Marvel Premiere Featuring Iron Fist #24 (Marvel, 1975)

Sparring with hot chicks. Softball game at the park (with the Marvel Bullpen!). A princess incognito. A battle with a giant robot called Monstroid. Sounds like my kind of comic, and "Summerkill!" starring Iron Fist from Marvel Premiere #24, delivers the best kinds of mindless Bronze Age fun any guy can ask for.

Written by Chris Claremont with pencils by Pat Broderick, this one starts off with Danny Rand sparring with Colleen Wing. It's an activity that makes Danny feel uncomfortable as the K'un-Lun prohibit violence against women.

Meanwhile, a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility is infiltrated by minions of Khan. Their target? The Monstroid, a Skrull robot that was last seen in Marvel Team-Up #5.

Danny heads out to play some softball with the mighty Marvel bullpen, as a disguised Princess Azir of Halwan enjoys the game from the stands.

But wouldn't you know it, the Monstroid appears and ruins all the fun -- intent on terminating the Princess!

The Iron Fist arrives just in time to lay the smackdown on the Monstroid. What? Did you change behind a tree or something Danny?

 

This might be the only time you ever see a Tiger Claw move blind a robot.

With the Monstroid blinded, the cops want to finish the show...by unleashing all the firepower they have on the thing. It doesn't work out too well.

 

But the weapon of the day isn't a gun folks...it's a freaking steel pipe, which the Iron Fist is somehow able to upend the Monstroid with. 

And then comes the moment we've all been waiting for, as the Iron Fist pauses before unleashing his true power upon the stunned Skrull-bot.

 I love how Claremont makes the aftermath at the softball game sound all morbid, like everyone died or something:

That's it for the Monstroid, we never again see him in Marvel comics. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen more of him. The Iron Fist appeared in one more issue of Marvel Premiere before earning his own series, which was also written by Chris Claremont.