Jesus is presented as the “metal man” (James Jordan’s phrase) in His first unveiling in Revelation 1.  The imperial statue of Daniel 2 is in the background, the statue that reverts from glorified metal back to dust when the kingdom of God hits it in the feet.

Jesus is the metal man; later, the beast is the composite of beasts from Daniel 7.  Jesus is the true empire, greater Cyrus; the beast is a false imperial power.

That connection suggests a possibility for re-reading Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, often taken simply as mirrors of one another – same for empires, described with different imagery, but basically making the same point.  Perhaps instead Daniel 2 presents the imperial structure in its ideal form, but by the time we get to Daniel 7 the metal man has become a beast (as Nebuchadnezzar does in Daniel 4).  The two visions are not simply parallel, but complementary, and temporally progressive, images of empire.