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“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain Mar-Vell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover painting by DAVE COCKRUM!

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“Marvel Fanfare Issue!” Behind the scenes of the ‘80s anthology series with AL MILGROM, interviews and art by ARTHUR ADAMS, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, STEVE ENGLEHART, MICHAEL GOLDEN, ROGER McKENZIE, FRANK MILLER, DOUG MOENCH, ANN NOCENTI, GEORGE PÉREZ, MARSHALL ROGERS, PAUL SMITH, KEN STEACY, CHARLES VESS, and more! Cover by SANDY PLUNKETT and GLENN WHITMORE.

“Bird People!” Hawkman in the Bronze Age, JIM STARLIN’s Superman/Hawkgirl team-up, TIM TRUMAN’s Hawkworld, Hawk & Dove, Penguin history, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Condorman, and CHUCK DIXON and SCOTT McDANIEL’s Nightwing. With GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GREG GULER, RICHARD HOWELL, TONY ISABELLA, KARL KESEL, ROB LIEFELD, DENNY O’NEIL, and a GEORGE PÉREZ cover.

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ALL-STAR EDITORS ISSUE! Past and present editors reveal “How I Beat the Dreaded Deadline Doom”! Plus: ARCHIE GOODWIN and MARK GRUENWALD retrospectives, E. NELSON BRIDWELL interview, DIANA SCHUTZ interview, ALLAN ASHERMAN revisits DC’s ’70s editorial department, Marvel Assistant Editors’ Month, and a history of PERRY WHITE! With an unpublished 1981 Captain America cover by MIKE ZECK!

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Volume 1, Number 105 July 2018 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Earl Norem (Cover originally produced for Marvel Comics’ Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #29. Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.) COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS “Sijo” Art Lapham Neal Adams Dave Lemieux Mark Arnold Franck Martini John Byrne (ByrneRobotics) Marvel Comics Marvel Epic Podcast Marc Buxton Chris Claremont Luigi Novi John Ostrander Jim Craig Penrod Pooch Nicola Cuti Daniel DeAngelo Steve Sattler Warren Sattler Jerry Eisenberg Rob Smentek Stuart Fischer Joe Staton Grand Comics Peter Stone Database Robert Greenberger Roy Thomas Steven Thompson Paul Gulacy Mike Voiles Larry Hama (DCindexes.com) Heritage Comics Jay Williams Auctions John Workman Tony Isabella Mike Zeck Willie Ito David Anthony Kraft Michael Kronenberg

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BEYOND CAPES: Master of Kung Fu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Marvel’s answer to a fad became one of its most innovative titles ART GALLERY: Paul Gulacy, Master of Kung Fu Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 These MOKF splashes were transformed into foreign edition covers BACK IN PRINT: Master of Kung Fu Omnibuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 A review of the deluxe reprints of the critically acclaimed series BEYOND CAPES: The World of Yang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Charlton’s martial-arts gang of Warren Sattler, Joe Gill, and Sanho Kim BEYOND CAPES: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Mighty Marvel’s magnificent magazine of martial-arts mayhem and magic FLASHBACK: Iron Fist in the Bronze Age and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The story of Marvel’s kung-fu superhero and Netflix TV star BACKSTAGE PASS: Hong Kong Phooey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Ito, Eisenberg, and Cuti recall the Number One Super Guy’s cartoon and comic ONE-HIT WONDERS: Hands of the Dragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Jim Craig discusses his kung-fu title from Atlas Comics BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: The Bronze Tiger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 The tortured history of DC Comics’ Ben Turner THE TOY BOX: Mego’s Muhammad Ali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 How the once-disgraced heavyweight champ became an action figure GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Artists That Weren’t . . . 64 Before Neal Adams, two other artists were picked to draw this epic crossover FLASHBACK: I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Anyone remember the Champ’s Saturday morning cartoon? WHAT THE--?!: Count Danté . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Who was the man behind the deadliest ad alive? INTERVIEW: Neal Adams on Armor and Martial Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The superstar creator discusses Continuity’s high-tech martial artist… and Skateman, too—with lots of Adams’ kung-fu art BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Reader reactions BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $76 Economy US, $125 International, $32 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Earl Norem. Iron Fist and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2018 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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“You have made me alien, my father, raising me in a lost time, releasing me into a foreign world. I am like the dragon reborn long past his day… a creature nurtured in the world of myth, now forced to dwell in the realm of harsh reality.” – Shang-Chi to Fu Manchu, Master of Kung Fu #86 (Mar. 1980) Anyone who was there knows that the 1970s were a strange and interesting time. You had disco, punk, the death of Elvis, blaxploitation, the energy crisis, sharks, political scandals, cocaine chic, porno chic, jiggle TV, posters, big-budget sci-fi flicks, dull cartoons, Billy Beer, and—I’m serious—for a while there, pretty much everybody really was kung-fu fighting! Actor Bruce Lee essentially planted the seed for all this with his introduction of the fighting art of Jeet Kune Do into his portrayal of Kato, sidekick and chauffer to the venerable Green Hornet in that short-lived but well-remembered TV series of 1966–1967. Lee tried to parlay his cult popularity into a TV series of his own developed at Warner Bros. but the studio, citing the unlikelihood of an Asian becoming a genuine star in the US, cast the decidedly non-Asian David Carradine as a half-Chinese monk roaming the 19th-Century American West. The project would eventually surface as a 1972 TV movie followed by the long-running series, Kung Fu. Rumor at the time was that a disappointed and frustrated Lee left the country. Combining trendy Eastern philosophy with traditional cowboy-show tropes and the gimmick of Chinese martial-arts fighting, Kung Fu’s success made it inevitable that the studio would try to milk it. Around that same time, the movie Billy Jack became a surprise boxoffice hit. It was also about a philosophical, peace-loving man who could kick butt Asian-style. That was when someone at Warner Bros. decided to go straight to the source and release King Boxer to the American market. King Boxer was a fairly typical good vs. evil martial-arts movie produced by the massive Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong, which had already been cranking out such fare to great local success for 20 years by that point. Any comparison it had to the Kung Fu TV series, though, was completely incidental. Retitled Five Fingers of Death, it was heavily hyped as a new type of thrill movie. Rather than laugh at its admittedly silly, bombastic title or its cheap, gory effects or the ridiculously unreal athletics involved, Americans, always eager to discover something fresh and tasty in entertainment, just ate it up… and wanted more. With a huge industry already in place in Hong Kong making more and more “kung-fu movies,” studios big and small began buying up all sorts of imported “chop-socky” flicks, giving them a quick English dubbing, and saturating inner-city theaters with them. It turned out that Hong Kong was where Bruce Lee had fled, and that he had quickly become a star of these low-budget genre films throughout the Far East. With an “all is forgiven” air, Warner Bros. now coaxed him back with the promise of a series of big-budget, major release kung-fu films that would, at long last, move Bruce into the rarefied rank of superstar! But just weeks prior to the release of what was to be his starmaking vehicle, Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee suddenly, tragically, died. 2 • BACK ISSUE • Deadly Hands Issue

by S t e v e n

Thompson

Mighty Marvel’s Martial-Arts Master An undated Paul Gulacy recreation of his cover to Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu #51. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Fu Manchu © Sax Rohmer Estate.

