In The Kung-Fu Grip

ENTER BRUCE LEE

In 1973, Bruce Lee was the coolest man on the face of the earth. He had the look, the style, the ability, the genius, and the fans. Lots of fans. He became a one-man industry of posters, books, t-shirts (you could get your very own iron-on through the comics! That and a ‘Mickey the Rat’ or ‘Keep On Truckin’ would make you the king of the playground), velvet posters, black light posters, and of course, movies. Bruce was breaking big, with his most popular movie, Enter the Dragon, coming out in theaters that year, scoring 11 1/2 million at the box office, more than any other Kung-Fu film. Way more.

Kung Fu was hot! Like any hot genre, people were looking for a way to jump on before it cooled. Beside the Bruce Lee explosion, there were the ‘near Lees, any Chinese actor that vaguely resembled Lee and could do any sort of Martial Art was given a movie and a lot of hype as the “NEW  Bruce Lee”. Sonny Chiba, Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), and Jim Kelly briefly became sought-after stars in America. Older movies were re-titled and thrown out into the 70s grindhouses to play 24-hour shows or sold outright to local stations to play in the wee hours of the morning. It was a fun time for movies, comics, and insomniacs.

MASTER OF KUNG FU

TV didn’t have Bruce Lee (not since his stint as Kato, the most interesting element in the Green Hornet series), but it had non-Asian actor David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, ex-monk on a mission in the series, Kung Fu. The series was also immensely popular. Kung Fu (originally developed for Bruce Lee, but starring a white gut) had every grade school kid in the country thinking they knew karate, and humming Carl Douglas’s huge hit, that guilty pleasure of a song, Kung Fu Fighting, (You’re humming it right now, aren’t you?). The series was popular enough to have it own comic book.

But it didn’t.

Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin wanted to change that. I’ll let Steve tell you more:

“I had a few friends up to my place in Connecticut for a weekend, and we were about to go out and get some dinner when Steve Harper, the artist, said he'd stick around to watch the second episode of a TV show he liked called Kung Fu. We were dubious but we put off dinner for an hour, and I totally fell in love with that show - as did Jim Starlin, who was also there. When the third episode came around, Jim and I were down in New York, and I guess Jim didn't have a TV, so we asked Roy Thomas if we could watch it at his house. Roy was dubious and remained so, but we remained enthralled, so without any pretense whatsoever, Jim and I created our own version of what we liked. (Then Roy, who loved old pulp [as did I] had us add Fu Manchu to the mix.)”

Warner owned Kung Fu and owned DC, but DC never acted to adapt the series. Marvel, not wanting to pay a license fee (and probably thinking it couldn’t get it anyway) started its own title instead, throwing in Fu Manchu, which it did have the rights to. The hero was to be called Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (the last part of the title was the largest part of the logo, probably hoping to catch the eye of those interested in the show, and in martial art, butt-kicking in general).  Shang-Chi is meant to be a living weapon, raised by his dad Fu to take out the Manchu enemies. Shang-Chi rebels against this, escapes from his father and sets out on his own path with Dennis Nayland-Smith (also from the Rohmer novels), the head of the British anti-terrorist agency as his guide and mentor. The series took on a more spy/intrigue angle during the Doug Moench/Paul Gulacy run, but with plenty of butt-kicking! Here’s Doug Moench, who took over after Steve Englehart left the title:

“I tried to have at least a couple of fights in every issue, I mean, the title was ‘Master of Kung Fu’! I did have a couple issues that were nothing but fights, but also I did one that didn’t have any fights. That was one of my favorite issues too.”

Why did Shang-Chi last as long (ten years!) as he did?

“Wonderful writing!” Doug Moench laughs at his reply. “I knew from the letters that I had so many readers interested in so many different elements. The philosophy, the love triangle, the James Bond elements all had their fans.”

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu started its run with Steve on script and Jim Starlin on art, later Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy took over, Doug having a long run on the title. With Master of Kung Fu successfully launched, the title was franchised into a b&w magazine, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, which tried to be a sort of general martial arts magazine, featuring Bruce Lee on the cover as many times as they could, also Kung Fu the TV series made it to the covers, with nice art by people like Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Howard Chaykin, Michael Golden, Barry Windsor-Smith, and articles on Lee and the Kung Fu phenomenon. Also, there were comics (of course! This was Marvel, after all), besides Shang-Chi (with scripts by Moench and art by Mike Vosburg and later by Rudy Nebres), featuring a variety of martial arts masters, Like:

Sons of the Tiger!

