SONS OF THE TIGER PART 4

As presented in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Nos. 9 - 11.

"SLAUGHTER IN CENTRAL PARK!"
Writer: Bill Mantlo | Artists: George Pérez & Mike Esposito

"THEY WHO DWELL WITHIN!"
Plot: Bill Mantlo & George Pérez
Writer: Bill Mantlo | Art: George Pérez & Mike Esposito

"GLADIATORS IN THE CRYPT OF TOMORROW
Story: Bill Mantlo | Art: George Pérez & Tony DeZuniga

The Plot: (DEADLY HANDS #9) The Sons of the Tiger escape from the collapsing 59th Street Bridge with the mystery woman who triggered the explosion in tow. Bob Diamond rents space in a brownstone for the group, and they head there to recuperate. Bob and the woman, Lotus, head into Central Park for a walk, and some time later, Bob returns, badly beaten. Abe Brown runs into the park to find Lotus waiting in ambush. She nearly kills him, but Lin Sun comes to his rescue, defeating Lotus and vowing an end to the Sons' feud with the Silent Ones.

(DEADLY HANDS #10) Lin removes the device which the Silent Ones have used to control Lotus. The group returns to their brownstone, where Lotus goes to stay with the landlady while Lin, Bob, and Abe use the tiger amulets to enter another plane of existence. There, they battle aspects of themselves and eventually arrive at the stronghold of the Silent Ones.

(DEADLY HANDS #11) The Silent Ones reveal their plan to inhabit the Sons' bodies and return to Earth with intentions to conquer it. The Sons fight back, and ultimately defeat the Silent Ones, then return to Earth.

Continuity Notes: After a brief appearance on the final page of issue 8's story, issue 9 features the first full appearance of Lotus Shinchuko (here known only by her first name). She says that when she was a baby, she was sold to the Silent Ones (Bill Mantlo has quietly dropped "Seven" from the group's name, and indeed when we meet them in issue 11, there are considerably more than seven of them). She never saw them, but was apparently raised by them until the day they gave her to Harrison Budge as a reward when she was thirteen. She then lived with Budge for years (and yes, her words imply exactly the sort of creepiness you're assuming), until the Silent Ones ordered her to blow up the bridge after the Sons defeated him. On the story's final page, Lin reveals an implant on the back of Lotus's neck, which allows the Silent Ones to control her body and speak through her.

As noted above, the Sons move into a brownstone in issue 9, across the street from Central Park. Bob says that his last movie grossed enough to keep them there for the next five years. The place comes complete with a cat who Lin names Tao, a goofy landlady, Mrs. Dalwoody, and a sub-plot as well. Per the landlady, "there's a queer old coot upstairs who's concerned about the noise!"

Issues 10 and 11 find the Sons exploring new uses for the tiger amulets; specifically, in #10, Lin convinces the other to use them to enter something resembling the astral plane -- but it's a place where the Sons' physical forms go as well. In issue 11, while in this plane, the Sons use the amulets to summon a troupe of undead warriors to fight alongside them against the Silent Ones.

The aspects of themselves that the Sons encouner in the Silent Ones' realm all have elements of the design George Perez would later use for Deathstroke the Terminator (specifically, the combination of chainmail legs and flared buccaneer boots just screams Deathstroke, at least to me).

My Thoughts: In his second Sons of the Tiger story, Bill Mantlo engages in that time-honored tradition of all incoming comic book writers circa the 1970s: gently rejiggering the continuity in such a way as to not overtly blow everything up, but to make the series a better fit for his sensibilities. You used to see this sort of thing a lot back then. A new writer would come onto a series and would respect the ongoing threads left by the previous ceator(s), but would also slowly and subtly remold the series. It's somewhat obvious when you're looking for it, but nowhere near as jarring as what the process has become in more recent decades, where a new writer typically means a clean, hard break from what came before, with entirely new costumes, characters, and status quos from the get-go.

Of course, nowadays writers generally complete their pre-planned run on a series before turning over the reins to someone new, so the transition itself is built on a different premise than it was thirty or forty years ago. Back then, you had writers jumping ship or getting fired mid-run, forcing their replacements to continue their stories and sub-plots whether they wanted to or not. Somewhere around the turn of the century, this became less common, and it seems that nowadays the main reason for a writer's run being cut short is if their series is cancelled. In general, under the old model, a "run" was just a segment in a never-ending, serialized story. Today, a "run" is more like a novel, with a clearly defined ending, before the next writer begins the next "novel" in the series.

As much as a curmudgeon as I am about how things were done in the "old days", I actually find both of these approaches valid. The old way led to some strange storytelling now and then, as writers inherited and were forced to run with plot points or characters they clearly had no interest in, but it also felt more exciting and lively somehow. But the new way definitely makes for more coherent and better plotted stories.

Anyway -- Mantlo does give us an ending of sorts in these three installments. The Silent Ones, who have plagued the Sons of the Tiger in nearly every issue since DEADLY HANDS #1, are revealed and then defeated in the span of two issues. And honestly, I'm a little underwhelemed by all of it. Don't get me wrong; Mantlo's writing is fine, and Pérez does a great job of illustrating the Sons' battle with the Silent Ones -- but I just can't imagine this resolution is what Gerry Conway had in mind when he first name-dropped the villains ten issues ago. I could be wrong, but based on context, I feel that Conway's "Seven Silent Ones" were some sort of evil cabal of mortals with a grudge against Master Kee and a desire to rule the Earth. But Mantlo goes really, really big with them here, presenting them as millenia-old beings who walked Earth before mankind, who had a nuclear war before dinosaurs even roamed the planet, and who faded into the ashes of memory after that conflict.

It's a great idea for a story; it just doesn't fit with the Sons of the Tiger. This was, from the start, a grounded martial arts story. I mean, the whole thing is influenced by the KUNG FU TV series and Bruce Lee's movies! These sorts of supernatural sci-fi elements simply don't fit with the genre, at least in my mind. I don't know why Conway left the series after only a couple of issues, but I find myself wishing he'd stuck around long enough to see the Silent Ones through to a conclusion before Mantlo took over.

But it is what it is, and the Sons' inaugural serial is finaly at an end. Next week, we'll find out what happens next...!