THE INSIDIOUS DR. FU MANCHU

Bruce was long buried by the time the comic-book series Master of Kung Fu came along later that year, and by all logic the novelty of the martial-arts movie craze should have started petering out. Only nobody told that to Shang-Chi. Until the recent Master of Kung Fu Omnibuses, the modern reader had no reason to believe the series had actually been as good as its reputation. After all, Marvel had never even reprinted it and the sporadic, half-hearted attempts at reviving the character of Shang-Chi depicted him as fairly dull and out of place in these more cosmically conscious times. One former creator described the modern version as looking like “a Chinese waiter.” The reason for the lack of reprints for so long, however, is rooted much deeper than an editorial whim. In fact, the main reason lies with something known for a century or more as… the Yellow Peril! You see, Shang-Chi’s father was one of the original, pre-Marvel, pre-comics supervillains— the one and only Dr. Fu Manchu! A quick history lesson is in order here. In 1912–1913, using the pen name “Sax Rohmer,” British comedy writer Arthur Henry Ward serialized Sherlock Holmes-type chapters of a new character described in the American press of the day as “a mysterious Oriental whose resourcefulness and courage in the committing of crimes is enough to test the ability of the world’s greatest sleuths.” Over the course of 13 official novels by Sax Rohmer, spread out over nearly half a century and in print constantly until more recent times, we learn that the villain heads a vast

Enter the Fad (left) Enter the Dragon and (top right) Billy Jack were among the best of the trendsetting kung-fu flicks of the ’70s. Poster and lobby card courtesy of Heritage. Sax Rohmer’s insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, as seen in print (bottom) and on screen (middle right, with Boris Karloff in the role). Enter the Dragon and Billy Jack © Warner Bros. Fu Manchu © Sax Rohmer Estate. The Mask of Fu Manchu © 1932 MGM.

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organization known as the Si Fan. He is a master of poisons and arcane sciences and a collector of exotic and dangerous animals, and has a femme fatale daughter named Fah Lo Suee. He has a stated goal to conquer the Western World and restore the ancient glory of China. On the one hand, it’s impossible not to see Rohmer’s writings as racist screeds of the worst sort, exploiting his audience’s anxieties of the Colonialist fears that the influx of supposedly less than human Asians would destroy the European (and later American) way of life—the so-called Yellow Peril. On the other, though, it’s equally impossible not to see Fu Manchu as an early prototype of the typical comics and movie supervillain. He is James Bond’s Dr. No! He is Iron Man’s Mandarin! He is Nick Fury’s Yellow Claw! This evil character’s popularity was certainly not lost on early comic books! In fact, it’s Fu Manchu (or someone looking very much like him) who appears on the cover of the very first issue of the comic that would eventually give us Batman—Detective Comics #1 (Mar. 1937). Will Eisner’s Wow! What a Magazine! also featured Fu Manchu, and a newspaper comic-strip adaptation by Leo O’Mealia began in 1931 (and was reprinted as late as the 1980s). The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu was a 1951 one-shot comic from Avon that featured the first full flowering of the legendary artist Wallace Wood. Fu Manchu invaded other media as well, with a long-running radio serial, a movie chapter play, and a number of feature films. Warner Oland—a Swedish actor known for playing Asians such as Charlie Chan—was the first of several actors to play the mad doctor onscreen. The one and only Boris Karloff was arguably the best, though, chewing the scenery in 1932’s stylish The Mask of Fu Manchu, featuring Myrna Loy as his scheming daughter. Ward (Rohmer) died in 1959, and Fu Manchu seemingly died with him as no more books were immediately forthcoming. But then came Christopher Lee. Lee was the new horror king, the modern Karloff. As such, he had recreated several of Boris’ roles in colorful, violent new movies—Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and now Fu Manchu. Starting in the mid-’60s, Lee, the tall, mannered Englishman, donned Asian makeup and silk robes to appear as the fiendish doctor in a series of five increasingly cheaply made melodramas. If one can overlook the now-obvious political incorrectness of it all, Lee gave the role a suitable air of gravitas and brutal authority, even though the character often did little more than order torture for victims and lurk off-screen while various actors playing his literary nemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, carried the bulk of the action.

IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER

Fists of Fury Shang-Chi’s first two appearances, in Special Marvel Edition #15 (Dec. 1973) and #16 (Feb. 1974). Cover art by “Gemini” (“Jim and I”)—Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom. Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Fu Manchu © Sax Rohmer Estate.

Meanwhile, the nostalgia boom and the popularity of pulp-novel reprints that began with Doc Savage led to the reissues of the Fu Manchu series in paperback. Thus it was that as Marvel Comics looked to expand into more licensed properties after the success of Conan, Roy Thomas pushed for the company to pick up the rights to adapt the Fu Manchu characters to comics for the first time in two decades. So there we were in mid-1973 with Kung Fu a TV hit, Bruce Lee dead but immensely popular, martial-arts movies in every major city, and the Yellow Peril still at least on the back burner of the public consciousness. Mix in some admitted chemical enhancements on the part of several young, imaginative comic-book creators, and an idea was born! The plan was originally to do a straight adaptation of the Kung Fu TV series, but since Warner Bros. owned the show—as well as Enter the Dragon and even Billy Jack!—and Warner Bros. was also the owner of rival DC Comics, that simply was not an option at Marvel. So writer Steve Englehart put his head together with hot “cosmic” artist Jim Starlin and came up with an original philosophical martial-arts hero, Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu! Many years later, on his website, Englehart wrote, “I meditated for a long time on the I Ching to create his name, which means ‘the rising and advancing of a spirit.’ ” Charlton Comics’ Judomaster ran from 1965 to 1967. Harvey’s 1940s–’50s stuntwoman heroine Black Cat also knew judo, and her comics sometimes offered instruction pages. Similarly, the Shield and the Black Hood offered Judo tips in some MLJ/Archie comics in the 1960s. Jim Shooter’s character, Karate Kid, debuted in DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics in 1966 but had little to do for nearly a decade. By 1973, though, Americans were finding out that there was more to martial arts than just judo and karate. Oddly enough, Charlton’s Yang, written by the overworked Joe Gill and drawn by Warren Sattler, premiered at almost the exact same time as Shang-Chi. Although a nearly direct rip-off of the Carradine TV series, it was well done and popular and even spawned a sequel title, House of Yang. In less than three years, though, Yang was gone (until his 2015 revival by Charlton-Neo!). [Editor’s note: A Yang history appears elsewhere in this issue.] Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief Roy Thomas suggested tying the company’s latest hero to Fu Manchu’s world, making him the oblivious son of the would-be world conqueror. In a 2004 interview with Jon B. Cooke, Steve Englehart said, “I liked the idea of marrying the twin concepts.” He admitted that he was already a Sax Rohmer fan, adding, “Fu Manchu is just a villain. He’s not evil because he’s Chinese. He’s evil and he’s Chinese.” Jim Starlin, on the other hand, had not read any of the actual Fu Manchu material at that point. Along with inker Al Milgrom, Starlin and Englehart turned out the first Shang-Chi story, which was stuck in a comic called Special Marvel Edition (#15, Dec. 1973). For its prior 14 issues, Special Marvel Edition had consisted of Thor and Sgt. Fury reprints.

