (it reminded of 70's TV shows) and Diamondback's costume was really something from Saturday morning TV show. I thought the guy who played Cottonmouth was good but overall the acting was surprisingly bad. I thought it was all style and no substance. Plus, it was kind of boring -- I had to struggle and force myself to finish watching the series. Which is a shame because I was really looking forward to it.

@dark_stranger: so wait Danny's dad was some white kid who ended up in kun lun and then returned to the states? I know there is a reference of that somewhere. Danny's dad was considered an outsider but some great master taught him anyway

@ravenvice01: From the looks of it. Yes, Wendell Rand was a blonde, blue eyed, white kid, who ended up in K'un Lun to be the next Iron Fist, but left before completing all that would be required and returned to the states to become a business man, where he married his wife Heather and eventually sired Daniel "Danny" Rand.

Yeah, there were quite a few problems I had with it. I'm not sure why it was reviewed so high. I was really, REALLY looking forward to it too.

@dark_stranger: that wraps up then. So people should stop using the PC card. I won't lie I'm disappointed about the lack of costume like in daredevil in the first season

Yeah, people suck. It's like they actively look for reasons to get pissed.

The only complaints I've seen are all really racist remarks about him being a white male and how the show is "culturally appropriating Asian culture"??

A lot of people seem to be bandwagoning the idea that every negative review is just from critics being "too PC", so I'd just like to point out the metacritic page. I don't see anyone upset over the actor being white in any of these reviews. In fact, they seem to love the casting.

What do seem to come up consistently are complaints about the pacing, story progression, and the plot.

Not to say that there aren't some outlets crying "white wash", but let's not be silly here. That is absolutely not where the core reviews are coming from.

I don't put stock into reviews anymore but I read them to see what the fuss is about. The reviews I saw were primarily about the show being to straightforward and centered on Finns ethnicity. No out and out terrible reviews but basically average or below average. The consensus regarding his race was mentioned at least once in every one of them and all I could think was, "wtf does that have to do with the plot". I agree that Luke Cage got rave reviews but I place it in the same regard as Jessica Jones, and neither top Daredevils second season imo. That being said short of the show being so good it could win an Emmy for "best drama" there was no way it was going to be widely well received. None of the reviews seemed to be informed about his character, obviously sense the race issue was called to question.

Make up your own minds and come back the 17th with something more than "he's white and only asians should be good at Kung fu"

I am not joking.

I have no clue why the show is getting bad reviews, as i haven't watched it or care much to watch it, it's still a fact that Finn Jones was driven off twitter because of racist SJW's.

Ive seen a lot of bad reviews but like 90% of them seem to be mad that Danny isn't Asian. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have been upset if an Asian got the roll if he was the best for the part but there are a lot of people super pissed that they kept him white. Guess all those skin color shouldn't matter arguments don't apply to white folks.

SJW's are sick in the head.

Wait, so let me get this straight. People are getting salty... that Danny Rand, a white character... is being played by a white actor?

Ignoring that though, if the writing is actually bad, I'm still hyped to see the fights.

I'm hoping the bad reviews are from SJWs and not because the show sucks. Marvel's Netflix series was going strong and I'd hate to see it start to suffer.

Rotten Tomatoes can go the hell. I trust Tony.

WTF? Iron Fist was always white.