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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 18, 2019 22:41:50 GMT -5
Master of Kung Fu #24Diaper ninjas! Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Al Milgrom, Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, Walt Simonson-pencils (uh-oh); Sal Trapani-inks (oh, HAIKIBA!), Dave Hunt-letters, Petra Goldberg-colors, Roy Thomas-allegedly in charge of this mess. 4 pencillers and Sal Trapani? Oh you know this will be an artistic triumph! Synopsis: Shang-Chi is hiding up in the trees, in the Amazonian jingle, as a patrol of Si-Fan cut their way through. Chi drops down and takes out the rear straggler and dons his keffiyeh. They continue tramping along to some jungle compound. Meanwhile, Fu is arriving by helicopter at said jungle compound, where Bucher's men await to spring a trap.... Yep, there is no better way to hide from the Israeli Mossad than wearing swastika t-shirts in a South American jungle, while wearing an SS officer's cap. Guess they haven't finished carving the giant Adolf Hitler head, to help hide the place! Fu's no dummy and he departs to meet up with the Si-Fan,, As this goes on, Blackjack Tarr has restarted the engines on the paddlewheel boat and they head for Bucher's camp, not knowing if Chi is alive or dead. Fu meets up with the Si-Fan. They head to ambush the Nazis. The Nazis, in a perfect defensive maneuver, just put up a sandbag barrier between two quonset huts, thereby cutting off their means of escape and any forward warning of an intruder's approach. You guys ever hear of a multi-layered defense? Perimeter patrols? BLEEPing guard duty? Master race my assassin! Bucher has shown up and is all kinds of crazy; but, the Boys From Brazil follow his every crazy order. Fu f@#$s with him and has a goon snapa branch, loudly. Bucher orders them behind their barriers and goes to command from inside one of the buildings. Fu sends Si-Fan to outflank the Nazis, then has the rest unload from the front, to draw their attention. It pretty much looks like the movie The Green Berets, as the VC overrun the A-team's camp. Time to call for Puff the Magic Dragon! Chi separates from the group and is discovered by a Si-Fan and they go all KIYAAA and consult chapters in the Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu.... Meanwhile, Fu signals his flanking men.......... Chinese Assassin Cult 1, Nazi Renegades 0. The Si-Fan go on to face MI-6 in the finals. When the Si-Fan arrive in the center defensive area, Bucher orders men in the two quonset huts to open fire between them, to kill the Si-Fan (problem is, they are firing direcly at each other, with only aluminum sheets between them. The Si-Fan don't care and keep coming. Somehow, in a scene that has no logic to it, Bucher emerges from his hut, firing wildly and kills off the Si-Fan. Fu is captured and tied to a tree, with Bucher about to use a panzerfaust (bazooka) on him. Chi saves his father by knocking Bucher's shot wide, revealing a V-2 rocket in a hidden silo. Tarr and Nayland Smith show up and shoot the Nazis before they can kill Chi, though Bucher flings a knife at him. he goes to set off the missile; but, finds that Chi is waiting and has deactivated it. Bucher falls down the silo an ends up a wet splatter. Fu escapes. So, MI-6 goes over the Si-Fan and retain the title. Nazis have a surprisingly good showing, though the Si-Fan lodge protests about rules of logic being broken. That's all from ABC's Wide World of Maniac Death Cults. Thoughts: Okay, first off, the art isn't that bad, although it has every right to be. It works well enough, for as quickly as it had to have been thrown together. What doesn't work is Moench's story, if you pause for even a second. One, the Nazis are hanging out in the jungle in swastika t-shirts. Really? The Israeli Boy Scouts would have wiped these guys out in 5 minutes, earning their Mivtza Za'am Ha'el merit badges. Two, their entire defense is to wall themselves up behind sandbags, with limited field of fire (blocked on two sides by the quonset huts) and no rear guard posted. They have no outerlying guard patrols, no patrols of any kind, around their secret compound, with the Mossad and Simon Wiesenthal hunting for them, let alone journalist Peter Miller (ODESSA File). All the Si-Fan have to do is hang back and drop mortar rounds on top of the Nazis, or fire rockets into them. Instead, they open fire and charge, and seem to kill a ton of Nazis, then they didn't. Then, the flanking team attacks from the rear and catches the Nazis by surprise, yet don't kill them all, despite being caught in a crossfire. the Si-Fan then get into the sanbag position and get hit by a crossfire between the two aluminum quonset huts. These things have the thickness of a can of