Yep, three guys get together and become the Sons of the Tiger. The ‘Tiger’ in this case is an amulet in the shape of a tiger’s head, with ornamental paws. You have a street-smart black man, Abe Brown, the wise Asian, Lin Sun, and the smug, pampered actor Bob Diamond, all of whom are beholden to their aged sensei. If this sounds like the set-up for the annual episode of Mannix, where an old army buddy of Joe’s comes into town for a quiet weekend and gets offed after the first commercial break, thus having Joe swear revenge to Peggy, then you’re ahead of me. The aged sensei is murdered by sneaky ninjas (the only kind), and the three students vow vengeance. VENGEANCE I say! They clasp hands and shout the Tiger oath:

“When three are called as One

   As One they’ll fight, their will be Done

For each is Born Anew, as THE TIGER’S SON”

Green Lanterns’ Light it isn’t, but it was fun (and sometimes really silly), over-the-top, no-brainer kind of stuff. The three each received the powers of long-dead martial arts masters and went forth to kick butt and take names. Dick Giordano did the art, as did George Perez. Scripts were by Gerry Conway. Here’s Gerry on writing the series:

“It was a fad at the time, begun by the early Bruce Lee films, "Five Fingers of Death," or some such.  The action was extremely over-the-top, much like a comic, so it seemed like a natural fit.”

In #19 the series focused on Hector Ayala, who found the amulets left by the Sons in a New York subway (!), he used them to become The White Tiger, Marvel Comics first Puerto Rican superhero, taking out the bad guys in his own neighborhood. That way, since he was a college student, he didn’t have to travel. The character was written by Bill Mantlo and seemed an attempt to capture the magic of the early Spider-Man (something Marvel has tried several times, sometimes in Spidey’s own title). White Tiger at least brought some focus to the Sons series, which had three heroes to deal with. The Tiger’s family is then wiped out by a gang of criminals on an anti-superhero binge, and he declares revenge. There is a lot of revenge in comics, as in the Kung Fu movies themselves. I often wonder what a Kung Fu movie featuring a hero with no siblings or friends to kill would be like. Short I assume. Meanwhile, on his quest for revenge, White Tiger gets shot, and then nursed back to health by Spider-Man himself, and in Spectacular Spider-Man #52, he decides to leave the hero business behind. He sunsets, never to be heard from again… for a while. No one ever truly disappears or dies in comics.

By the way, how do you write a comic with a bunch of martial arts action? Steve Englehart:

“I generally left the choreography up to the artist, since Jim, who began the color comic, and Al Weiss, who began the b&w, were both fans. I honestly don't know if Paul Gulacy, who took over, was a fan, though his subsequent work with Doug Moench would argue that he was. In any event, I think it was as much fun for the artists to draw kung fu moves as it was for me to write kung fu thoughts.”

Marvel also had another Kung Fu hero with his own title:

IRON FIST

Iron Fist first appeared in Marvel Premiere 15, ran until #25, and got his own title for 15 issues. Fist was young Danny Rand, whose parents died while the family was on an expedition to Tibet, looking for the lost city of K’un-Lun. (I wonder how many heroes Tibet has turned out? They must have a factory there, going ‘round the clock to meet demand) His parents are killed during the search, and Danny, near death, is rescued by the people of the very city he’d been looking for. He is given to a martial arts master Lei Kung (The Thunderer!), to be trained. And trained some more. Finally, he is trained to mental and physical perfection (which means he should never have girl problems?), he also has an accelerated healing factor, and can sense things ‘beyond the mortal realm’. If that wasn’t enough, Danny defeats the serpent Shou-Lao, is mystically branded with a chest-covering dragon tattoo, and develops the power of the Iron Fist, concentrating all his mystic strength through his hand. A great power, but it leaves him very tired afterward.

Chris Claremont wrote the series; its best-remembered artist is Chris’ X-Men partner, John Bryne, but Fist would also be drawn by Rudy Nebres and of course, Larry Hama way back in Marvel Premiere #15. Fist was a classic Claremont/Bryne series, well written and well drawn and the Kung Fu action must have been a nice break from the angst of the X-Men (who show up in the last issue, to fight and trash Danny’s girlfriend’s apartment. I guess he has girl problems after all!).

