Darwyn Cooke on a monthly Flash book would be great.

Heck, Darwyn Cooke on a monthly New Frontier era Justice League book would be awesome!

I hope that rumor about Geoffs and Barry Allen is right, where did you get that from? Another website?

QUOTE: Iron Fist died? He was the only super-hero called Danny! Who did it?

Answering that question involves knowledge of the Owsley PM/IF run and/or getting into a complex retcon JB did.  :-) But if it helps, it was done back in the late 80s as a way to protest the cancellation of the Power Man/Iron Fist series; he was brought back in JB's Namor run; and he's currently alive, well, and appearing in New Avengers and his own solo book.

Was the death of Iron Fist a protest or simply a way to end the series with a big finish? I certainly never saw it coming, even though I knew the series was ending. I hated to see him die, but it was a memorable, well-told story, I thought.

Overall, I really liked Owsley's run on Power Man/Iron Fist.

Bruce, here are the relevant sections from Priest's website.  (I'd post a direct link, but the current set-up of the site precluded that.)

QUOTE: My run on POWER/FIST is likely most notorious for the series finale, in which Iron Fist was shockingly and inexplicably killed. This is one of those moments I find alternately flattering and annoying at once. Fist's death was senseless and shocking and completely unforeseen. It took the readers' heads clean off. And, to this day, people are mad about it. Forgetting, it seems, that (a) you were supposed to be mad, that death is senseless and Fist's death was supposed to be senseless, or that (b) this is a comic book. I already had a way to bring Fist back, and Fist creator John Byrne would certainly bring him back if I didn't get to it first.

QUOTE: The expedient thing to say is, Iron Fist's death wasn't my idea. It was my idea in the sense of that is how I chose for him to die— brutally and senselessly. I was ordered to kill IF because the editor was deeply resentful of Marvel's decision to cancel the book, a book the editor (comics legend Denny O'Neil) invested himself in and worked _very_ hard with myself and artist MD "Doc" Bright. We were all pretty upset, but Denny was outraged. POWER MAN & IRON FIST was a critical success and was selling in excess of 100,000 copies; not a major hit in those days but the book was certainly profitable. Then the company, for no apparent reason, decided to change the publishing schedule from a monthly release to bi-monthly, which automatically depresses sales, and, once the sales projections skewed downward, that became justification enough to cancel the book to make room on the schedule for a new line of books that became the infamous and notorious "New Universe." Angered by the slight to our work on the book, in an editorial meeting Denny's assistant suggested we kill Iron Fist and cast the blame on Power Man. Doc and I really did not like the idea, but the editors were adamant, insisting if we didn't write the story he'd assign it out to someone else. I agreed to write the story on the condition that IF's death be senseless and, actually, extant to the story itself. The story and plotlines had resolved themselves by the time Iron Fist fell asleep in the hospital and was subsequently killed. It was shocking and unexpected and completely meaningless— which is how we all felt the company had treated us.

(And I rather enjoyed that run myself.)

Thanks, Dave. The backstory here is interesting -- it's all new to me.

Given the hand he was dealt, Owsley really turned in a nice story. Iron Fist's death was senseless, unexpected and completely meaningless -- but that's how death too often works. Power Man getting blamed for the crime and going on  the run brought the series around full circle, too.

Having said that, I hated to see Iron Fist die, as I'm a big fan of the character. 

As far as "death stories" go, I think it's BEST when you hate to see them die.  Otherwise, what's the point?

(With the condition that the story at least has to be written well, anyway.  It's one thing to see a favorite character die; it's another when the story that does it is terrible.)