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Let’s get one thing out of the way quickly: Yes, Shang-Chi’s dutiful son he obeys his father and kills the old man in skin is colored in the stories as if he suffers from severe bed. As he leaves, he is confronted by Smith, feeble and jaundice, and Fu Manchu looks like a lemon drop with in a wheelchair with a mangled leg, caused, he says, a droopy mustache. While this appears more than a by Fu Manchu! Shang-Chi begins to question everything. little odd and offensive to modern eyes, in the He goes to briefly see his mother (a character who is inexplicably never seen again) and, in the ’70s it was the, unfortunately, standard way of differentiating Asians from Caucaend, discovers his father has lied to him and sians in comics. At one point, well into shielded him from reality for his entire life. the run, a decision was, in fact, made Intricately drawn by Starlin and Milgrom, to stop coloring Asians that way in the as was the following issue’s story, it was book. Unfortunately, it was decided around this time that Starlin decided he not to change Shang himself, since he should probably read some of the origwas by then a recognizable and preinal Fu Manchu stories. He later told Jon sumably trademarkable brand as he B. Cooke, “The Sax Rohmer things are the most racist things you ever wanted to was. Orange he stayed. That said, the original run of Master of read. They’re terrible!” Since he was Kung Fu was one of the most mature stretching himself a little thin anyway and well-written comic-book series of with his comics work, Starlin decided jim starlin its day. Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones, to leave the series after the third issue. in their 1997 book The Comic Book Beginning with that third issue, Pat Loika. Heroes, declared the series to be “the in fact, the comic’s title switched from consummation of what Deadman, Manhunter, and every Special Marvel Edition to Master of Kung Fu. In this other would-be adult comic had been striving for.” story, we meet Black Jack Tarr for the first time, a tall, That first story led off with Shang-Chi reaching maturity, balding, muscle-bound former intelligence agent who having been raised and educated in Asia by his father, had moved to the US after retirement. Here, the invalFu Manchu, a man he believed to be the most noble id Nayland Smith has recruited Tarr to help him avenge human alive. Dad tells son to do him a favor and go kill Dr. Petrie’s murder at the hands of Fu Manchu’s evil the aged Dr. Petrie—“Watson” to Nayland Smith’s son. Up until that point, most comic books clearly “Holmes” in the Rohmer books. He tells him that Petrie denoted who the good guys were and who the bad is one of the world’s most despicable men. Although his guys were. This series was about to change all that as philosophical teachings cause him to question it, as a blurred lines were revealed almost from the start.

Startling Starlin Special Marvel Edition #15’s splash page grabbed readers by the throat, then page 2 thrust the reader into pulse-pounding martial-arts action. Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Fu Manchu © Sax Rohmer Estate.

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by D

those issues. They were like an alternate or variant cover, done in the Gulacy style. So eye-catching was the art that when foreign editions of MOKF were published, the editors often utilized Gulacy’s splash pages as the covers to those particular issues and on trade-paperback collections. This is hardly surprising if you want to sell comics by showcasing top-quality artwork. Gulacy splash pages were used as covers to editions of MOKF that were published in Canada, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, France, and Denmark. The titles of Master of Kung Fu in those foreign editions translated as follows: Maitre Du Kung Fu in Canada, Kung Fu: Maestro De Artes Marciales in Mexico, Mestre Do Kung Fu in Brazil, and Kung Fu Magasinet in Denmark. Finding these rare appearances of Paul Gulacy “splash page” covers provides a glimpse of what it would have been like if Gulacy had produced the covers to some of those classic stories on the original MOKF series in the 1970s.

All artwork TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In the 1970s, Master of Kung Fu became one of Marvel Comics’ top-selling titles when it was being produced by the team of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy. At the time, however, the covers for the book were not being drawn by Gulacy, who was doing the interior art, but instead by Gil Kane and a few other artists. There are primarily two reasons for this: 1) Marvel wanted “all-out action” covers on the book, instead of Gulacy’s stylized collage layouts that were reminiscent of James Bond movie posters; and 2) Gulacy reportedly turned in his artwork for the stories just prior to the publishing deadline, and did not have time to do the covers. It was not until after Gulacy left the book in 1977 that he was given the opportunity to produce four amazing covers (MOKF #51, 55, 64, and 67). One of these covers (#55) was used in 2016 as the variant cover for the Master of Kung Fu Omnibus vol. 2 hardcover. However, Gulacy’s splash pages (or title pages) to his ’70s MOKF stories were truly spectacular and provided his version of the cover to

ave Lemieux

Maitre Du Kung Fu #9 from Canada in 1974 by

Kung Fu: Maestro De Artes Marciales #64 from Mexico in 1976 by

Editions Heritage features as the cover the splash page

MACC Division Historieta features as the cover the splash page from

from MOKF #18 titled “Attack!”

MOKF #34 titled “Cyclone at the Center of a Madman’s Crown!”

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Mestre Do Kung Fu #8 from Brazil in 1975 by Bloch features

Interpresse features as the cover the splash page from

as the cover the splash page from MOKF #33 titled

MOKF #30 titled “A Gulf of Lions.”

“Wicked Messenger of Madness.”

Mestre Do Kung Fu #19 from Brazil in 1976 by Bloch features

Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu #1 (collection) from Spain in

as the cover the splash page from MOKF #47 titled “Part III

1998 by Forum features as the cover the splash page from

(Leiko Wu): Phantom Sand.”

MOKF #31 titled “Snowbuster.”

