DavosSteel Serpent

A Lifelong Obsession

The son of Kei Lung, K’un-Lun’s chief martial arts teacher also known as the Thunderer, young Davos assumed that he had something of a fast track straight to the title of Iron Fist. Like many of his fellow citizens, he looked upon the outworlder known as Wendell Rand with suspicion at first. However, upon growing bored with the others’ stories, he decided to befriend Wendell and learn more about the faraway land of New York.

Eventually, the two friends battled each other for the right to face Shou-Lao, the giant dragon who in defeat could bestow the powers of Iron Fist. Even though Wendell clearly had the upper hand, Davos refused to yield, but the August Personage of Jade ended the fight of his own accord. Davos accused both his own father and the Yu-Ti of playing favorites before telling Wendell he should have killed him.

Obsessed with the idea of confronting the dragon, Davos ran out in the middle of the night to face Shou-Lao. Though filled with doubt, he plowed ahead, but ultimately, the dragon found him unworthy and slithered back into its home. In the process, Davos earned a symbol on his chest: a version of the Iron Fist’s own dragon tattoo, but without the wings, later leading to his Steel Serpent moniker.

Wendell and Davos had one more fight after the outsider informed his supposed confidante that he could not bring himself to face Shou-Lao. With Davos calling after him to continue their battle, Wendell looked back, denied him and ran off to rejoin his own people on Earth. Yu-Ti soon banished Davos from K’un-Lun, leaving him to fend for himself in a strange, new world.

Davos showed up in New York City to make contact with Ward Meachum in an effort to find Wendell or his next of kin. The Steel Serpent threw in with Ward and his niece Joy, who wanted vengeance for the death of Harold Meachum, who they thought had been killed by Iron Fist. After learning of her uncle’s illegal activities, Joy tasked Davos with discovering the truth in exchange for a real shot at his enemy.

When they finally did meet for the first time, Davos surprised the nascent Iron Fist and absorbed some of his chi before letting the hero go. Not long after, the Steel Serpent struck again and pulled the same routine, vanishing with more of Danny’s power.

Davos then made an overt challenge to Rand that he answered immediately. When the two faced each other on an equal footing for the first time, the Steel Serpent revealed himself as the Thunderer’s son before they fought. Spider-Man happened upon this scene and decided to intervene. Even with the interference, Davos still bested Rand and absorbed his Iron Fist powers!

Davos left Rand to die in the park, but Spider-Man, Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing caught up with him soon enough, giving Iron Fist enough time to heal and catch up to the villain later. Realizing that the Serpent could not control the energy coursing through him, Danny attempted to absorb the power. In the process, they caused an explosion that seemingly obliterated Davos.

Good bad guys don’t stay dead for long, though and Davos eventually returned. His essence had been transported to a realm filled with the spirits of dead Iron Fists. That dimension could be accessed by a relic called the Anomaly Gem. The Steel Serpent then worked with the Contemplator to convince Iron Fist to rejoin all of the Gem’s pieces, thus returning Davos to life.

Using all of the fighting knowledge he gained in the Anomaly Realm, Davos once again fought Rand for his Iron Fist abilities. Having bested Danny, the Steel Serpent returned to K’un-Lun with the might of the Iron Fist and took over the realm. Backed by Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, and the Thunderer, Rand returned to the mystical city and defeated Steel Serpent, regaining his power in the process. Though custom dictated that Rand kill his fallen foe, Iron Fist spared Steel Serpent. The Thunderer attempted to offer his son a new life, but Davos once again struck out on his own.

Years later, the Steel Serpent returned around the same time that Danny Rand met his Iron Fist predecessor Orson Randall. Working with Xao, a high-ranking Hydra agent, Davos unwittingly helped established a plan for Wai-Go Industries to buy Rand’s company, build a magnetic track near a portal to K’un-Lun and blow it up with a train full of explosives.

At the same time, Davos also worked with Crane Mother of K’un-Zi to act as her Immortal Weapon during the Tournament of the Heavenly Cities. Her previous champion had been killed by Orson Randall and she could not produce a legitimate representative again for some time. Before the tournament began, Davos beat Orson so badly that he decided to give his chi to Danny instead of healing himself.

During the tournament itself, Davos renamed himself the Steel Phoenix. He made his debut fighting against Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter and lost a hand to her before executing the Steel Phoenix Blow to nearly kill his opponent. The fight only ended when the Thunderer stepped in. Later, John Aman, the Prince of Orphans, took Fat Cobra’s place to teach Steel Phoenix and everyone present that this exhibition did not revolve around murder, but instead displaying their fighting prowess.

Davos met with his father after hearing rumors of Xao’s desire to destroy K’un-Lun with the aid of Crane Mother. The paranoid warrior considered this a ploy by his father to mess with his mind. Eventually confronted by the reality of the situation, Davos followed the traitorous Yu-Ti to the Randall Gate—portal between K’un-Lun and Earth built by Orson Randall’s father—where the Thunderer’s surrogate daughter, soon to be known as Sparrow, and the Army of Thunder stopped both men. Davos fought alongside the Army to defeat the influx of Hydra agents sent by Xao and then did the same with his fellow Immortal Weapons.

With the tournament demolished, but K’un-Lun saved, Davos found himself cut off from Crane Mother’s chi. He then supplicated himself to his father who would become the new Yu-Ti. Instead of locking his son up in a cell, though, Kei Lung put Davos in charge of protecting the new dragon egg.

Though well intended, this proved a less-than-productive punishment as Davos soon returned to his selfish and duplicitous ways. By the time the current Shou-Lao began to shuffle off this mortal coil, Davos managed to wound the current Thunderer, Sparrow, and make way for the One—a training robot that gained sentience after merging with Wendell Rand’s corpse—to destroy K’un-Lun.

From there he traveled to New York in search of a young monk from K’un-Lun named Pei who made off with the dragon egg. The One and Davos planned to recreate K’un-Lun on Earth and open a gateway to the afterlife using the old Rand skyscraper, but eventually Iron Fist and Sparrow made their way back to Earth to stop them. While Danny went after the One, Sparrow remained behind to battle with the man who killed her adoptive father and blinded her.

After the One failed to bring Wendell Rand’s wife Heather back to life, but succeeded in allowing a giant fire god to terrorize Earth, Davos intended to flee back to K’un-Lun, but Sparrow stopped him, leading to another battle. The one-time Steel Serpent then made a move even shocking to those familiar with his slippery exploits and killed the latest incarnation of Shao-Lao by snapping its neck in front of Pei. He intended for this to be a starting-over point for his homeland, but instead found himself smashed into a nearby wall by Pei, who now exhibited her own Iron Fist abilities.