Like an unexpected rain that brings on a sharp freeze, killing all your flowers, Iron Spring is here to upend your day with a very early-2000s mini-series meant to tie up some loose ends from both Ostrander's Heroes for Hire and Faerber's New Warriors, with Wolverine along in the attempt to goose sales.
The chi of Shou-Lao was stolen from Danny (see what I mean about that being a recurring theme?) by the snot-nosed punk doing the DragonBall Z homage on the far right. Then Junzo and his sorcerer mentor were able to bring K'un-Lun onto Earth, so it began to overlap and override Tokyo.
Iron Fist and Luke Cage show up to try and fix things, though Danny mostly succeeds in getting his ass repeatedly kicked by the kid. Captain America shows up with SHIELD, because an ancient-looking city with dragons appearing from thin air is a big deal. Stark's company was Stark-Fujikawa at this time, so he gets involved. Wolverine shows up because the Hand are working for the kid, and we know how Wolverine likes stabbing ninjas. Logan brings Psylocke because she hates the Hand for stuff they did to her previously.
Everyone has a reasonably viable excuse to show up, but it still feels overstuffed when you throw in the ninjas, dragons, the kid and his sorcerer buddy, Danny's uncle Yu-Ti. Jamal Igle manages to keep the many, many fight scenes broken up so that the reader can have a general idea of who is doing what in relation to everyone else.
This being set in Japan, Sunfire is contractually obligated to show up. He agrees to work with everyone, for about five minutes. Once he learns this is somewhat Danny's fault, he reverts to, "Begone outsiders! Sunfire will protect his homeland without your help!" As he does. Captain America smacks him in the puss with his shield. As he does.
The fusion of K'un-Lun with Tokyo can be undone if Danny or Junzo die. Danny appears to make the sacrifice, but there's some deus ex machina that brings him back. K'un-Lun also doesn't entirely disappear, and the kid still has the chi of Shou-Lao. Neither of those two points will ever be mentioned again, to my knowledge. You'd think Junzo might be a loose end for Danny to pursue, or someone who could show up trying to claim Danny's legacy, but everybody always reverts to Davos for that.
Danny, Misty and Luke decide to stick around in Tokyo to look after the dragons and handle any other residual problems. Again, never referenced. There's a six-issue mini-series in 2004 and Danny's roaming on his own with the Iron Fist back in his possession.
The next thing after that was Immortal Iron Fist, which really should have rendered all the, "Danny loses the Iron Fist" nonsense moot. If he and Orson Randall could use it simultaneously, because just a small bit of the chi flows into each of them, rather than residing solely in one, then you can't very well steal it away, can you?