soup. A hail of bullets is going to pierce the walls ad hit whoever or whatever is inside, including the V-2. And, yet, somehow, there are Nazis still alive to catch Fu Manchu. I mean, comics or no comics, that's just crazy! There's a good idea at the center of this and this would have made a much better Fu Manchu film than any of the Jess Franco's and most of the others (except Face of Fu Manchu and maybe Vengeance of Fu Manchu). It doesn't make great use of Shang-Chi. You can see that Moench is still figuring out where he is going with all of this; but, he needs to get rid of Fu for a while, to get things headed in the right direction. Then, he can bring Fu back with a much more sinister plan and presence, which is what happens over the next two years. We still have to navigate 4 more issues before all of that starts, though.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 18, 2019 22:47:19 GMT -5
ps I always love the fact that the secret Nazi groups hiding in Latin America and elsewhere are always armed with WW2 small arms and don't use that hidden Nazi gold to acquire more modern weaponry.
"Klaus, the Arab says he can get us 10 crates of Uzis, with 5 magazines each, plus an entire pallet of 9mm ammunition"
"Nein, Heinrich; ve vill stay mit classic German engineering and our good old Schmeissers und Lugers."
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 19, 2019 18:52:54 GMT -5
Two of my favorite later episodes of the sitcom "UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER" involve a guy at the college named "Umlaut" who is apparently the grandson of an escaped Nazi war criminal.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 20, 2019 0:23:28 GMT -5
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #7Now, this one is Earl Norem and it's a beaut! Creative Team: Shang-Chi- Doug Moench-writer, Mike Vosburg-pencils, Al Milgrom-inks; Sons of the tiger-Bill Mantlo-writer, George Perez-pencils, Bob McLeod-inks. Don McGregor-editor, David Anthony Kraft associate editor. Let's see what McGregor can do about the quality, here (McGregor would edit through issue 11, when John Warner took over, more or less). Synopsis: Shang-Chi- Chis is being stalked in a San Francisco wharf, by a mafia hood, and runs into one of the ex-S-Fan, from the secret NY dojo, that got blown up, in issue 2. He was one of a few who left before the bomb went off. We cut back to Chi helping a Chinese restaurant owner who is being shaken down for protection money (plot swied from Way of the Dragon/Return of the Dragon) and finds himself a target of the mafia. Fu watches remotely... He runs into the woman with the eye patch, who is also alive, who leads him to the others, then sets both sides to kill each other, until the Si-Fan show up to kill everyone. the fight spills over into the mafia gathering and Si-Fan kill mafia, as Chi escapes. Ralph Macchio has a letter in the issue, again. Don McGregor writes about Way of the Dragon. This was bruce's baby, with a story he conceived and action he choreographed, including the climactic fight, with Chuck Norris (with big-ass 70s sideburns), at the Roman Colosseum. Frank McLaughlin illustrates blocking techniques. Stan Lee, in an ugly Uncle Sam outfit, hawks Crazy Magazine. Alfred E Newman is not worried. Sons of the Tiger- The guys are still in New York, when they have a visitor: Harrison Budge. This pudgy, balding, middle aged dude takes down all three with gas cannister... Even Hong Kong Phooey did better than this, without Spot! Budge represents the Silent Ones and we get a rehash of the SOT origin, then see them manacled to high tech walls. Each is sent through a gauntlet, where they face their biggest fear, then they smash through walls to face armored goons, who they defeat with the help of their amulets. Issue ends with an ad for Count Dante, the biggest of Bullshido artists. Count Dante was John Timothy Keehan, , a martial artist who changed his name to Count Dante and spread a bunch of bullshido about death matches and dim mak, or "death touch." Similar claims were made by Frank dux, the subject of the movie Bloodsport (which perpetuated Dux's bullshido). Neither fought in death matches, kumites or knitting circle free-for-alls. Neither actually backed up their claims in real fights with legit champions. Thoughts: Pretty ho-hum issue. The Shang-Chi one tries to tie into the past issue; but is kind of scattershot. Vosburg's art is improving; but isn't especially spectacular. His women look way better than his men. Moench's stories still serve no purpose and there is little continuity between stories in the mags, beyond location and the reference to MR Man and the ex-Si-Fan freaks. Sons of the Tiger is a bit more creative, though still highly cliched. Mantlo isn't adding much to this, other than an over-the-top adversary. Perez's art looks way better, with McLeod. Frank McLaughlin continues to be the best part of things and provides the best art, through his illustrated articles. If only he would do the stories.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jul 20, 2019 2:59:36 GMT -5
