Will an Asian female Iron Fist make the Netflix series better? Colleen Wing takes over the glowing hand mantle
Hints have also been made that Colleen Wing, played by British actress Jessica Henwick, is a descendant of the first female Iron Fist, Wu Ao-Shi
When it arrived in 2017, Iron Fist took a lot of heat for not having an Asian leading man in a mystical martial arts role. Turns out the Netflix/Marvel series had an ace up its sleeve: an Asian leading lady ready to take over the mantle.
In a second season that has vastly improved over the first, nothing stood out more than Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) emerging as the new Iron Fist in the final (10th) episode. Henwick, a British actress, is the daughter of a Singaporean-Chinese mother, and her father is British author Mark Henwick.
It is a bold move that becomes excitedly predictable once we realise Danny Rand (Finn Jones) is not confident he is wielding the Iron Fist for all the right reasons. Danny feels like he is becoming addicted to the power of the fist and constantly looks for a reason to light it up. When his adoptive brother Davos (Sacha Dhawan) steals the Iron Fist power from him, the fight to get that power back comes with the realisation that, at least for now, someone else should be the Iron Fist.
That someone is Colleen, who is now officially a vigilante in New York, fighting crime with her chi-charged glowing white fist and katana blade.
If ever there was a move that makes up for this show not giving us the yellow and green Iron Fist superhero suit, it is this one. But Colleen being the new Iron Fist is not the only thing special about the end of Season 2. Another major revelation is that she may be the descendant of Wu Ao-Shi, the first female Iron Fist.
Wu made her first appearance in the Marvel Comics reboot of the original comic series in February 2007 in The Immortal Iron Fist No. 2, before her story was fleshed out in The Immortal Iron Fist No. 7 six months later.
She is also known as “The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay” and it is this alias that is mentioned in Season 2 in a story of a warrior woman and the fisherman she loved. Thought by Colleen to be a fairy tale, the events actually happened long ago in K’un-Lun, the magical land where Danny trained and eventually became the Iron Fist.