IRON FIST

 

IRON FIST

Real Name: Daniel Thomas Rand'Kai

First Appearance: Marvel Premiere (Vol. 1) #15, May 1974

Powers: Danny Rand developed the power of the Iron Fist by plunging his hand into the molten heart of a dragon named Shou-Lao the Undying. Having spent half his life training himself in the martial arts discipline of his adopted home, the extradimensional city of K'un-Lun, Iron Fist possesses peak human physical capabilities and fighting skills. The power of Shou-Lao's chi runs through him, and Danny is capable of summoning his chi energy to boost his natural abilities even further, augmenting his strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes to near-superhuman levels. He can also direct his chi for healing purposes. Through intense concentration, he can "will" himself or another person he touches to recover more rapidly from physical injuries, poisons, viruses or disease. Iron Fist has a little used power called "the mindmeld", in which he can enter into a link with another person that causes them to completely share their thoughts, memories, and emotions with each other. This act is considered extremely violating, and one of his best friends, Colleen Wing, likened it to being mentally raped. He only used the power on her in order to break through intense brainwashing she had been subjected to. At times, he has absorbed energy directed at himself and channeled it to augment his own power. Under certain circumstances, he can even focus his chi to create nexus points between dimensions. Finally, Danny has the ability to concentrate his chi into his fist, hardening it so that it becomes 'like onto a thing of iron'. The iron fist is tremendously resistant to pain and injury, and allows him to strike blows with the force of a cannon shell. Any excessive use of his chi can drain Iron Fist, and he must rest for a time before exerting it again.

Danny's chi used to deplete much faster than it does now, leaving him exhausted after no more than two or three uses of the Iron Fist. However, after his power was mystically stolen from him, and then returned through the power of the Black Dragon, Danny's chi recuperates at a much faster rate than before. He can charge either or both his fists with the chi of Shou-Lao for extended periods of time.

Later, Iron Fist learned more about his 66 predecessors through Orson Randall and the Book of the Iron Fist. The chi of Shou-Lao has been used in many variety of ways over time by different Immortal Weapons, and Danny has started learning some of these methods. He has developed enhanced levels of awareness that allow him to sense the presence of people from a distance and identify them. The mechanism is unclear: Either his natural senses have been enhanced or he has developed a psychic perception like the ability to sense chi. His overall speed and reflexes have been greatly enhanced, so much so that he can grab a speeding bullet out of mid-air using the power of the Iron Fist. His healing abilities have increased as well -- he can fight off pain or poison through mild concentration, and can enter a light meditative trance to rapidly accelerate his recuperative powers. A few minutes concentration can leave him fully rested and refreshed with all his injuries, where previously he would have required several hours. Danny can cast his hands in a hypnotic gesture that makes people susceptible to his influence, and can infuse physical objects with his chi, increasing their destructive power.

 

Iron Fist is an exceptional athlete, acrobat, and hand-to-hand combatant. He is a master of all of K'un-Lun's martial arts and many of Earth's, and has trained in the use of all martial arts weapons. His fighting maneuvers include the burning chi thunderfoot, burning dove chop, drunken wasp sting, golden star gouge, good fortune thunder kick, gouge of the forlorn, palm of forty sorrows, screaming eagle slap, strike of the silkworm's tooth and tiger scratch. He has near-complete control over his nervous system, enabling him to deaden himself to pain.

LUKE CAGE

 

LUKE CAGE

Real Name: Carl Lucas (Legally changed to "Luke Cage")

First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero For Hire (Vol. 1) #1, June 1972

Powers: Luke Cage underwent an experimental process while in prison which involved submerging him in a high-frequency electric field conducted by an organic chemical liquid. The process was designed as a chemical method to promote human cell regeneration as an aid against disease and aging. Cage's treatment was accelerated past its intent, inducing a body-wide mutagenic enhancement. Despite possessing normal height and proportions, Cage now weighs over 400 lbs, as his entire body is now composed of a much denser and sturdier form of carbon matter. Cage has Superhuman Class 25 strength and can punch through barriers as thick as four-inch steel plate. His skin is steel-hard and his muscles and bone tissue super-dense. He can withstand conventional handgun fire at a range of four feet and cannot be cut by the sharpest of blades, although in the event of required surgery his skin can be lacerated by an overpowered medical laser. He can withstand up to one-ton impacts or blasts of 150 pounds of TNT without serious injury, and is impervious to temperature extremes and electrical shocks. His recovery time from injury or trauma is usually one-third that of an ordinary human. His skin is virtually impervious to penetration or damage from anything weaker than Adamantium, and his internal structure is equally resistant to all forms of assault or injury.

Luke Cage is a self-taught combatant with years of street-fighting experience, and a superb athlete despite his great height and weight. He is self-educated in the law and fluent in several languages. He owns a leather jacket which, like his skin, is virtually impervious to damage; however, he wears it infrequently and is customarily left with shredded clothing in the wake of his adventures.