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 20, 2019 6:12:37 GMT -5
Master of Kung Fu #24Diaper ninjas! Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Al Milgrom, Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, Walt Simonson-pencils (uh-oh); Sal Trapani-inks (oh, HAIKIBA!), Dave Hunt-letters, Petra Goldberg-colors, Roy Thomas-allegedly in charge of this mess. Thoughts: Okay, first off, the art isn't that bad, although it has every right to be. You can see that Moench is still figuring out where he is going with all of this; but, he needs to get rid of Fu for a while, to get things headed in the right direction. Then, he can bring Fu back with a much more sinister plan and presence, which is what happens over the next two years. We still have to navigate 4 more issues before all of that starts, though. Interesting mix of pencilers as you can see that Starlin, Weiss and Milgrom are friends and even maybe spread the pages amongst themselves to complete. It's kind of fun to figure out who did what, although Starlin's pages are give aways. He always used to use a person talking with the index finger pointed up.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 20, 2019 14:39:44 GMT -5
The review of MOKF #24 was much more fun to read than the comic. You know, if that was done "Marvel Style", it's no wonder the story was a MESS. it's bad enough to have 2 guys splitting the story duties, but 5? Alex Toth once said "Marvel Method" was a terrible way to do comics, and I agree. (Since then, I also figured out it was a con job. But that takes more explanation that I'd care to right now.) I think Mike Vosburg did better than the 4-man tag-team! He drew a lot of gorgeous ladies over the years. Do a Google Search for his name and check out what comes up in "Google Images". I'd post it here, but some of it's too racy for this forum.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 20, 2019 21:32:02 GMT -5
Master of Kung Fu #25Shang-Chi vs the San Diego Comic-Con Tarzan Lookalike Contest entrants. Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Paul Gulacy-pencils, Sal Trapani-inks (sigh...), John Costanza-letters, Bill Mantlo-colors, Roy Thomas-edits Synopsis: Our story opens in the Amazon, where Shang-Chi is constipated and Blackjack Tar is giving him potential remedies. Based on dialogue, Nayland Smith is working for Scotland Yard and not MI-6. Um, okay........poaching on other departments' territory. Chi hears something and disappears, only to find a jaguar about to eat a baby....... Chi tells the kitty to go play elsewhere. Kitty doesn't want to play with his toys and plays with Chi, instead, until he grows bored and moves on. Chi picks up the baby, when Mom and Dad come home and wonder where the babysitter is. Chi tries to answer and hand back the baby, when Dad pulls out a knife, as defined by Mick Dundee. Chi picks up the kid and carries him to the village, since he has inherited the babysitting job. At the village he finds a Si-Fan, enjoying a bit of BDSM, with a distinct emphasis on realistic torture. Real mama tries to take the baby and Dad knocks her aside. Si-Fan says the child is cursed and left for predators, as opposed to Predators. Si-Fan says they know think Chi might be sent by gods to save the child, while the Si-Fan confirmed the curse. Chi will have to survive a gauntlet to save the child. Oh, and hot caols mark the path of the gauntlet. Chi walks it without a problem (spread out your feet and step flat-footed, so that no one part is concentrated on coals). Next comes the beating. Chi plays defense and protects the baby. Now, the two opposing coaches argue and the Kill coach stabs the Live coach. Chi gives the baby to Mom, says goodbye, then fights the primitive savages. Chi wins, saves the baby and is allowed to free the Si-Fan. they leave, then battle it out, since he still works for Fu. Shang-Chi 2, Amazon 0. Chi will qualify for the World Championships, to be held somewhere near the coast of France, in a few months. Thoughts: Okay story, if rather racist (not just the yellow skin). Jungle tribes do not randomly sacrifice babies because of bad omens. This just feels like filler, between stories, with Chi justifying taking a life, at the end as sparing him torture by Fu Manchu. Maybe. Gulacy's art is really coming along and we are seeing his ability to establish unique faces. Tarr is looking more as we will know him. Gulacy slowly increased his hair and reduced his size, until Tarr was probably 6'2" to 6'4", not over 7 ft tall, as in his debut. Nayland Smith is also taking on more refined features. Chi is slowly morphing into more of a Bruce Lee than generic sort of David Carradine. Gulacy's fight choreography gets some nice display. The pieces are falling into place, slowly.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 21, 2019 19:21:16 GMT -5
