Warning: contains spoilers for Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #1!
Marvel is getting one of their heroic teams back together: the Immortal Weapons. The team, while lesser known than other Marvel teams like the Avengers or X-Men is still worth getting excited about and having a martial arts group ready to take on impending threats is exactly what Iron Fist needs.
The Immortal Weapons were first introduced in 2007 and were created by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and David Aja. The team is made up of Iron Fist, Bride of Nine Spiders, Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, Fat Cobra, Dog Brother, Prince of Orphans, and Crane (aka Steel Serpent). Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #1 introduced Dog Brother and ended with the announcement that Tiger's Beautiful Daughter was dead. While the team isn't back together yet, the cover for issue #2 shows that a reunion is upcoming.
Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #2 features Iron Fist, Bride of Nine Spiders, Fat Cobra, and Dog Brother facing down an army of the undead. This horde of corpses has the same appearance as the ones Iron Fist faced both while heading to the Citadel of the Ancients and back at his home at Rand Tower. Although Lady Bullseye was commanding the undead unit that attacked Rand Tower, it is not yet clear who is in charge of the larger army or the plot to kill the ancient dragons of each Heavenly City. By working together, the threat should come to light soon.
The Immortal Weapons are made up of seven warriors who protect the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. Each team member is a master martial artist, but most also have their own individual abilities. They all also have very detailed histories, so seeing them back together to protect the dragons of the Heavenly Cities should be a lot of fun. Bride of Nine Spiders, defender of the Kingdom of Spiders, can release a spider swarm. Fat Cobra, warrior for Peng Lai Island, can use lightning blasts and is over 111 years old. Dog Brother is a master assassin who and has a telepathic link with dogs. On top of that each member of the team can control their nervous systems using Chi-manipulation, which means they can lessen the pain they feel, subdue poisons in their system, and slow the blood flow rate for wounds they take on. Although the team is missing some members, as shown by the loss of Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, there should still be a lot of butt kicking happening and a great opportunity to highlight this team's particular skillsets.
The main question on many readers minds may be: why does this matter? The Immortal Weapons have not had a large presence in the Marvel Universe so far. They had a single team series after their introduction and then they appeared on occasion within some other comics. Bride of Nine Spiders appeared in the Iron Fist Netflix series, as did Steel Serpent. Considering Kevin Feige's recent statements that everything Marvel has is on the board when asked about Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and other Netflix show Marvel characters, putting the Immortal Weapons together and seeing how fans react to them may be a good test to see if those characters will have potential for being in the MCU later on. A reunion in the comics could lay a foundation for a joint venture in other media.