SONS OF THE TIGER PART 2 - THE MASTER PLAN OF FU MANCHU

As presented in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU SPECIAL No. 1.

"TITLE PAGE" & "EPILOG"
Script: Tony Isabella | Art: John Buscema
Featuring supporting characters created by Sax Rohmer.

"CHAPTER 1: IRON FIST"
Script: Doug Moench | Art: Frank McLaughlin & the Crusty Bunkers

"CHAPTER 2: THE SONS OF THE TIGER!"
Script: Chris Claremont | Art: Herb Trimpe

"CHAPTER 3: THE HANDS OF SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU
Script: Doug Moench | Art: Mike Vosburg & Dan Adkins

For its first "Summer Special", DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU presents a serial starring all of of Marvel's 1970s martial arts characters in a "non" team-up, pitting them against the insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, archenemy and father of Shang-Chi. The story begins with a one-page prologue, a pin-up showing the Sons of the Tiger, Iron Fist, and Shang-Chi, with Fu Manchu's face hovering above them, as narration briefly explains who all our our protagonists are. From there, we move into the serial proper, starting with Iron Fist:

The Plot: Iron Fist is wandering the back alleys of New York when he comes across a Chinese U.N. delegate on the verge of death. Befor the man expires, he tells Iron Fist that his five compatriots were abducted. Iron Fist battles two of the kidnappers, who show up in search of the now-deceased delegate. One of the villains escapes, and Iron Fist pursues him to a warehouse, where he battles the kidnappers' master, a sumo warrior named Tsu-Gamo. Iron Fist defeats Tsu-Gamo and his men, but finds that the delegates have been spirited away.

Subsequently, Abe Brown, Lin Sun, and Bob Diamond arrive in New York for a martial arts tournament, but find themselves attacked at the airport by agents of Lo Chin and the Seven Silent Ones. The Sons defeat the men and escape, and the next morning see a news report about the missing Chinese delegates. When China's deputy foreign minister appears onscreen from the United Nations, Lin's tiger amulet tingles. He leads Bob and Abe to the U.N. to investigate, where they attempt to stop Chinese agents from kidnapping the American delegation. But the Sons fail, and the Americans are taken, leading the president to demand their return, lest China face the consequences. And unknown to all, the "Chinese" are actually agents of Fu Manchu's Si-Fan organization.

Later, having heard about the abduction of both groups of delegates, Shang-Chi visits Fu Manchu's New York headquarters, suspecting his father is behind it. But he spots two limousines leaving the building and opts to follow them instead, to the waterfront. There, the delegates are loaded into a submarine. Shang-Chi stows away and observes as the delegates are transferred to a freighter with Fu Manchu aboard. Shang-Chi boards the freighter and battles Fu Manchu's assassins, keeping the delegates safe but failing to prevent Manchu from escaping. In the end, with the aid of his friends Sir Denis Neyland-Smith and Black Jack Tarr, Shang-Chi returns the delegates to shore.

Finally, Iron Fist reads that the delegates are free in the newspaper, while in their hotel room, the Sons of the Tiger learn about it on TV and wonder who was responsible for the rescue.

Continuity Notes: Iron Fist's chapter is written in the style of his comics from the era, with second-person narration ("You are Daniel Rand, and you walk through a night which breathes darkness and filth where you had hoped to find solace and peace..."), containing lots of references to the names of the (presumably made-up) moves he uses as he fights. There is also mention of his teacher, Lei Kung the Thunderer, of K'un L'un.

By the way, if you're curious what Iron Fist was up to in June of 1974, when this issue is cover-dated, well -- he had just been created! MARVEL PREMIERE #15, his first appearance, was dated May of '74, and MARVEL PREMIERE 16, where he actually arrives in New York, was July of '74. So Danny Rand wandering aimlessly around the back alleys of Manhattan is exactly what he was doing at this point in his existence. Indeed, this story could fit fairly seamlessly in with those early Iron Fist stories, since MP 16 through 19 all took place on the same night as Fist searched the city for his father's killer.