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #8Weird cover. Chi is kicking someone off a building, while some Lon Chaney wannabe is climbing it with a damsel. Creative Team: Shang-Chi- Doug Moench-writer, Mike Vosburg-pencils, Jack Abel-inks; Sons of the Tiger- Bill Mantlo-writer, George Perez-pencils, Al Milgrom-inks. Don McGregor-edits. Don McGregor whines about the chaos behind the scenes, which is an editor's lot in life. Marv Wolfman writes a piece explaining why we haven't seen that Iron Fist magazine they advertised. They s@#$-canned it. It didn't have the "right zip," which is code for is sucked, no one wanted to work on it and no one thought the finished product would sell. I have a suspicion we will see the material here, before long. Shang-Chi- We start out juxtaposing Chi walking through San Francisco, helping people and some big, mean looking dude kicking over kids' wagons and then overreacting to some wealthy biddies who berate him for his appearance. he knifes them and Chi stumbles onto the crime scene. There is talk of a mad slasher. Chi goes hunting, finds a few wrong criminals (but still criminals) then encounters the slasher. they fight, Chi gest busted up and tossed through a gym window. he flips the guy into the pool and hits him with kicks, when he tries to get out. then he tries talking to the guy. he had an abusive childhood, had problems holding a job; but, became a cop. his partner is accidentally shot by a uniformed cop, when they were off duty, at a bar, when a robbery went down. Chi talks him out of the pool and they head out, when a cop sees the knife, assumes its the slasher and shoots, killing him. Chi advances on him an misses being shot himself, before knocking away his sidearm and smashing it. Various ads for selling metal social security number plates (yeah, you'll get plenty of orders) and Planet of the Apes belts and matching bolo ties (belt maybe, bolo tie? Nah...). An article about sword-oriented films, including two Hong Kong ones, Sacred Knives of Vengeance and Fearless Fighters, and a Japanese one, Chushingura (the tale of the 47 Ronin). An ad for Aicondo, the deadly self defense system that is distilled from karate, kung fu and aikido. Just $9.95 and you can become a master, at home. Upon completion, you get a gold certificate, naming you a black belt. In the words of sensei Miyagi, "Learn from book?" David Anthony Kraft has an article on more kung fu paperbacks, including the tv series tie-ins, John Adam, Samurai (by Christopher Wood, who wrote novelizations of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, as well as the novels that inspired the Confessions series of sex films), Black Samurai (which spawned the Jim Kelly film), Jason Striker, master of the Martial Arts (from Piers Anthony!! and Robert Fuentes, and the adaptation of Super Manchu. Count Dante shows up again, selling dim mak. Sons of the Tiger-The trio has Harry Budge in a hotel room, but he is m a motionless zombie. They are interrupted by ninjas and budge escapes... They nearly run over Matt Murdock as they leave the building to chase Budge. they get an invite to a trap, va a newspaper, and swim the East river to a garbage dump, where Budge tries to kill them and fails, and they fight ninja and a sumo, before some woman sets off an explosion. Thoughts: Shang-Chi tries to be philosophical; but, kind of loses the point that the dude is a serial killer, if reports are correct. Weird story that seems a bit unfinished (or just badly edited, if even looked at). Art is usual Vosburg, with some experimentation in splt pages, to match the story. Sons of the Tiger is back to ugly Perez art. Don't know if Milgrom is hacking the job or McLeod was just that much better at fixing it. I know Perez has said his work on this mag was pretty bad and it shows. Just a big difference when McLeod inked it, last issue. Maybe he was doing far more of the art than Milgrom is. There are traces of the future Perez, in a few panels. Articles continue to be a mixed bag. The paperback one offers up tidbits for fiction lovers. I've heard that the Kung Fu tv books were decent and same with Black Samurai. The Christopher Wood book is a reissue of something done before the kung fu craze. Piers Anthony on a martial arts book sounds intriguing. Lot of authors got started doing cheap quicky paperback series, though most had to work under a house name.
