As presented in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Nos. 31 & 32.
"DARK WATERS OF DEATH!" | "THE TIGER-SONS MUST DIE!"
Story: Bill Mantlo | Art: Joe Staton & Sonny Trinidad
Tones: Michele Brand (issue 33)
"DARK WATERS OF DEATH!" | "THE TIGER-SONS MUST DIE!"
Story: Bill Mantlo | Art: Joe Staton & Sonny Trinidad
Tones: Michele Brand (issue 33)
Back on the freighter, White Tiger fights his way to a sinister executive named Wender. Meanwhile, Blackbyrd, Iron Fist, and Shang-Chi approach the ship via helicopter. The two heroes disembark to join Jack of Hearts' battle on deck, but Blackbyrd is shot down. The chopper crashes, sending El Tigre drifting down the river, but Blackbyrd survives. White Tiger fights off Wender's men, while Shang-Chi and Iron Fist help rout Jack of Hearts' opponents. Filippo is injured and makes his way into the ship, where he finds Wender babbling about White Tiger. Further into the ship, Filippo meets up with his brother to find the drug-runners in their board room, all dead of self-inflicted gunshots.
White Tiger confronts Filippo, realizing that his brother is actually the leader of the drug-runners and that he was never a junkie. Filippo pulls a gun on the Tiger, who is joined by Jack, Shang-Chi, and Iron Fist. Filippo reveals his plans to join Fu Manchu's organization, but is shocked when he views a recording from Manchu stating that Filippo's operation is beneath him. Realizing he has no way out, Filippo arms the bomb attached to his chest. White Tiger and the others escape, but the ship blows up with Filippo, his men, and his drugs aboard.
(DEADLY HANDS #33) Bob's agent, Bernie Klieg, believing both Bob and Abe to be dead, hires an assassin named Harmony Killdragon to kill Bob's final living heirs, Lin and Lotus -- which would then result in Bob's fortune going to Bernie. Elswhere, Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, and D'Angelo leave White Tiger and Blackbyrd alone on the waterfront, watching El Tigre burn. In Africa, Abe leads the bedouins in an assault on a British convoy. In Canada, Bob is found in the snow by some mounties. In New York, Killdragon attacks Lin and Lotus, but they fight back. Klieg observes from nearby as movie cameras film the altercation for a biopic Klieg has planned on the Sons of the Tiger. When Killdragon turns on Klieg after an appeal from Lin, Klieg's girlfriend is killed by his bodyguard during the skirmish. White Tiger and Blackbyrd then arrive, followed by Bob. Klieg is arrested, and Lotus invites White Tiger to join the Sons in searching for Abe.
Continuity Notes: There are footnotes galore in issue 32. We're reminded that Filippo is wearing a bomb and that he was supposed to hand off some drugs to the late Mr. Maris (killer of Jack Hart's father) in order to have it removed. This was all revealed last issue. Jack later mentions that Maris died in issue 23. Iron Fist met Blackbyrd in issue 18, while Iron Fist and Shang-Chi are hanging out together following a shared adventure in issue 29. Blackbyrd says that the Sons of the Tiger broke up in #19, and Hector learned that he is the White Tiger in #24. Lastly, White Tiger recalls the death of the girl, Cheeky, in issues 28 and 29. Whew!
Issue 33 opens with Klieg recapping the original Sons' adventures for his girlfriend, Dolly, which results in even more confusion of the timeline. Klieg specifically states that the Sons disbanded "two months ago", and that "two days later", White Tiger appeared. The two day thing is consistent with what Mantlo originally wrote. It's quite clear that White Tiger's early adventures at the trainyard, fighting the Prowler, and battling Jack of Hearts, all took place within just a couple days (or actually nights) of the Sons' breakup. But the problem, as I've mentioned before, is that the Tiger's adventures have all taken place over an incredibly compressed timeline. Reading only Hector Ayala's portion of these stories, it's indisputible that everything that's happened to him since he found the amulets has occurred in no more than about four days. This cannot be argued.
Yet in that time, Bob went up to Canada to shoot a movie, and shortly before finding him in issue 33, the mounties state that he's been missing for a full week. While in Africa in the same issue, Abe recalls that he and the bedouins have staged several attacks since he became their leader, two weeks earlier! NONE OF THIS ADDS UP. And look, I know I probably get carried away fretting over this sort of thing, and that to someone reading all this stuff over the many months it was originally published, it might not even be noticeable. But you see this sort of thing in all sorts of serialized fiction, and it never ceases to annoy me. If you're writing separate, parallel plot threads, why would you not keep a timeline of what everyone is doing relative to one another to avoid stuff like this? It's not that hard (and to me, would actually be fun -- since my days as a tabletop RPG game master, I've loved maintaining minutae like that).
My Thoughts: So this story took an unexpected turn! And I'm not exactly sure it all makes sense. I guess it's possible Mantlo intended Filippo to be behind the drug-running "Corporation" from the start, but if so, he didn't handle the whole thing very well. We learn here that everything Filippo has done in the past few issues, including having Jack Hart's father killed for his secret "zero formula", was all in the interest of making his organization enticing to Fu Manchu. I have no problem with any of that.
