Written By: Larry Hama
Art By: Dave Wachter
Colors By: Neeraj Menon
Letters By: VC’s Travis Lanham
Cover Art By: Billy Tan, Lina Jin
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 17, 2021

Danny Rand aka Iron Fist and his band of warriors split up to every heavenly city now temporarily transported to Earth to stop the zombie ninja hoards and save the celestial dragons. With the Hidden City’s gates held shut for the time being, it’s time for the band of heroes to clean up the mess.

Was It Good?

It was not as good as the prior issues due to some clunky exposition dialog in the first half of the book. That said, it’s one of the better Marvel series out right now. The art holds up as fun and dynamic, and the overall plot makes good forward progress.

What’s It About?

We begin with the assembled warriors making good use of decapitated, undead zombie bodies by stacking the corpses in front of the Hidden City’s gates. It may not hold permanently but at least it’s good… recycling?

The band of heroes split up through portals across the globe to each of the locations of the heavenly cities transported to Earth. The plan is to help local heroes shut down the flow of undead ninjas flowing from each city before the local citizens are overrun. Luke Cage heads to Rio to meet Sunspot, Iron Fist heads to Tokyo to help Radiance, and Bride of the Nine Spiders heads to Wakanda to help Okoye.

There’s not much meat to this issue. It’s really a vehicle to show different heroes traveling to different cities to help heroes that culturally represent their region. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. It’s an excuse to show off some global flavor, but it works very well.

As each of the heroes arrive in their respective locations, they offer to help the local hero while issuing a warning not to harm the dragon coming from the heavenly city. Some heroes accept help immediately, others take a little convincing, and all goes smoothly until a new threat arrives in Wakanda with massive chi energy and kills the dragon nearby. Okoye gives chase but is stopped short by a mysterious stranger.

Without spoiling the ending, Okoye is tasked with going on a special trip, the Hidden City’s dragon likes the color red, and the next issue promises a threat that crawls instead of flies.

Final Thoughts:

Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #3 takes readers on a trip around the world to remind everyone Marvel is all about a global hero roster. Light on plot but heavy on action and diversity, it’s a good setup issue to line the chess pieces up to hit the midway mark of the arc.

8/10