All artwork TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Kung-Fu Magasinet #97 from Denmark in 1985 by Forlaget

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Due to the success of the Kung Fu TV show and the three Bruce Lee movies, Charlton Comics editor George Wildman decided in early 1973 that he wanted Charlton to publish a martial-arts comic. Warren Sattler had been one of Charlton’s regular artists since 1972, with work appearing in Attack, Ghost Manor, Fightin’ Marines, Ghostly Haunts, Haunted, Ghostly Tales, For Lovers Only (which Sattler does not remember doing), The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, and Fightin’ Army. During this time Sattler was never shy about letting Wildman know that he loved Western-themed comics and really wanted a Western comic assignment. Wildman wrote Sattler a letter sometime in early 1973 and asked the artist if he would be interested in drawing a comic book entitled Yang about a Chinese martial-arts character in America on the West Coast in the 1860s. Sattler made some preliminary sketches of his idea for the character—including the character’s familiar outfit, as well as hair atop what would soon become his bald head—and went to the Charlton offices in Derby, Connecticut, for a meeting with Wildman and Yang writer Joe Gill. Gill asked Sattler to remove the character’s hair, but otherwise both the editor and writer loved Sattler’s concept for Yang. Either Wildman or Gill asked for a doublepage spread in the middle of each story. Gill would write each story in two parts, and the second part would begin with a two-page spread, which would become Sattler’s calling card for his work in Yang. Sattler suggested not to open with the splash page but to move it to page two, three, or four, mimicking the movies of the mid-1970s where they opened with the action in progress, then, after an opening scene, the movie title and opening credits would run. When Wildman or Gill wanted something special in the art, they would call Sattler. Normally Sattler would open the envelope from his editor and read the enclosed script then draw the story. In the case of Yang, neither Wildman nor Gill told Sattler how to draw anything, with one exception, in Yang #7. Gill usually wrote his stories with five-panel pages in mind. Sattler said he usually would break down Gill’s story into six or seven panels. As the book went along, Sattler made minor changes to the scripts if he felt the caption was too long or if he wanted to add a funny line. Sattler loved working with Gill. He believed that Gill did his best work on Yang, as the prolific writer, who famously churned out reams of script pages for Charlton’s titles, seemed to put more effort into the character of Yang than he did other characters. One beef the artist had with Charlton was that he had no control over the coloring. Sattler would put coloring notes on the original art, but the colorists ignored his indications. Many times the colorist on the cover was different than on the interior pages, and characters’ cover and interior colors would often not match (see issue #9 notes).

Before Shang-Chi… …Yang premiered, from Charlton Comics. Detail from the cover of issue #1 (Nov. 1973). Cover art by Warren Sattler. © the respective copyright holder.

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by J a

y Williams

THE CHARLTON METHOD

Marvel, DC, and Charlton each had a “house” process in the production of the original comic art. In the Charlton method, the writer—usually the omnipresent Joe Gill— would type the story and the editor would mail it to the artist. The artist would usually pencil, ink, and letter each story and mail it back to Charlton. For Yang covers, Sattler would read the story and decide on a scene from the story to use for the front cover. Sattler would then pencil and ink the cover. While looking at Gill’s page one, Sattler penciled the panel outlines and then penciled in the captions, word balloons, and dialogue. He would then repeat that for each page of Gill’s story. He would come back and ink the dialogue but would leave the panel outlines in pencil, as sometimes he would have something bleeding out of a panel. This technique gave him a rough idea in his mind as to what he was going to put into each panel. Sattler’s method was based upon some advice from Milton Caniff of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon fame: “Get the lettering done first, and in whatever space is left design your picture around that.” Sattler would then pencil each page and then come back and ink them all. Once the art was complete, he would usually hand-carry the artwork to the Charlton offices in Derby. Charlton was known as a comic company that paid much less than DC or Marvel. “My Charlton page rates were $15 for pencils, $15 for inks, and $5 for lettering the interior pages, and $25 for the cover,” Sattler tells BACK ISSUE. “I easily averaged completing two pages a day.” Yang was one of two projects Sattler simultaneously illustrated for Charlton, alternating between the two. “Because Billy the Kid and Yang were bimonthly, I was usually working one book or the other, along with some Charlton military comics and work for National Lampoon.” The comics industry usually follows trends from successful TV shows and movies, and for once, Charlton was the first publisher to capitalize upon a trend when it released Yang #1 (cover-dated Nov. 1973), narrowly beating Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu’s first appearance in Special Marvel Edition #15 (cover-dated Dec. 1973). [Editor’s note: “Narrowly,” indeed. According to the research of Mike Voiles at DCindexes.com, Yang #1 was released to newsstands on September 1, 1973, and Special Marvel Edition #15 arrived on September 4, 1973. Given Charlton’s spotty and/or sluggish distribution, chances are, Shang-Chi was on the stands in some areas before Yang… but for the record, Yang technically did premiere first.] Where did Warren Sattler get his martial-arts ideas for his illustrations? “Oh, they came from my second oldest son, Marc,” Sattler tells BI. “He began taking karate lessons when he was 16. He showed me moves I could use.” Sattler remembers that Joe Gill asked for a karate move on the front cover of this issue, and that Wildman and Gill were thrilled with the final result, with the yin-yang symbol (Yang’s equivalent of Superman’s “S”) in the background and on Yang’s green jacket. (Sometimes when Sattler drew the yin-yang symbol, the black was on the left, and other times it was on the right. “I never paid attention to white being on one side and black being on the other,” the artist says, adding that editor George Wildman asked him to “watch that in the future.”) Sattler notes that he had nothing to do with the yellow background on the cover. He also feels that in his mind, in this issue Yang did not look right, but was not sure if anyone else noticed.

In the story, the central characters are Chung Yuan, the father of Chung Hui (Yang); Yang; slave trader Chao Ku, the evil antagonist; and Ku’s daughter (and love/ hate interest for Yang), Yin Li. The basic story depicts Chao Ku having Chung Yuan killed. The deceased’s son, Chung Hui, attempts to avenge is father’s death and is captured and taken to America, where he becomes Yang.

Yang #2 (May 1974)

Yang #1 (Nov. 1973)

There was a six-month gap between issues #1 and 2, a delay that Sattler does not recall. The cover features a very curvaceous Yin Li about to stab Yang. When asked about how he learned to draw female characters, Sattler reminded me that he spent ten years drawing teenage girls in the syndicated comic strip The Jackson Twins [working with its creator, Dick Brooks—ed.]. Joe Gill provided very little guidance on what he wanted drawn in his stories, except he would note when a female character was crying. It was Sattler’s idea to create a trademark style by having crying characters turn away, with a tear running down their face, as shown in issue #2 on page 14, last panel. Sattler contends that his artwork in the second issue is his least favorite.

Then and Now (top) Young Warren Sattler at his drawing board. (bottom) The artist today, standing before examples of the comic strip which inspired his artistry, Terry and the Pirates. Both photos courtesy of Steve Sattler.

