My first exposure to Misty Knight was in the same place that I first saw Colleen Wing: In the pages of the Byrne / Claremont run of THE UNCANNY X-MEN.
My first actual memory of Misty was,in fact, Uncanny X-Men #122. In that issue, Ororo returned to the apartment of her childhood where she has a violent tussle with some punk drugged up kids. Power Man arrives with a very slick "Pam Grier"-ish chick at his side. Who WAS this gal? Assumptions at the time told me she MUST be Luke Cage's girlfriend, maybe nothing more?
But I was wrong- reading back issues later I was to find she had closer ties than I thought- she was Jean "Phoenix" Grey's roommate, and later when I began collecting the Byrne / Claremont run Of MARVEL TEAM-UP, I found she was co-owner of NIGHTWING INVESTIGATORS along with Colleen Wing (Get it, Knight-Wing.) and her beau was non other than Daniel Rand, A.K.A. IRON FIST!
It was only when I started delving into these earlier issues that I got a clearer picture of how cool she really was. Collecting IRON FIST (and later POWER MAN and then POWER MAN/IRON FIST), I was surprised how fully developed her character was! Reading these, it really seemed a shame that her character never took off (back then). I bet if Colleeen and Misty had gotten their own series with Byrne and Claremont at the helm, we coulda been in for one HELL of a story!
Oh, and funny thing- All that time reading those issues, I NEVER knew that Misty sported a Bionic arm a la the Six Million Dollar Man! They relied so heavily on her cool attitude and smart thinking that I don’t believe I ever saw her use it once! In fact, it wasn’t unitl the John Byrne NAMOR comic years and years later that her “powers” were dramatically revealed to me!
First appearance (unnamed)
Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #1 (March 1972),
Second Appearance (name revealed)
Marvel Premiere #20 (January, 1975)
Created by
Tony Isabella, Roy Thomas and Ross Andru
