SONS OF THE TIGER PART 16

As presented in POWER MAN AND IRON FIST Nos. 81 & 82.

"THE ROAD TO HALWAN" | "SECRET OF THE BLACK TIGER"
Writer: Mary Jo Duffy | Penciler: Denys Cowan
Inkers: Ricardo Villamonte (issue 81) & Carl Potts (issue 82)
Letterers: Jim Novak (issue 81) & Janice Chiang (issue 82) | Colorist: Christie Scheele
Editor: Denny O'Neil | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: (Issue 81) Power Man and Iron Fist are approached by Abe Brown, who tells them that the nation of Halwan wants to extridite him for crimes he cannot remember. Power Man, Iron Fist, and their business partner, Jeryn Hogarth, head to Halwan, after surviving an attack by a pair of would-be assassins at the airport. Aboard their plane, the heroes are observed by Brillalae. Immediately upon landing in Halwan, Jeryn is arrested. The Heroes for Hire fight their way to safety and then infiltrate the Halwani capital castle to free Jeryn. There, they bump into undercover Russian spies Ninotchka and Boris, and eventually find themselves cornered by the king's guards.

(Issue 82) Iron Fist escapes while Power Man allows himself to be captured. Power Man is brought before Princess Azir, who also has Abe captive. Meanwhile, Iron Fist explores the castle and meets a pair of young people form neighboring Murkatesh, who are trying to get to the king. Power Man and Abe escape from Azir and race outside, where they find the Black Tiger leading a group of men to attack a recently arrived Russian diplomat. Meanwhile, Iron Fist fights Ninotchka inside the castle. Abe's memories of his time as the Black Tiger return, while Power Man and Boris find themselves reluctant allies against the Tiger's men. Iron Fist defeats Ninotchka while Power Man and Boris beat the insurgents. All parties converge on the king's throne room except Abe, who unmasks the new Black Tiger as Brillalae. Inside the palace, Power Man and Iron Fist are stunned to find that Jeryn, the king, the Russians, and an envoy from Murkatesh have negotiated a resolution to the impending war between Halwan and Murkatesh. The Heroes for Hire and their friends then head home.

Continuity Notes: I don't know if issue 81's title was an intentional nod on Mary Jo Duffy's part to the classic Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road To..." buddy movies, but I sure hope so.

These being issues of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, there are a number of footnotes and other references to the title heroes' ongoing adventures:

• In the opening scene, the Heroes for Hire are arguing with Jeryn over his defending corrupt mayoral candidate Randolph Cherryh in DAREDEVIL 178 - 181 (all of which I looked at as part of my DAREDEVIL BY FRANK MILLER project a few years back).
• Jeryn mentions that Iron Fist has saved the life of Halwan's Princess Azir twice. Though I don't know when the second time was, other than in an issue of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, the first was in MARVEL PREMIRE #24, another issue I examined some years ago, as part of my IRON FIST CLASSIC project.
• The Russian agents, Boris and Ninotchka ("Nina"), have apparently crossed paths with Power Man and Iron Fist before, though no specific issues are referenced. But in any case, Boris doesn't like the pair, and attacks them on sight with a scimitar when he bumps into them.

In addition, we of course have several references to the events of the final DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU issues. For one thing, the nation where Abe's flight crashed is revealed here to have been Halwan's neighbor, Murkatesh.

My Thoughts: POWER MAN AND IRON FIST is a series that's been on my "To Read" list for years. At the very least, I've always thought I'd like to check out the Mary Jo Duffy issues, as she had a long run on the series that began nearly immediately after the heroes joined forces in POWER MAN #50. I've never gotten around to it though, and part of the reason has long been that whenever I do peruse an issue or two, it just looks like a third-tier Jim Shooter era Marvel title. In other words, boring.

Now don't get me wrong; I think Duffy is a fine writer, and Denys Cowan would become a spectacular artist. But at this point, in my opinion, Cowan is laboring under Shooter's Laws of How Comics Should Look. Which is, again, incredibly boring. Unless an artist had the skill of a John Byrne or a Walt Simonson or a John Romita Jr., etc., I've long felt that Shooter forced them into drawing in an unexciting "house style". You see it a lot on the lower tier Marvel books of this era, and it only got worse as Shooter's tenure progressed. There are some great, dynamic panels in these two issues, by the way -- they're just surrounded by a sea of bland, medium-range full-body shots of the sort Shooter was said to favor above all else in his comic book storytelling.

But! We're really here to talk about the resolution of the final Sons of the Tiger plot thread, so let's get to it. I have no idea who decided this was something that to be addressed, but I'm glad they did. I imagine that Duffy had some level of knowledge of DEADLY HANDS; otherwise why would she have brought in Bob Diamond as a supporting character in this series? But the fact that, originally, she presented Abe as being back with the Tiger-Sons with no comment on how that had happened suggests that maybe she wasn't aware of how their story ended (or didn't end, as the case may be). So I imagine this 2-parter was done as a response to fan letters asking how Abe had returned from Africa and why his time as the Black Tiger hadn't placed him on a "most wanted terrorists" list.

Unfortunately, the resolution isn't all I'd hoped for. It's barely a resolution at all! Abe comes to Luke and Danny with a problem: he's wanted in Halwan for crimes he doesn't remember committing there. Eventually we find out that his amnesia was the result of a bullet-graze sustained during one of his terror attacks as the Black Tiger. He woke up in a hospital and somehow returned to America. To be clear, he was not suffering from amnesia or any other sort of condition while acting as a terrorist in the guise of the Black Tiger. He actually committed all those attacks and murders, apparently in his right mind. The amnesia merely wiped his memory of all that stuff after it happened.

So -- problem... solved? One of the Sons of the Tiger is a murdering terrorist, The End? He somehow is allowed to go home after this story, which also seems odd, unless Jeryn negotiated his release as part of the ceasefire. Plus, there's the matter of Brillalae flying to Halwan from the U.S. on the same plane as the Heroes for Hire, and then turning up as the Black Tiger in the finale. But why was she in America in the first place? There was no story reason for it, and it actually makes less sense than if she had just turned up in Halwan without that prior appearance. It's like Duffy changed her own mind about how to resolve the story between issues!

I admit, I'm not sure what I was expecting from this story, but I can safely say this isn't it. Maybe I wanted to learn that Abe had been brainwashed when he acted as the Black Tiger? Maybe I wanted to be told that the Black Tiger was never Abe at all somehow? I guess I was expecting something a little Machiavellian on Brillalae's part, as she was presented as a schemer in Bill Mantlo's original stories. But basically what we have here is more a case of "everything was as it appeared," which begs the question of why revisit this plot point in the first place?

But in any case, this is it for the Sons of the Tiger. A series I had wanted to read for decades is finally in my rear-view mirror. I can't say I loved it, but the early stuff, at least, was pretty solid. I learned to like the White Tiger more than I ever had before, but I do still somewhat resent his stealing the Sons' strip from them. It was clear by the end of DHoKF's run that Mantlo was moving toward reuniting the Sons and turning them into a five-person team, but of course that never happened. Still, it was a fun run all the way through, and I'm glad to have finally read it.

One week from today, it's an announcement of my next ongoing project here (which, for those who were paying attention, I actually already spoiled in a comment under one of the DEADLY HANDS posts a month or so back), so stand by!