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Post by berkley on Jul 22, 2019 1:11:56 GMT -5
Trapani and Gulacy were a real mis-match, to my eyes - it looks to me like Trapani's inks just didn't "get" Gulacy's pencils, almost in the way that many inkers in the 70s didn't seem to know what to do with Gene Colan's pencils.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2019 7:39:34 GMT -5
Trapani and Gulacy were a real mis-match, to my eyes - it looks to me like Trapani's inks just didn't "get" Gulacy's pencils, almost in the way that many inkers in the 70s didn't seem to know what to do with Gene Colan's pencils. I agree, though some of that may have been due to Trapani being under a deadline crunch. Gulacy was putting more and more work into these books, it shows as we saw the improvement issue by issue. But I believe he was also usually late with the pages. The issues when he inked himself were amazing. Maybe the high point of the series.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2019 13:16:39 GMT -5
Master of Kung Fu #25Shang-Chi vs the San Diego Comic-Con Tarzan Lookalike Contest entrants. Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Paul Gulacy-pencils, Sal Trapani-inks (sigh...), John Costanza-letters, Bill Mantlo-colors, Roy Thomas-edits Synopsis: Our story opens in the Amazon, where Shang-Chi is constipated and Blackjack Tar is giving him potential remedies. Based on dialogue, Nayland Smith is working for Scotland Yard and not MI-6. Um, okay........poaching on other departments' territory. Chi hears something and disappears, only to find a jaguar about to eat a baby....... Chi tells the kitty to go play elsewhere. Kitty doesn't want to play with his toys and plays with Chi, instead, until he grows bored and moves on. Chi picks up the baby, when Mom and Dad come home and wonder where the babysitter is. Chi tries to answer and hand back the baby, when Dad pulls out a knife, as defined by Mick Dundee. Chi picks up the kid and carries him to the village, since he has inherited the babysitting job. At the village he finds a Si-Fan, enjoying a bit of BDSM, with a distinct emphasis on realistic torture. Real mama tries to take the baby and Dad knocks her aside. Si-Fan says the child is cursed and left for predators, as opposed to Predators. Si-Fan says they know think Chi might be sent by gods to save the child, while the Si-Fan confirmed the curse. Chi will have to survive a gauntlet to save the child. Oh, and hot caols mark the path of the gauntlet. Chi walks it without a problem (spread out your feet and step flat-footed, so that no one part is concentrated on coals). Next comes the beating. Chi plays defense and protects the baby. Now, the two opposing coaches argue and the Kill coach stabs the Live coach. Chi gives the baby to Mom, says goodbye, then fights the primitive savages. Chi wins, saves the baby and is allowed to free the Si-Fan. they leave, then battle it out, since he still works for Fu. Shang-Chi 2, Amazon 0. Chi will qualify for the World Championships, to be held somewhere near the coast of France, in a few months. Thoughts: Okay story, if rather racist (not just the yellow skin). Jungle tribes do not randomly sacrifice babies because of bad omens. This just feels like filler, between stories, with Chi justifying taking a life, at the end as sparing him torture by Fu Manchu. Maybe. Gulacy's art is really coming along and we are seeing his ability to establish unique faces. Tarr is looking more as we will know him. Gulacy slowly increased his hair and reduced his size, until Tarr was probably 6'2" to 6'4", not over 7 ft tall, as in his debut. Nayland Smith is also taking on more refined features. Chi is slowly morphing into more of a Bruce Lee than generic sort of David Carradine. Gulacy's fight choreography gets some nice display. The pieces are falling into place, slowly. I originally saw Gulacy's MOKF run in oversized B&W reprints (in Marvel UK's Avengers comic, obviously, where else would MOKF feature?) and they looked immensely better than the 4-color version - I never saw the originals until I collected MOKF later, and was hugely disappointed with them - the art isn't a patch when it's compressed down to US comic size, and that skin tone - yuk!
