SONS OF THE TIGER PART 3

As presented in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Nos. 6 - 8.

"THE WAY OF THE JACKAL!"
Story: Jim Dennis | Art: George Pérez & Frank Springer

"TIGERS IN A MIND-CAGE!"
Writer: Bill Mantlo | Artists: George Pérez & Bob McLeod

"STORM OF VENGEANCE!
Story: Bill Mantlo | Art: George Pérez & Al Milgrom

The Plot: (DEADLY HANDS #6) The Sons of the Tiger enter a New York martial arts tournament in order to draw attention to themselves as bait for the Seven Silent Ones. During the Tournament, Lin Sun humiliates a student of a large man named Paan. Later, Paan lures Bob Diamond into a trap and captures him, then uses Bob to bring Lin and Abe Brown into his clutches. Paan forces Lin to fight several of his students at once, while Bob and Abe watch. But eventually the Sons of the Tiger unite to defeat the villains.

(DEADLY HANDS #7) In their hotel room, the Sons are visited by a man named Harrison Budge, who gases and abducts them. In an undisclosed location, Budge sends the Sons separately into three chambers where they face their inner demons. After overcoming these fears, the Sons reunite to confront Budge. He sets robots against them, but the Sons defeat the mechanoids and capture Budge.

(DEADLY HANDS #8) Back at their hotel once more, the Sons attempt to interrogate Budge -- but their efforts are interrupted by a gang of ninjas. Budge escapes during the fight and the Sons pursue, finding a clue that leads them to Welfare Island beneath the Queensboro Bridge. There, they fight and defeat Budge again, and then are attacked by a massive sumo warrior. The Sons claim victory over this new foe as well, and a mystery woman appears, triggering a bomb that blows up one of the bridge's supports.

Continuity Notes: In issue 6, the Sons are still in New York following the events of "The Master Plan of Fu Manchu" in the DEADLY HANDS Summer Special. In issue 7, Bob suggests that they relocate there so he can break into Broadway, while Abe wants to go home to San Francisco. Bob also remarks that Abe and Lin are "soured on the Maris Inivitational," the tournament they were to have entered in "Master Plan", following the U.N. fiasco that caused them to miss it.

Bob is lured into Paan's trap by a girl named Emmy Jo, with whom he apparently had a dalliance while filming a movie in Jackson, Mississippi. Somehow, Emmy Jo has wound up a captive of Paan in New York since that meeting.

Harrison Budge mentions that he was once friends with Master Kee, but they parted ways when Budge began to follow the Seven Silent Ones. In the same story, Bob flashes back to the Sons' origin in issue 1, including the murder of Master Kee by agents of the Silent Ones, and the Sons' taking the tiger amulets.

The visions the Sons face in Budge's trap are: a ten-foot tall version of himself to challenge Bob (which he recognizes as him going up against the idealized image of himself people see on movie screens), the street gang that terrorized Abe as a child, and Master Kee admonishing Lin for failing him.

During Abe's trial in issue 7, he is stated to be ten years old when the street gang harasses him in flashback, and narration states that fifteen years have passed since then -- so he's twenty-five, and I suppose it stands to reason that Lin and Bob are close to that age as well.

Though unnamed here, the mystery woman who appears at the end of issue 8 will soon be revealed as Lotus Shinchuko, a servant of the Seven Silent Ones who will eventually become the "fourth" Tiger.

Also in issue 8, Matt Murdock puts in a totally random and gratuitous appearance. He shows up outside the Sons' hotel room, having been sent by the D.A. (who I guess he must've worked for at this point in continuity) for reasons unrevealed. The Sons dash past him in pursuit of Budge, and Matt jovially thinks to himself that "...according to Foggy these boys have been involved in the destruction of a warehouse, a jetliner, and most of an airport... but from the impression I got of their hotel room I'd be willing to bet that whatever it is they're up against... they've got what it takes to handle it!"

So... that's it, Matt? Not gonna get into costume and go see what all the commotion is? Not even mildly curious about the three men charging out of a ransacked hotel room, strewn with unconscious ninjas, in obvious pursuit of somebody? Ooookay. (These are the sorts of comic book cameos that drive me nuts. There's literally no reason for Matt to be here except as a little wink to readers who know him -- which is totally fine in theory; it's just an Easter egg. But to present him in direct contact with a situation where in his normal series, he would one hundred percent change into Daredevil and go investigate -- and then not have him do that -- is idiotic. It would've made much more sense for him to have just missed the Sons entirely, to arrive to the empty room, to wonder what had happened, and then to remark that he thinks they can handle themselves.)

My Thoughts: So our first chapter here is something I think I've mentioned liking around here in the past -- a story, within a serial, which has no bearing on the serial's main plot. I am a firm believer in "filler" when done well. See, I have this weird belief that a serial is enhanced by having the occasional "adventure of the week". The idea that characters are only dealing with one thing, one threat, month in and month our (or, in a TV series, week in and week out) feels incredibly unrealistic to me. I like ongoing adventures where the protagonists take occasional breaks from the main plot to deal with random one-off villains. So pitting the Sons against Paan, while paying brief lip service to the ongoing Seven Silent Ones storyline, is exactly the sort of filler I like to see. It keeps the ongoing plot in readers' heads, but otherwise has nothing to do with it.

In other news: after issue 6's single-issue stint by Denny O'Neil (writing under the pseudonym "Jim Dennis" for whatever reason), issue 7 brings Bill Mantlo aboard as the Sons' new regular writer -- and I believe he will remain such for the duration of the serial, which is also the case for George Pérez on art. Meaning, as of the sixth Sons of the Tiger chapter, we finally have the creative team which will carry us through the bulk of their further adventures.

I'm on record around here as not loving Bill Mantlo -- but I have fully admitted that's based mainly on his 1980s SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN run (plus what I've heard of his eighties HULK run). Like a lot of writers in the eighties, I feel that Mantlo tried to get too clever for his own good with his material. Rather than writing simple, fun superhero stories, he aimed to explore the characters' fractured psyches and inject a lot of gritty realism into their worlds -- two things which have rarely, if ever, appealed to me in superhero comics. But fortunately, my experience with the Mantlo of the 1970s is that he tended to shy away from that style, and wrote in more of a staightforward Sten Lee-influenced tone (similarly to many other writers of the decade). So I'm hopeful that going forward, I'll continue to enjoy the Sons' adventures.

(Though Mantlo will eventually disband the Sons and turn their story over to a new headliner, relegating them to the status of supporting characters in what was once their story -- but we'll get to that when it eventually happens.)

With that said, I'll comment on the actual subject matter of Mantlo's stories next week.