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By the time Deadly Hands of Kung Fu premiered as a black-and-white Marvel magazine in 1974, kung-fu fever was already in full swing. The magazine ran for 33 issues until 1977, including a Special Edition (Summer 1974) and a one-shot Deadliest Heroes of Kung Fu spin-off (Summer 1975). Although both Shang-Chi and Iron Fist would often star in DHoKF and the “Sons of the Tiger/White Tiger” strip appeared in almost every issue, the magazine’s true star was probably real-life martial-arts hero Bruce Lee. Lee was featured on the first issue’s cover as well as well as covers for #3, 7, 14, 17, 26, 28, and Deadliest Heroes. Only Shang-Chi, whose strip was usually the main feature, appeared on more covers. Many issues included articles about Lee, barely a month passed without some mention of him in the letters page, and #28 was devoted entirely to Lee with a comic adaptation of his life.

KUNG FU GRIP

The kung-fu craze in America is considered to have begun with the 1972 debut of Lee’s first staring role in The Big Boss a.k.a. Fists of Fury. “[It] …had by D a n i e l D e A n g e l o the kind of impact on us that a truly great comic-book movie does today, liberating in its embrace of fantasy action and over-the-top heroics,” explained writer Gerry Conway in his introduction to Marvel’s gerry conway DHoKF Omnibus vol. 1 (Nov. 2016). “Bruce Lee, on screen, was a superhero, doing impossible things with his body that seemed ripped from the pages of a comic book. He moved at super-speed, he struck with a force that was superhuman, he practically levitated with every leap. And the visual storytelling of the movie itself was like nothing seen in American films—spectacular stunts coupled with a dramatic intensity that made the average American ‘action’ film seem comatose. We were blown away.” No sooner had Lee burst onto the international scene as the newest screen action hero, he passed away at the age of 32 on July 20, 1973—just a month before the premiere of what most consider his greatest film, Enter the Dragon. Just like such film icons as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, Lee’s death at such a young age (and under what seemed at the time to be somewhat mysterious circumstances) immortalized him to fans forever. “Bruceploitation” had begun, with everyone seemingly looking to cash in on Lee’s popularity in movies (as studios scrambled to find Lee lookalikes to star in imitation kung-fu films), books—and yes, even comics. “Roy [Thomas, Marvel editor-in-chief] wanted to do something in comics that would embrace the Asian martial-arts movie aesthetic,” Conway wrote, “but in 1972, there was just no vehicle to do so.” However, the genre would receive increased visibility with the popularity of the American TV series Kung Fu (1972–1975), which starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a half-Chinese/half-American who studied most of his life at a Shaolin temple in China, becoming a priest and master of kung fu. After killing the Emperor’s nephew to avenge one of his masters, Caine had a bounty placed on his head and fled to America, where he traveled through the Old West. Similar to the previous The Fugitive TV series (and later, The Incredible Hulk TV series), Caine encountered various strangers throughout his journeys and used his skills to help those in trouble. Because kung fu actually teaches one to avoid fighting when possible, the series focused more on philosophy rather than action, as one would expect. Another reason for this was because Carradine, unlike Bruce Lee, was not actually a martial artist. “It’s all faked, man, the fight scenes,” Carradine said in an interview in DHOKF #2 (June 1974). “They’re choreographed. Fast and Furious First Issue I mean, I’m a dancer!” Carradine was featured on the covers of #4 and Deadliest Heroes #1 (fighting Lee). Many early issues included Neal Adams’ riveting cover to DHoKF #1 (Apr. 1974). articles about the series until its success began to fade with its For more awesome Adams kung-fu art, see the “Armor and cancellation. With the popularity of martial arts on the rise, Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin created Shang-Chi, who soon graduated the Martial Arts” interview with Neal later in this issue. to his own comic, Master of Kung Fu. The success of that comic eventually led to DHoKF. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. 28 • BACK ISSUE • Deadly Hands Issue

KUNG FU HUSTLE

Roy Thomas says, “The creation of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (which some of us joked should’ve really been called Deadly FEET of Kung Fu) was inevitable, since Marvel was then in the process of doing B&W comics about most of the same subject matters it was covering in color comics. Kung fu seemed to lend itself to that approach.” Editor/writer David Anthony Kraft, who worked on DHoKF throughout most of its run, recalls, “It was a great time period when I started, because you had a lot of freedom. Roy, Don McGregor, and I were the three people who oversaw all of the color comics! Over in the B&W department, Tony [Isabella] was editor and Chris Claremont was his assistant. As a courtesy—because sometimes we would proofread stuff, sometimes we would contribute story ideas or titles—they would list us in the editorial credits, so at the start I may have been listed even though I wasn’t doing very much, but later on it was like musical chairs… we all switched positions, and suddenly I was working on the magazines as an associate editor. Eventually, I worked my way up to where I was actually editing a lot of the books.” In addition to many articles, DAK wrote a regular column called “Fighting Arts Review,” which previewed upcoming kung-fu films and books, from #24–32 (skipping #25). In his own introduction to the DHoKF Omnibus, editor/writer Tony Isabella wrote, “We wanted [the B&W magazines] to be actual magazines that would combine our comics stories with informative articles on the title’s respective areas of interest. But there was another reason for the union of articles and comics in these magazines. We didn’t have the budget to fill our 68 pages with comics and nothing but. Our budgets allowed for roughly 30–32 pages of new comics stories per issue. This wasn’t a problem for magazines like Dracula Lives! and Monsters Unleashed, because we could go to the Marvel archives and reprint good and even great [horror] stories from the 1950s and 1960s. DHoKF offered its david anthony kraft editors no such opportunity to reprint old comics stories. Marvel had never published martial-arts comics before Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu…” DHoKF definitely accomplished its goal, going beyond just reviews of martial arts-related films, TV shows, and books. It also included interviews with current martial-arts stars, articles about the history of kung fu and the use of weapons, and even reviews of martial-arts tournaments. In addition to kung fu, the magazine covered other martial-arts–related films, such as the Billy Jack kung fu/Western series, James Bond, sword and sorcery, and the Japanese Yakuza (“gangster” films). In addition to regular comicbook creators, Marvel sought out writers who were also considered “experts” in the field: editor/writer John David Warner contributed many articles as well as a recurring column called “Under the Pagoda”; martial-arts instructor Frank McLaughlin (creator of Charlton’s Judomaster) provided a series of illustrated kung-fu lessons; and even Denny O’Neil contributed under the alias “Wan Chang O’Shaugnessy.” Thomas tells BACK ISSUE, “Denny had used the name ‘Sergius O’Shaugnessy’ as a pseudonym at Charlton while he was still doing some writing for Marvel… and he revived that pen name from time to time. Guess an Asian adaptation of the name made sense, half as a joke, when he wrote for Hands.” Even Marvel’s own “karate kid,” Ralph Macchio, started out writing fan mail to the letters pages of DHoKF. After meeting McGregor at a comics convention, Macchio was hired to assist Warner on the B&W magazines. Warriors Three