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 22, 2019 15:05:28 GMT -5
George Perez was one of those really lucky guys who was allowed to actually "learn on the job". Yes, his early work was rough, almost fanzine-level. Inkers made a big difference. Al Milgrom tended to be "rough", Bob McLeod was and is to this day "SLICK" and polished beyond belief. I felt his best inker on " SONS OF THE TIGER" was Jack Abel, who is often overlooked. I still remember the story George told of seeing GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #4, where Don Heck's pages were MURDERED by John Tartaglione's inks (and it wasn't top-notch Heck to begin with), and George, full of the arrogance of youth, walked into the editor's office and declared.. " I can do BETTER THAN THAT!" And whatta ya know? They gave him the chance to prove it. And then George-- and every single reader as well, probably-- was horrified when his first issue on that book was murdered by VINCE COLLETTA. (Colletta had been inking a short run of George Tuska on the book, so he was already handy.) But after 2 issues, Sam Grainger stepped in, and was a MASSIVE improvement. Even so... I recall watching George's art grow and evolve over time back then... and it still sticks in my mind, to this day, when I got a particular issue of AVENGERS, and on reading it, yelled out loud to myself-- "HEY! He DIDN'T make any DRAWING MISTAKES this issue!!" Yep. George had finally "arrived". (If memory serves, it was the issue with The Grim Reaper.) I just wish Steve Englehart had been around when it happened. Gerry Conway-- and even Jim Shooter-- really SUCKED on that book, compared to Englehart. A thought just crossed my mind. What Perez managed on AVENGERS... Doug Moench managed to do on MASTER OF KUNG FU. He slowly, painfully, got better-- right before your eyes. Wow.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 22, 2019 18:59:39 GMT -5
Master of Kung Fu #25Shang-Chi vs the San Diego Comic-Con Tarzan Lookalike Contest entrants. Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Paul Gulacy-pencils, Sal Trapani-inks (sigh...), John Costanza-letters, Bill Mantlo-colors, Roy Thomas-edits Synopsis: Our story opens in the Amazon, where Shang-Chi is constipated and Blackjack Tar is giving him potential remedies. Based on dialogue, Nayland Smith is working for Scotland Yard and not MI-6. Um, okay........poaching on other departments' territory. Chi hears something and disappears, only to find a jaguar about to eat a baby....... Chi tells the kitty to go play elsewhere. Kitty doesn't want to play with his toys and plays with Chi, instead, until he grows bored and moves on. Chi picks up the baby, when Mom and Dad come home and wonder where the babysitter is. Chi tries to answer and hand back the baby, when Dad pulls out a knife, as defined by Mick Dundee. Chi picks up the kid and carries him to the village, since he has inherited the babysitting job. At the village he finds a Si-Fan, enjoying a bit of BDSM, with a distinct emphasis on realistic torture. Real mama tries to take the baby and Dad knocks her aside. Si-Fan says the child is cursed and left for predators, as opposed to Predators. Si-Fan says they know think Chi might be sent by gods to save the child, while the Si-Fan confirmed the curse. Chi will have to survive a gauntlet to save the child. Oh, and hot caols mark the path of the gauntlet. Chi walks it without a problem (spread out your feet and step flat-footed, so that no one part is concentrated on coals). Next comes the beating. Chi plays defense and protects the baby. Now, the two opposing coaches argue and the Kill coach stabs the Live coach. Chi gives the baby to Mom, says goodbye, then fights the primitive savages. Chi wins, saves the baby and is allowed to free the Si-Fan. they leave, then battle it out, since he still works for Fu. Shang-Chi 2, Amazon 0. Chi will qualify for the World Championships, to be held somewhere near the coast of France, in a few months. Thoughts: Okay story, if rather racist (not just the yellow skin). Jungle tribes do not randomly sacrifice babies because of bad omens. This just feels like filler, between stories, with Chi justifying taking a life, at the end as sparing him torture by Fu Manchu. Maybe. Gulacy's art is really coming along and we are seeing his