In the Sons of the Tiger chapter (which is of course, of the most interest to us), Lin Sun is mistakenly referred to as Lin Su. Also, reference is made to the Sons' recent encounters with Lo Chin, and their destruction of his stolen sonic weapon.

Lastly, as described above, the tiger amulets (or at least Lin's) reveal a new power in this story: akin to Spider-Sense, the amulet "tingles" when Lin Sun sees China's deputy foreign minister, Lee Tsaing-Wa, onscreen. Lin wonders if this means Tsaing-Wa is one of the Seven Silent Ones, but nothing is confirmed here.

Shang-Chi's chapter is written using first-person narration. I stil need to get around to reading the original MASTER OF KUNG FU series, so I don't know if this is how his stories were typically written -- but since Iron Fist's chapter followed the second-person style of his normal adventures, I would guess that Shang-Chi is doing the same.

The Shang-Chi chapter also features appearances, as described above, by Black Jack Tarr and Denis Neyland-Smith, supporting characters from MASTER OF KUNG FU. Neyland-Smith and Fu Manchu, of course, were also characters in Sax Rohmer's original Fu Manchu novels. At the time MASTER OF KUNG FU was created, Marvel licensed the rights to those characters and they appeared regularly throughout the run -- which is, of course, why Marvel could subsequently never reprint MoKF in its entirety for decades, and why whenever Shang-Chi showed up after his original series, his father was always spoken of without being named.

(Personally, I've always found it odd that Marvel made Shang-Chi the son of a character whose rights they didn't own, when they did own Yellow Claw (these days known by the much more palatable name of Golden Claw), who was a straight-up, unabashed and undisguised Fu Manchu ripoff.)

An old blind beggar appears in all three chapters. In the first, he is outside the warehouse when Iron Fist chases the last assassin inside. Later, Iron Fist finds his discarded tin cup in the warehouse, with a note reading "Thank You". In the second chapter, the Sons encounter the blind man outside the U.N. after the kidnapping of the Americans. He wanders off and cryptically tells the Sons to "...live well. While you have the chance." And in the third chapter, he asks Shang-Chi for some money, and then leaves another "thank you" note for Shang to find on the final page, which is signed -- as if you didn't guess -- "Fu Manchu".

My Thoughts: I have a dirty secret: I like Fu Manchu. Admittedly, I've only read the first two of Sax Rohmer's several original novels, but I really enjoyed them. However, more than Fu Manchu himself, I like "Yellow Peril" villains, or perhaps more accurately, I like what they represent: mystery. Exoticism. I've mentioned this before, in relation to Doctor Seven in the SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN strips I looked at last year, in relation to Ra's al Ghul in the 1970s Batman comics I read a couple years ago, and in relation to Ming the Merciless from FLASH GORDON even further back.

I imagine these are probably not things I should be admitting in this day and age, what with everything going on in the world. But the thing is, it's not the "Asian-ness" of Yellow Peril characters that enjoy. It's unfortunate that there was a time when these sorts of characters were seen as inextricably linked to the "Far East". I understand the inherent racism in doing that, but you can have such a character without doing it. Heck, in his way, the X-Men's Mister Sinister is a Yellow Peril type! See, what I like about the trope is the idea of a mysterious mastermind who plots and schemes and pulls strings, and who almost invariably has a hot daugther that falls in love with the story's protagonist. I will happily and eagerly read a "Yellow Peril" story where the villain is a white guy from Boston. I don't care. I just like the idea of what this sort of character represents.

So yes, I like Fu Manchu from an archetypical perspective. That said, I don't love this story. The whole "non-team-up" thing, as mentioned up top, is something fun, and a neat way to have characters "meet" without actually doing so. So the theory behind the story is fine. But in practice, the whole thing feels kind of uninspired. Maybe not exactly phoned in, but close. Like the staff of DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU felt they needed to do a story like this for their summer special but couldn't really come up with a good idea for it, so they just threw out something half-baked.

So it's a bit of a misfire, but it's fun in concept, at least. Next week, we return to the Sons of the Tiger serial proper, in DHoKF issue 6, as a new (short-lived) writer, "Jim Dennis", comes aboard, joined by the new (long-term) penciler -- none other than George Pérez!