ENTER THE TIGERS

The first issue of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu debuted on newsstands with a cover date of April 1974 with a painted cover of Bruce Lee by famed comics illustrator Neal Adams. “For whatever reason, they felt I had the drawing power to launch these magazines, and I never said no to them when they asked,” Adams said in an interview with Arlen Schumer from Comic

DHoKF’s “Sons of the Tiger” feature appeared in almost every issue and scored these cover spotlights: (top) #1’s back cover, with Dick Giordano art; (bottom left) #6 (Nov. 1974) by Bob Larkin; and (bottom right) #16 (Sept. 1975) by Luis Dominguez. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Today, Iron Fist is a well-established character in the Marvel Universe, part of the New Avengers and even a television star, as one of Netflix’s Defenders. Yet his publishing life has had its ups and downs, with moments of glory, death, return, and publishing hiatuses. Let’s explore the evolution of the character as seen by many of his creators from 1974 to 2017.

IN THE BEGINNING

As noted earlier in this issue, martial arts became very popular in the early ’70s, and Marvel Comics capitalized on the trend in 1973 with the introduction of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Master of Kung Fu’s early appearances were successful and the House of Ideas wanted to expand its roster of martial-arts stars, with the idea of creating a character that would entirely belong to Marvel since Shang-Chi was linked to the Fu Manchu license. And that led to the creation of Iron Fist. Roy Thomas and Gil Kane would oversee the creation of this new character. Thomas explains how he got the idea for Iron Fist: “We already had Master of Kung Fu, which Englehart and Starlin had brought to me, and I to Stan [Lee]. When I saw my first kung-fu movie, which had an ‘iron fist’ ceremony in it, I decided that would be a good name for a more superhero (i.e., Marvel) approach to a kung-fu hero. Stan agreed, and I immediately contacted roy thomas Gil Kane to be the artist.” The Roy Thomas/Gil Kane team was © Luigi Novi / a classic when it came to character Wikimedia Commons. launches or relaunches in the ’70s: together they rebooted Captain Marvel; created Morbius, the Living Vampire (in Amazing Spider-Man); and introduced Warlock and Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere. Gil Kane explained why the two worked so much together in the FA fanzine in 1986: “Whenever Roy had a new book coming up he would insist that he and I do it. So, we did the first issue of Iron Fist [Marvel Premiere #15] and many other debut issues, and it was Roy who insisted that I do most of the covers.” (Kane would provide cover pencils for all but one of Marvel Premiere’s Iron Fist issues and for five of the first six covers of the hero’s own title.) The origin of the character would be inspired by the 1933 book Lost Horizon, written by English writer James Hilton, and the Golden Age comic book Amazing-Man from Centaur Publications. Roy Thomas offers, “Well, Lost Horizon (which I’ve never read—I’ve only seen movie versions) is an indirect inspiration… [as is] Bill Everett’s Amazing-Man #5 (really the first issue), which Gil liked. Since I had only a vague idea of a Westerner who goes to the East and gains the ‘iron fist,’ [Kane] said he’d like to adapt a lot of elements of Amazing-Man, and that

Kung Fu Superhero The high-kickin’ debut of Iron Fist, in Marvel Premiere #15 (May 1974). Cover art by Gil Kane and Dick Giordano, with alterations by John Romita, Sr. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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by F

ranck Martini

sounded good to me. I’d read that comic, and was always, like Gil, a big Bill Everett fan… but I didn’t remember it as well as Gil did. We didn’t look up a copy of the book… we were just going by what Gil remembered, and, of course, just taking the broad outline of that.” Thomas further explained the creation process in Alter Ego #4 (Spring 2000): “[Amazing-Man #5] contained a Shangri-La clone and a group of enigmatic figures headed by the hooded Great Question. All these elements were incorporated into our joint plot, though we stuck around only for Iron Fist’s origin [in Marvel Premiere #15] then turned the feature and a few basic concepts over to Len Wein, who worked with artist Larry Hama on the second story.” Lost Horizon provided the concept of a lost city in Tibet—Shangri-La, located in the Kunlun mountains. In Iron Fist, the lost city is called K’un L’un, so the connection is quite clear. On the other hand, Amazing-Man also gave the inspiration for an orphan kid raised and trained by Tibetan monks.

A STORY TOLD BACKWARDS

Iron Fist would make his first appearance in Marvel Premiere #15 (May 1974). This tryout title was used by Marvel to introduce characters—such as Warlock in its first two issues, and later Iron Fist and others—or to relaunch characters that no longer had their own publications—like Dr. Strange, in issues #3–14. [Editor’s note: Marvel Premiere was examined in BACK ISSUE #71, the “Tryouts, One-Shots, and One-Hit Wonders” issue.] Strangely enough, the bulk of Iron Fist’s Bronze Age adventures contains three large storylines. First, from Marvel Premiere #15–22 we have the origin of the character, his revenge story, and how he became more than the killing machine he was trained to be. Second, from Marvel Premiere #23 to Iron Fist #7 we have the search for the abducted Colleen Wing. Third, there was a “villain of the month”–type approach with a Steel Serpent subplot that culminated with Marvel Team-Up #63–64. When he first appears, Iron Fist is already established: costume, powers… everything is in place. All the elements that will explain who he is and how he became a superhero will be told in flashbacks. Most of the early Marvel Premiere issues will use flashback scenes to give details on Danny Rand and the other members of the cast. His origin is told in the first two issues, where we discover how he joined K’un L’un and how he got trained, passed all the tests and trials, and finally got his powers (the channeling of superhuman energy through his glowing, “iron” fist). It all starts with a trek in the Himalayan mountains, when young Danny Rand is accompanying his parents, Wendell and Heather Rand, and their best friend and Wendell’s business partner Harold Meachum. They are searching a mysterious city that only appears every ten years: K’un L’un. But the trek will take a turn for the worse—and if Bruce Wayne’s origin is grim, then Danny Rand’s is quite the contender. In the matter of a few minutes, Danny’s father falls to his death, betrayed by Meachum, who gives Wendell the final push. Meachum proposes to rescue Heather and Danny. She refuses and chooses to climb towards K’un L’un. But a pack of wolves attack them and Heather sacrifices herself to allow Danny to run away and reach the lost city, where he will stay for the next ten years. Roy Thomas explains this violent setup: “We didn’t set out to make the comic especially brutal. But kung fu needs a lot of action art of a certain kind, and that’s what Gil gave it.” Marvel Premiere #16 (July 1974) follows up on Danny’s years in K’un L’un and his departure. Creatively, a new team is in place: writer Len Wein replaces Roy Thomas,

