Marvel Comics is about to reveal a secret link between Iron Fist and Black Panther's nation of Wakanda. Danny Rand is the Immortal Iron Fist, appointed as the champion of the city of K'un Lun. This is one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, ancient realms that are hidden from the eyes of normal men. Each appears on the mortal plane according to timetables charted among the stars.
Each of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven is inspired by a classic martial arts of fantasy trope. K'un Zi, for example, is a city of Dark Magic that is ruled by the sinister Crane Mother; the Kingdom of Spiders is a city in Nepal covered in spider-webs, and Tiger Island is a tropical paradise where women cater to men's every whim. Just as K'un Lun is defended by the Iron Fist, so each of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven has its own appointed champion. Z'Gambo, one of the most intriguing and mysterious of the Cities, is defended by the enigmatic Prince of Orphans.
The Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon miniseries, by Larry Hama and David Wachter, will see the Seven Heavenly Cities go to war with one another. Marvel's solicits for Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #3, due out in March, reveal that Z'Gambo will finally appear on the mortal plane. And it will do so... in the nation of Wakanda, the kingdom ruled by the Black Panther. Here's the full solicit:
- IRON FIST: HEART OF THE DRAGON #3
- Larry Hama (writer)
- David Wachter (artist)
- Cover by Billy Tan
- Variant Cover by Jeffrey Veregge
- THE WAR OF THE HEAVENLY CITIES COMES TO WAKANDA!
- Z’Gambo manifests over Wakanda, and with it an army of the undead!
- Other cities, filled with hordes of undead and Marvel villains, appear all over the world!
- Can Iron Fist stop the worldwide calamity? Will he discover who is behind this deadly scourge?
Z'Gambo has been mentioned before, appearing in Matt Fraction's Defenders run, where it was envisioned as a neighboring country of Wakanda that had been conquered by the Prince of Orphans. It seems Larry Hama's Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon miniseries will take a far more traditional approach, making Z'Gambo like the other Heavenly Cities - and consequently raising a lot of intriguing questions about the history of both Wakanda and Z'Gambo.
As revealed in Fraction's Defenders run, the entire nation of Z'Gambo had been slaughtered by the Prince of Orphans. Now it seems the dead have been raised. It's no surprise to see this sort of resurrection associated with Wakanda; presumably, Z'Gambo is somehow tied to Wakanda's Necropolis, the Wakandan City of the Dead, or even to the Resurrection Altar that lies in the Wakandan Jungle. It's going to be fascinating to see how Marvel draws these plot threads together - and how the Heavenly Cities rewrite the history of Black Panther's nation.