ability to establish unique faces. Tarr is looking more as we will know him. Gulacy slowly increased his hair and reduced his size, until Tarr was probably 6'2" to 6'4", not over 7 ft tall, as in his debut. Nayland Smith is also taking on more refined features. Chi is slowly morphing into more of a Bruce Lee than generic sort of David Carradine. Gulacy's fight choreography gets some nice display. The pieces are falling into place, slowly. I originally saw Gulacy's MOKF run in oversized B&W reprints (in Marvel UK's Avengers comic, obviously, where else would MOKF feature?) and they looked immensely better than the 4-color version - I never saw the originals until I collected MOKF later, and was hugely disappointed with them - the art isn't a patch when it's compressed down to US comic size, and that skin tone - yuk! Certainly Gulacy excelled in black & white. Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs had an excerpt from the fight with Shen Kui, from upcoming issues, with Chi swinging the nunchucks. It looked great, in balck & white. It looked great in color, except for that orange color they gave Shang Chi and Leiko (actually, leiko was usually a bit more caucasian, in the coloring). During the upcoming issues, the debate over the coloring raged and one reader. William F Wu really blasted them for it and the defenses they gave were pretty weak. I mean, even Flash Gordon abandoned the yellow skin thing within the first few years., and that was back in the 30s. The fact that Marvel thought it was okay in the 70s suggests something seriously wrong in editorial.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 22, 2019 21:41:54 GMT -5
Giant Size Master of Kung Fu #3Shang-Chi vs either patriot, musketeers, or pirates. Can't quite tell. Creative Team: Doug Moench-writer, Paul Gulacy-pencils, Vince Coletta-inks, Tom Orzechowski-letters, Bill Mantlo-colors, Len Wein-edits Transition has taken place, in the EIC front. Synopsis: Shang-Chi is in New York, looking at a toy store window, when a man comes up to him and shows credentials, stating he is with Her Majesty's Secret Service and that he has been sent by Nayland Smith to fetch Chi. he gets in the vehicles, which is a trap, as the doors lock and gas fills the back (doesn't it always?) Chi smashes through the roof and the man tries to shake him off, causing the car to crash, but Chi miraculously defies the laws of inertia and vaults away safely..... He finds an amulet on the dead man, marking him as Si-Fan, then runs away when the cops show up. he makes it to Nayland Smith's townhouse base, where the butler lets him in to wait for Sir Dennis. It is there he studies the amulet, only to be interrupted by a new figure, an agent of Smith's, named Clive Reston.............. CLIVE RESTON IN THE HIZZOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has barely been introduced before the windows erupt with the arrival of phansigar (a northern India term for Thuggee, based on the use of a scarf or garrotte for strangling victims, before robbing them). Clive proves to be a chip off the old block, as he handles mayhem just like his old man........... (Who is Reston's father? Here's a hint.............) They kick ass, shake martinis, and take names. In the battle, many treasures are destroyed, including a jade elephant, which dumps liquid all over the floor. Clive and Chi fly to London, the meet up with Smith, at the British Museum. It has been smashed up, but nothing taken. Another amulet is found. Smith believes it is the work of Fu Manchu and the Si-Fan,. He and Reston debate Fu's aim.... Reston thinks it is to convenient that they keep finding phansigar amulets and thinks it is a distraction fro Fu's actual target. Smith dismisses him and Tarr shuts him up. Then, they are all attacked bythe paleolithic man exhibits. Chi, Tarr and Reston beat the stuffing out of them. Later, a police constable is guarding a curio shop, when he is attacked by phansigar and garotted. They smash up the place, then Chi turns up, opens up the Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu to the chapter on wholseale whoop-ass, and applies the teachings. he captures a phansigar alive and drags him away for interrogation. He gives up the words Buckingham Palace. meanwhile, Fu gives an assignment to Shadow-Stalker, one of his