Iron Firsts Thomas and Kane were inspired by the film Lost Horizon and Bill Everett’s origin for the Golden Age hero Amazing-Man in creating Iron Fist. Also shown is a sequence from the character’s origin in Marvel Premiere #15. Lost Horizon © 1937 Columbia Pictures. Poster courtesy of Heritage. Amazing-Man © the current copyright holder. Iron Fist TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Just for Kicks (left) Gil Kane—as inked by Dick Giordano, in a rare Marvel appearance— from the very first Iron Fist story, written by Roy Thomas and appearing in Marvel Premiere #15. (right) Len Wein scripted IF’s second adventure in MP #16, penciled by Larry Hama, with Giordano anchoring the series as the returning inker. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

and Larry Hama takes over as penciler for his first SMOLDER AND GLOW UNTIL IT published work. Thomas and Kane were familiar with BECOMES LIKE UNTO A THING OF IRON the concept of launching a concept and then leaving it Iron Fist is, first and foremost, an expert in martial arts. in other hands: “I really don’t recall if we both decided But on top of that—and thanks to a fight to a standtogether, or Gil decided he didn’t have time to still with a dragon—he is also able to focus his continue the book, so I decided to leave “chi”—his vital energy—into his fist. That is rather than work with a new artist, or what. Iron Fist’s trademark superpower. When you But we both left, simply bequeathing look at it today, it looks very much like some ideas for the plot of the second what video games call a “special attack” story to those who followed us. Of (for which you would use with a joypad course, I continued as the series’ editor combo). Whenever he wants to use for some time, and overseer of the this special trick, Danny must calm covers… and Gil penciled some of down, focus, and then attack. those. So we were still guiding Iron Fist In the first story (Marvel Premiere just a bit.” #15), Roy Thomas scripted the following The only element connecting the line to initiate Iron Fist’s amazing ability: first and second issue was surprise “Your hand starts to smolder and inker Dick Giordano, whose work in glow until it becomes like unto a those days was mostly seen only at thing of iron! And you strike!”— gil kane rival DC Comics: “[It was] my choice,” as Danny lands his blow. Roy tells recalls Roy Thomas, “a way to get Portrait by John Severin. us why he came up with such a Dick to do some work for Marvel.” Giordano’s inks sentence: “Hey, if you’re going to have a hero with provided a good fit and a driving visual on the first a fist like iron… well, iron gets to be iron (or it is five issues of the Iron Fist saga. steel?) by glowing, right? No special mantra… but The first two issues establish a storytelling technique it was an origin thing.” that will continue in the book until the arrival of scribe Maybe it wasn’t a mantra, but it stuck for quite a Chris Claremont: most captions are in the second person long time. Subsequent Iron Fist writers Len Wein, and speak to Danny, like the voice of a narrator providing Doug Moench, and Tony Isabella kept it. But Isabella guidance. It was innovative in its approach, but could almost wishes he had not: “Yes, [I used it,] but, sometimes make the captions a bit too forced and heavy. honestly, I was wrong. It’s a silly line that I should

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have ditched. The moment itself is cool and, for Iron Fist, ironic. The line? It got old real fast.” It would be up to Chris Claremont to get rid of it in his early issues. Claremont would also change the use of Iron Fist’s powers and establish that Danny was so drained after a chi channeling that he could only use it once per day. He also defined that his powers could heal him or transmit his energy to others (Iron Fist #2 being the first case), giving him a slightly broader use of his power. When asked if he gave any guidelines to the new Iron Fist creative teams as Marvel’s editor, Roy Thomas answers, “Only the bits we gave the new team for the second story…. although if they had gone in a direction I didn’t like, as editor I could have reined them in. But I had no strong storyline in mind… at least nothing that wasn’t apparent (the revenge motif, the general kung-fu theme, etc., etc.) in the first story and the elements we bequeathed to the second.”

GETTING REVENGE

Following Len Wein and teaming up with Larry Hama (who had already drawn Marvel Premiere #16) is Doug Moench, who will only stay on the book for three issues, in which Iron Fist gets a sort of revenge on the man who caused the demise of his parents: Harold Meachum. Moench recalls little of his three issues, but he explained to the Comic Shenanigans podcast the feeling of urgency in the Marvel offices that led to his writing the book in the first place: “Marvel back then was putting out so many titles each month […] and there weren’t so many writers. […] Deadlines were so bad back then that it was all that anybody could do to get someone to write the next issue in time for us not to pay a late fee at the printer.” It seems that Marvel Premiere #17 (Sept. 1974) may have been one of these rush situations since its plot was quite straightforward, based on Larry Hama’s recollection: “I think the plot for that issue was, ‘Iron Fist enters the Meachum building and between the ground floor and the top floor he bumps into all sorts of traps and on the top floor he confronts Triple Iron.’ That was pretty much the entirety of the plot.” Moench’s next issue (MP #18, Oct. 1974) features confrontations with both Triple Iron and Harold Meachum, who tells Danny what happened after he left the Rands to their fate—how he lost his legs because of the cold of the Tibetan mountains and how he got back to New York. Meachum is killed at the end of the issue by a new character called the Ninja that will play a larger role in the upcoming issues. Meachum’s daughter arrives after the Ninja’s disappearance and believes larry hama that Iron Fist has killed her father, an element © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. that will stick all along the book’s duration and establish a feud between the new generation of Rands and Meachums. Finally, in Marvel Premiere #19 (Nov. 1974), Doug Moench introduces two major characters: Professor Lee Wing and his daughter Colleen. Moench takes some time to explain the history of the professor, which has ties with both Danny’s and Harold Meachum’s history. It looks like Moench was really starting to put things in motion with this issue, but he decided to leave a book he never really liked. “When Roy Thomas asked me to take over Master of Kung Fu,” Moench said to Comic Shenanigans, “I said, ‘Well, you just asked me to take over Iron Fist. That’s two martial arts things and that’s one too many.’ […] He said, ‘Well, okay then, which one would you like?’ I said, ‘No offense to you, Roy—I know you created Iron Fist—but I’d rather do Shang-Chi […] because he’s actually Chinese and Iron Fist is just this white guy who has to come in and show all the Asians that he’s better than they are.’ And that sort of bugs me.” Moench’s final issue also showed that Danny Rand doesn’t understand much of modern life in New York and knows nothing of matters such as telephones, subways, or arcades (which were already there before he went to K’un L’un…). This image of the stranger is really how other writers like Chris Claremont will see Danny. According to Claremont, “Danny was established as a fish out of water in K’un L’un, but because of his growing and acculturation into the philosophy of K’un L’un, when he returns to New York, he is equally at odds because the world he’s returning to is nothing like the world he inhabited. So, he’s a fish out of water no matter where you look at it. […] And that’s the reason why Power Man and Iron Fist is such a great team-up—you couldn’t have a more yin-yang association than Danny Rand and Luke Cage.”

