In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Robert Q., we look at how the wolf who killed Iron Fist's mother was introduced as a villainous rival of Iron Fist and...nobody did anything with it again despite the character continuing to appear in Marvel Comics for years afterwards.

Okay, the villain that we're looking at today actually technically made her debut in Marvel Premiere #15, the comic that featured the first appearance of Iron Fist. Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gil Kane and Dick Giordano, the issue showed Iron Fist in the present day (back when every issue worked around the narrator of the comic saying "You are the Iron Fist." It was a weird narrative choice) and then flashed back to the incident that led to him becoming Iron Fist. As a young boy in Tibet with his parents and his father's business partner, his dad's business partner betrayed his dad and let him fall to his death. He expected Danny Rand and Danny's mother to come with him to safety but they would not accept help from the dude who just let Danny's dad die, so Danny and his mother went off on their own. That decision, while noble, led to the death of Danny's mother, who occupied a pack of wolves when they attacked her and Danny to give Danny enough time to make it over a bridge. He did and this happened to be the entrance to the mystical city of K'un-Lun. It was there that he was raised and he became Iron Fist.

Okay, so many years later, Danny is now the Iron Fist and he is paired up with Power Man as the Heroes for Hire.

In Power Man and Iron Fist #97, Iron Fist has come across a mysterious magic gem. In that issue (by Kurt Busiek, Ernie Chan and Mike Mignola), Ward Meachum (younger brother of the guy who killed Danny's dad) is helping to organize a group of bad guys to steal the gem. He has been sent an ally - Fera!

Later, Danny meets Fera in battle and she reveals that she is ONE OF THE WOLVES WHO KILLED HIS MOM!!!

How awesomely weird is that? It's like if Batman were to face a supervillain who was originally the gun that killed Thomas and Martha Wayne!

Fera is doing well in her fight, but her mission was to get the gem and her master, the villainous Master Khan, forces her to do that...

In Power Man and Iron Fist #99, Misty Knight has been kidnapped and Fera has been sent to get a film that has proof of Ward Meachum's involvement with the bad guys. Fera holds her own against Iron Fist, Colleen Wing, El Aguila AND Power Man before she leaves to protect herself...

In Power Man and Iron Fist #100, now that they have the film to prove where Meachum and Khan are (and where they are probably holding Misty) they head off, despite the gem essentially robbing Iron Fist of his powers. Thus, when he runs into Fera, she doesn't want to kill him as she is not the Iron Fist anymore, so what's the point? She also reveals that Khan is controlling her...

So they team up and she frees herself and Danny restores his powers...

Since he helped her gain her freedom, Fera offers up a temporary truce. But she WILL be back to prove herself against him one day...

Or will she?

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='What%20Happened%20Next?']

It would be almost a DECADE before she was seen again, in 1991's Captain America #389, as part of that weird plot line where Superia got all of the world's female supervillains (well, the non-famous ones, at least) together on a cruise ship as part of her plan to leave them the only fertile beings in the world.

Fera, now calling herself Ferocia, was one of the villains on board...

I swear, it seems like a good 20% of Mark Gruenwald's writing was him showing off how many obscure characters he knew. I mean, I totally dig that sort of thing, but it is still pretty funny.

A year later, Gruenwald then did the iconic bizarre storyline "Man and Wolf" (all of these issues were drawn by Rik Levins and Danny Bulanadi, by the way) where all of the wolf-like characters in the Marvel Universe are drawn to a small town, including Fera. Cap is investigating because he is looking for his missing pilot, John Jameson, and he fears that Jameson has become the Man-Wolf again..

Cap ends up getting turned into a werewolf briefly and he leads the other werewolves to freedom, so Fera/Ferocia is among them following him...

Over a decade later, Ferocia showed up again during Civil War in the pages of Heroes for Hire (by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Francis Portella and Tom Palmer), where she was one of a group of supervillains who added the ability to shapeshift so that they could avoid the Superhuman Registration Act...

When the Heroes for Hire break up this organ transplant ring, Misty easily defeats Ferocia...

She was recruited to join Hydra during the Secret Empire event along with a bunch of other super villains...

She then very recently appeared in, of all places, the final issue of Brian Michael Bendis' Jessica Jones run...

But she has never fought Iron Fist since Power Man and Iron Fist #100. Weird, right?

Thanks to Robert Q. for this one!

If anyone else has a suggestion for an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!