My issue is simply with Filippo's motivation in re-entering the lives of his family. He showed up a few issues back, begging Awilda for help because the drug smugglers had strapped a bomb to him, which they would detonate if he didn't complete a delivery. Then White Tiger arrived and helped Filippo to find the smugglers in order to save him. What was the point of this? Filippo didn't know that his brother was the Tiger, and even if he did, he didn't need him for anything. There was no reason whatsoever to barge into the family apartment, pretending to be in danger. It doesn't add up!
Fortunately, the final Sons of the Tiger story makes a bit more sense (aside from the above-mentioned timeline issues) -- and restores the original group to prominence at last, even listing White Tiger as a "guest star" on the first page). It's very clear at this point that Mantlo fully intended the Sons' breakup to be temporary, and that he was working toward reuniting them. Lotus and Bob say as much on the final page. Though I suspect there would've been some conflict with Abe before we could see things return to normal. He clearly has some sort of redemption arc in the offing, as he ruminates on an attack he and his bedouins made on a civilian train, which resulted in many dead innocents.
Really, Abe's whole storyline is hard to swallow. He's angry at Bob so he leaves the Sons for a vacation. Fine. But his plane crashes, he's forced to fight a terrorist for a black costume, and then he accepts the mantle to wear the costume and become a terrorist leader himself with very little internal struggle. Brillalae is still beside him at this point, so perhaps she's been influencing him somehow -- but whatever his reasoning, Mantlo never had the opportunity to explain it. This is the final appearance of the Sons of the Tiger in DEADLY HANDS, with the magazine cancelled as of its next (Sons-free) issue -- and Mantlo parts ways with the group here, just as he's about to reunite them.
I have to say, these final couple stories almost read like Mantlo knew the magazine was about to be cancelled and was working overtime to wrap up all his loose plots, even if he had to fudge things here and there to make it work -- that would certainly explain the weird twist Filippo's story takes. But if that was the case, I guess the clock ran out before he expected. Perhaps he assumed the Sons would appear in issue 33, the final installment, and had actually planned to tie everything up as best he could there -- but for whatever reason, that issue contained no Sons of the Tiger story, and I've never seen anything anywhere about what Mantlo might have had planned if he'd been able to feature them in it.
But we aren't finished yet! Abe's story did eventually get semi-resolved by Jo Duffy in POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, while White Tiger's saga continued, still written by Mantlo, in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN. So be here next week for the first of four posts tying up loose ends before this Sons of the Tiger retrospective reaches its conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThose wacky timelines really did a number on you. Most of the post has “#32” substituted for “#31” and “#33” for “#32”. 8^)
You’re totally right on how frustrating it is, though — not just as a reader trying to keep the plot(s) straight, but as one disappointed in how the professional storytellers aren’t doing their jobs.
Hector’s brother being the crime boss was quite a twist. Abe’s exploits have read like a game of “consequences” or “exquisite corpse” — the work created by a succession of authors who are only allowed to read the last couple of lines (or panels) done by the previous contributor. The biggest surprise for me after the last couple of issues, however, was the White Tiger being labeled a “guest star”.
Ugh, thanks -- I'll go correct all those wrong numbers when I have a moment!
DeleteI re-read my post above, and I wonder if I was perhaps a bit too hard on Mantlo. I really enjoyed these stories -- I just tend to pick at nits that really stick out to me, and the timeline and cloudy motives of Filippo were huge ones.
DeleteI joked about the “guest star” reference being the biggest surprise because the White Tiger had literally just been counted among the Sons in a previous intro box and it’s a total 180. Mantlo very possibly had to wrap things up fast but the timelines are definitely screwy — also, the existence of all the supposed film footage the agent has for that massive recap is hilarious. For me, Abe’s thread has been particularly confusing from the start; like, I still don’t understand whether the suitcase switch was a fantastic coincidence or a set-up to corral him into becoming the Black Tiger from the start despite that not being something it seems possible to have planned for.
I agree with your confusion on Abe's story. At times it seems as if Brillalae is manipulating him somehow, or perhaps drugging him (he spends some time unconscious in her care after the crash) -- and I kind of thought that was where Mantlo might be going with it.
DeleteThe eventual wrap-up in POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, however (admittedly by a different writer and feeling a bit like something she felt she had to do and not necessarily anything she wanted to do), reveals no outside influence. Abe just decided to be a terrorist for a while, then went back to normal. It's... weird.
Regardless of that side of it, though, the suitcase switch made no sense to me. The story never states that Brillalae is smuggling the Black Tiger suit, or that she has any reason to fear being caught with it. Even so, it seems like the switch is staged so Abe can "mule" the costume somewhere, but then that's confused by the fact that the plane only crashes because Mole and his buddies attack Abe while on board to take the suitcase. Yet somehow Brillalae knows where to wait for it!
The more I think back on this, Abe's storyline is really kind of a mess.