Leaping into the Marvel Universe The Tony Isabella-scripted Marvel Premiere #20 (Jan. 1975) cemented Iron Fist’s role within the larger Marvel Universe. Cover by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott. Also shown is an interior panel featuring Iron Fist vs. Batroc, illo’ed by Arvell Jones and Dan Green. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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HONG KONG PHOOEY, THE CARTOON

Courtesy of Mark Arnold.

Most Hanna-Barbera fans and scholars consider the 1957–1969 period as the Golden Age of their shows, but there were a few bright spots later on for Hanna-Barbera. Hong Kong Phooey, which originally ran from September 7, 1974 to December 21, 1974, was one of these. There were 31 15-minute episodes produced for a 16-episode package. Unlike most of the shows that Hanna-Barbera was creating at the time—basically variations on the highly successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? theme or sequel series to successes of the past like The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (The Flintstones) or Yogi’s Gang (The Yogi Bear Show)—Hong Kong Phooey was kind of its own thing. The show was originally to be called Kung Phooey and then Kung Fu Phooey, with animals running around in a human world in a premise loosely based on the primetime live-action series Kung Fu (1972–1975). Once the format was finalized, the title star’s alter ego, Penrod (Penry) Pooch, worked as a janitor at police headquarters with Sergeant Flint, Rosemary the switchboard operator, and their cat, Spot. When trouble happened, Penry became Hong Kong Phooey (HKP) by running into the vending machine, then jumping into the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet, with Penry getting stuck. Spot would hit the cabinet, and then HKP would emerge out the top drawer, bouncing onto an ironing board and sliding down a chute, then bouncing off a couch and landing in a trash bin outside. HKP would drive the Phooeymobile out of the bin, with Spot already in the car. With just a small Lone Ranger mask and an orange-and-white karate suit, no one knows that HKP and Penry Pooch are one in the same. HKP would often consult his manual, The Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu, for assistance. In the series, Spot acted like a cat, didn’t talk, and mostly walked on all fours, but he would pull HKP out of every jam he was in at the time. He would be the one that would make it all work out and make HKP look like a hero. Rosemary had a crush on HKP, and Penry was amateur inventor who sometimes broke the fourth wall by winking at or addressing the audience. The Phooeymobile could become anything HKP needed it to do—like a helicopter or a boat. The theme song to the show was very strong, with its catchy “number one super guy” lyric, and sung by Scatman Crothers, the actor/ singer/comedian who also voiced Penry/HKP. Cartoonist and animator Willie Ito was an integral part of the development and execution of Hong Kong willie ito Phooey. “It was during the Bruce Lee craze and H-B was well known for parodies, and jumping on the latest,” Ito tells BACK ISSUE. “We were jamming on new show concepts, playing with character designs, and the natural thing was the kung-fu craze. Terrytoons had a show called Hashimoto Mouse, a Judo character. Not that we imitated the show, it gave us a thought and idea. The idea was run by Joe Barbera, who gave the green light to develop. “Rather than have a voice actor do an ‘Ahh sooo!’ [a standard, comical “Oriental” voice characterization of the day which is now considered offensive—ed.], we thought a uniquely unlikely voice might work. One night after work, the three of us on the project went to relax at the Hollywood Bowl, a bowling alley with a cocktail lounge. Scatman Crothers was entertaining that night. After his set, we invited him to join us at our table. We mentioned the project we were involved in and invited him to audition. We ran the idea by Joe and he liked to see how it’ll work. Number One Super Guy “Meanwhile, we were having R&R at the Imperial Garden’s restaurant,” From the archives of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com), a Ito continues. “[Actor] Pat Morita was there, so we invited him to join us. We also offered an audition to him. Come Monday when we expected 1974 publicity cel for Hanna-Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey. him to come in, he never showed. Few days later we ran into him again. We asked why he never came in and he had a conflicting audition. TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions. 50 • BACK ISSUE • Deadly Hands Issue

Enter the Buffoon (left) An early hand-painted cel used circa 1974 as a cover page for the series’ script development, with the show at that time being called “Kung Fooey.” (top right) Willie Ito’s model sheets for our hero. Both courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

“The original title was Kung Fu Phooey. As the show was picked up, we brought in Marty Murphy, a Playboy Magazine cartoonist, to help design some of the characters. I was the supervising layout man overseeing my team of layout men, character designers, and chief bottle washer. “The background department “I started in full-time on staff in August had grown with many diverse styles. 1961,” Eisenberg recalls. “I had been freeWe tried to give somewhat of a different lancing for a year or two and before that, look since we had so many shows in I was an assistant animator at Warners. production during that period. I did a half of a year and there was a small “I was doing some freelance work group of us like Iwao Takamoto and myself with Bob Foster, and he commissioned and Willie Ito and three or four other me to do the drawing for a parody for cartoonists. We would work about six months Crazy Magazine.” This parody, called of a year usually around March to either Karate Chop Suey, appeared in a feature September or October developing new parodying the current Saturday morning ideas. Sometimes some of us would jerry eisenberg cartoon lineup in issue #8 (Dec. 1974), come up with an idea and if Joe liked it, TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions. he’d want to pursue it and develop it. published by Marvel Comics. Ito concludes, “We worked on one series after another Like with The Wacky Races, I designed a bunch of those not knowing how much of a hit one would make from characters because Joe just came down to talk to Iwao and another. Sometimes we are surprised what hits and what me one day and told us he got this idea for a show called fails. Jerry Eisenberg was also integral part of the series.” Wacky Races and they’re just wacky characters in wacky Jerry Eisenberg explains more on how Hong Kong vehicles. I love designing stuff like the wacky vehicles. “I remember a vehicle I designed called the PhooeyPhooey came to be: “I think that was in the early ’70s. I can’t remember the year, but I didn’t ask enough mobile. I remember designing several Phooeymobiles. questions from Mr. Barbera as to who wrote that and I wanted it to look a little bit Chinese-y. That’s why I where’d the idea came from. I would say Joe Barbera thought of the Pagoda for the roof. I always like designing was probably having a meeting with his writers and cars—not straight looking, not realistic, but cartoony ones. maybe the idea was thrown out on the table during that “I really don’t know who came up with the seed meeting, [but] it could have come from Joe. concept,” Eisenberg admits. “Iwao and I worked very close

Wacky Racer (inset) Jerry Eisenberg’s early concept art for Hong Kong Phooey’s wheels. (bottom) Cel of the Phooeymobile in action. Both courtesy of Heritage. TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

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