HELLCAT

 

HELLCAT

Real Name: Patricia Walker

First Appearance: Fantastic Four Annual (Vol. 1) #3, October 1965 (as Patsy Walker); Avengers (Vol. 1) #144, February 1976 (as Hellcat)

Powers: Patsy Walker became a super-hero after wearing a costume originally designed for The Cat (Greer Grant Nelson). As Hellcat, the costume enhanced the strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, and agility of any woman wearing it (though not to superhuman levels). The costume is outfitted with retractable, casehardened, steel alloy claws on both the gloves and boots, enabling Hellcat to rend brick or stone. Hellcat can employ her cable-claw, which straps to her wrist and uses a compressed gas firing mechanism to propel a four clawed grappling hook connected to a 30 foot length of steel-niobium alloy memory cable (that coils itself back into its spool upon rewinding), which she uses for swinging or tightrope walking. As she modified the costume over time, though, Patsy switched out for normal boots and removed the claws, settling on a single claw-cable which fired from the back of her hand. Wearing the suit for an extended period of time eventually internalized the effects, increasing her physical prowess permanently.

As the Titanian princess Moondragon was training Hellcat in the psychic disciplines, she transferred a portion of her own mental power into Patsy's mind. Hellcat was capable of psychokinetically levitating small objects, exerting greater resistance to mental control, and once discharged a massive psionic bolt which caused physical damage and mentally disrupted anyone who was nearby. Moondragon eventually retrieved the psychic power she had left in Hellcat's mind, but Patsy still proved to be unnaturally sensitive to certain psychic and mystical phenomena. For a time, she also employed a Shadow-Cloak, like Devil-Slayer's. This cloak was a gateway into other dimensions: By wrapping herself up in it, she could teleport from place to place by moving between dimensions. Hellcat could also retrieve virtually any weapon she could think of simply by reaching into the folds of the cloak and concentrating on pulling a weapon out from it. She frequently used swords and daggers. Eventually, though, Hellcat stopped using the cloak altogether. After dying and being resurrected, Patsy brought back some new abilities with her from Mephisto's realm. She could now manifest her costume at will, exchanging it for whatever she was wearing. She was also sensitive to demonic energy, allowing her to see through glamour illusions and pick up on large concentrations of mystical energy in her area.

Patsy Walker is a natural athlete who was coached in field combat techniques by the Avengers and the martial arts by Moondragon.

PURPLE MAN

 

PURPLE MAN

Real Name: Zebediah Erik Killgrave

First Appearance: Daredevil (Vol. 1) #4, October 1964

Powers: Zebediah Killgrave was a Communist spy exposed to an experimental nerve gas that triggered body-wide changes in him on a mutagenic level, most notably his hair color and skin pigmentation permanently becoming a shade of purple. He also developed unique pheromone powers as a result.

His abilities subvert his victims' willpower through chemical agents he releases into the atmosphere at all times through his pores, chemicals which are inhaled or absorbed directly through the skin of other people. People affected by the chemical simply lose any capacity to resist his direction (unlike hypnosis, where victims cannot normally be compelled to do things they wouldn't normally do, like kill, Killgrave can easily force such an act). If he tells them to sit, they will sit and remain sitting no matter how much they want to get up. He can not only command physical actions from his victims, but command them to feel specific emotional responses, like if he tells a person to want something, they will want it for as long as his power lasts. He can even create illusions to some degree, by suggesting people see something that isn't there ("Imagine your worst nightmare taking place right before your eyes"). The effects of his power are continuous for as long as he's in his victim's presence, but they begin to fade after he leaves the vicinity. Most people will simply snap back to normal after he's gone, but if someone spends an abnormally long period of time being affected by him, they can experience some severe withdrawal symptoms. Jessica Jones was under his control for eight straight months, and experienced headaches, loss of motor control, borderline dementia, and to this day suffers psychologically from that loss of her willpower.

Briefly, Killgrave's power turned his victims purple-skinned like him, a factor his daughter possesses, but this hasn't been used since.

JESSICA JONES

 

JESSICA JONES

Real Name: Jessica Cambell Jones Cage

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #4, September 1963 (Unnamed); Alias (Vol. 1) #1, November 2001 (Named)

Powers: Jessica Jones, later known as Jewel or Knightress, was exposed to experimental substances in a car wreck, which altered her physiology and were later catalyzed by the cosmic energies released over New York by Galactus and the Silver Surfer in their first visit to Earth. As a result, she developed superhuman strength, endurance and reflexes, some increased resistance to injury, and the ability to fly. In one dream sequence she had while unconscious, Jessica (as Jewel) was seen with flares of pink energy surrounding her fists, suggesting a force-blasting power capacity of some kind.

Jessica Jones is a private investigator with impressive deductive reasoning skills.