more colorful assassins.. (in more ways than one) The gang heads for the Palace and their tyre is hit by a blowgun dart. Chi chases after the phansigar, which allows Shadow-Stalker to take out Tarr... Apparently, Shadow-Stalker is the Si-Fan Hwt Champion, judging by his title belt. Reston gets knocked out and Sir Dennis is carried off by the bruiser. Chi returns to find Reston waking up. Tarr is taken away in an ambulance. Reston and Chi go to Buckingham Palace. Inside, two guardsmen spot a phansigar and give chase, but get knocked out. The phansigars attack reston and Chi, and they disrupt the Queen's watching of Coronation Street (or possibly World of Sport, if the Queen mum was choosing things). it turns out the phansigars have a secret passageway that leads under BP, to Fu Manchu's lair! there, Chi finds his father............and DR PETRIE? ? Yup, turns out Fu faked his death with a creation of his own, while he held him the whole time. he is searching for a stolen jade elephant, which nayland Smith took. Chi is forced to play a game of tetherball, against Shadow-Stalker... THE DUDE HAS TWIN MORNINGSTARS, TUCKED IN HIS TOP KNOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, with a chop chop here, a kick kick there, here a chop, there a sock, Old McShang-Chi busts up the joint and S-S. Then Fu hits a button and sicks vipers on him. Then reston shows up and Fu takes a powder. They pull Chi out of the pit and Smith is reunited with the freed Petrie. he tells them that Fu had been down here for weeks, about to take control of England. he also tells him he was looking for the jade elephant, as it contained elixir vitae. The same elephant that was smashed in the fight with the phansigar, dumping the liquid over the floor. The letters pages are filled with praise of GSMOKF #2, including a letter from dean Mullaney, future publisher of Eclipse Comics. Thoughts: Bang up, action-packed issue which really shows the direction in which the series would move. It also features the debut of my favorite supporting character (after Leiko...........RRROWWWRRRRRRRR!!!), Clive Reston. In snippets of dialogue, and a trademark pipe, we learn that Clive is the grand-nephew of Sherlock Holmes and the son of James Bond... The car trap and the secret lair under Buckingham Palace are old trademarks of the Fu Manchu stories and the Christopher Lee films. The phansigar attire is a bit of a puzzler, since it isn't traditional Indian. It seems a weird mash up of Indian, Chinese, and western costuming, for a bunch of guys who stepped out of Jonny Quest. They make for good assassins, though, striking all over the place, causing death and mayhem, wherever they go. Aside from the racist yellow coloring, Shadow-Stalker is one of the coolest henchmen to come along in the series. He's pretty memorable and sets the stage for future bizarros, like Razor Fist and a certain hat wearing servant of a mad killer. We'll get to those guys soon. Fantastic issue, best so far, in my book. Yellow Claw is back, drawn by Jack Kirby!!!! Roz assisted with inks!!!!!!!!!!!! Newspapers are filled with eyewitness accounts from farmlands and small tons: hovering cows, strange animal hybrids, flying canoes. It is the work of Yellow Claw, who has assembled a group of mentalists. next, in the city, buildings go haywire.... Jimmy Woo talks to his chief and says it is the work of mutants and that Suwan aleterd him in a note. He goes off to meet her. Suwan shows him the entrance into Yellow Claw's lair. The mutants mess with his mind, until Suwan awakens them, with a gong, releasing them fom yellow Claw's hypnotic power. The mutants disappear in a flash and YC escapes with Suwan. Jimmy is going to be in dutch with his boss... A second story find Jimmy alerted to sabotage by YC's agents. His boss forces him to use her to get to YC and Woo requests a meeting... Jimmy tracks Suwan to a secret entrance to YC's lair (an elevator which drops from street level to a bunker below). he gets the drop on YC, but gets nabbed by a henchmen, dumped into an oversize hamster ball and tossed in the ocean........ YC escapes. Thoughts: Fun, if light stories from Kirby, though Al fFldstein's more developed plots are missed. These are all fairly common Fu Manchu and pulp mystery tropes.
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