Iron Fist also shows up to move in for a few issues (#19-24) of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, misplacing Shang-Chi for a few issues, then Fist, Shang-Chi, and the Sons of the Tiger all team up in #29-31 for a huge martial arts fest, but the title is then canceled with #33. The fad was winding down.

Not before DC could jump on, although very late, with a couple of chopping and kicking series of its own. DC, since really the mid1960s, always seemed a day late and five bucks short. It saw a trend, starting in the early 70s, and then jumped at it, a year after Marvel had already staked out the territory (and built a few condos). DC entered the Dojo with;

RICHARD DRAGON, KUNG FU FIGHTER.

 Dragon was the first Kung Fu hero of the 70s to have crossed over from an actual novel. The book was Master of Kung Fu: Dragon’s Fists, by Jim Dennis, it looked to be the start of an ‘Executioner’ type series, but only the first book ever appeared. Okay, it’s been a few years, and he’s been outed before (I mean, it’s not like Deep Throat stepping forward), ‘Jim Dennis’ was really DC writer and editor Denny O’Neil with partner Jim Berry. There, I said it. The issues were written by Denny (who is only credited in the first issues as editor, the story credit in the first issue going to that ‘Jim Dennis’ guy again) and nicely illustrated by Leopoldo Duranona (whatever happened to him?), then Jim Starlin, and even Jack Kirby! Richard Dragon was a petty thief, a kid who tried to rob a monastery, is caught in the act by the monks, and is then accepted as a student by the monks, and taught the ways of martial arts. He joins fellow student Ben Turner and goes forth, to, you got it, kick butt. Turner later becomes the Kung Fu superhero Bronze Tiger. OK. Really. Must all black Superheroes have a ‘Black’ name? Or a headband? Sigh. Dragon had a few fun issues, but could hardly be counted as prime O’Neil, mostly a pretty weak and verrrry late arrival to the party. Later Denny made Dragon a player in his much better Question series, but that’s another article.

Speaking of late arrivals, (and we were) DC then put out a strange series that would have seemed a much more obvious one to start with:

KARATE KID

A year after Richard Dragon made his bow in the four-color medium, Karate Kid suddenly became disenchanted with the 30th Century and the Legion of Superheroes and struck out on his own for the 20th. He found an apartment in New York (a superpower all its own), and a girlfriend, and settles in for a fifteen-issue run to find himself. You’d think a hero named Karate Kid, whose whole gig was being a Karate master, would prove an interesting Karate hero without the rest of the Legion around. Well, not here, I’m afraid. The whole enterprise (yanking him out of the 30th Century, suddenly instilling him with an inferiority complex) smacked (slapped?) of sheer cashing-in. The fact that the series never seemed to pick up much steam, and artist Ric Estrada didn’t really have a real feel for the karate heroics didn’t help. That pretty much ended the DC attempt to catch the train after it had already left the station.

BRUCE

What I didn’t say at the beginning is a fact that almost everyone who stopped to read this article (and thanks for that!) already knows: Bruce Lee didn’t live to see the fame he earned or the extent of the fad he started. Lee died that same year as Enter the Dragon was breaking box office records. This is why there weren’t any Bruce Lee comics in the 70s and probably why the fad was just that, a fad. Bruce wasn’t around to feed and sustain the Kung Fu movement, and those that tried to carry it forward just didn’t have the charisma, the star power, aw hell, they just weren’t cool enough to keep it going. Who knows, it probably would have petered out even if Lee had lived, but I wish he’d have had the chance to prove me wrong.

You see, in 1973, Bruce Lee was the coolest man on the planet. In 1973, Lee, TV, rock ‘n roll and comics ruled the playground and life was good.

Last word to Steve Englehart, on why his co-creation Shang-Chi outlasted the fading of the fad. Steve?

“Like almost all of my stuff, I believed in the series; it wasn't just a fad I was riding. And in fact, as you probably know, I left the series when Marvel wanted to use it as a fad to ride. I believed in the philosophy and I believed in Shang Chi as a character. (And as you probably know, I named him "Shang Chi" after prolonged contemplation of the I Ching. It means, at least roughly, "rising and advancing of the spirit." I have no idea if it would be said that way by someone who actually speaks the language, but marrying those two concepts was my statement of what the character was about. I was serious, and that's why he's stayed the #1 kung fu character.”

Thanks to Doug Moench, Steve Englehart, and Gerry Conway. And Bruce, of course.