In early 1974, when a slot for a new continuing feature opened up in Marvel Premiere (due to the previous tenant Dr. Strange having vacated the premises to return to headlining his own title), it must have seemed a virtual no-brainer to offer it to a character who could help Marvel Comics cash in even further on the burgeoning martial arts craze than they were already doing with the Master of Kung Fu series (which had debuted in September, 1973) and its brand-new black-and-white magazine spinoff The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (which launched in early February, just a couple of weeks prior to the release of today’s featured fifty-year-old comic). But for Marvel to do that, someone was first going to have to invent such a character; and in this instance, that process of invention began with the company’s then-editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas.
As Thomas has related on a number of occasions, the genesis of the martial-arts-oriented superhero we know as Iron Fist began with his viewing of the kung fu movie, Five Fingers of Death. That film (also known as King Boxer) is generally credited with kicking off the martial arts movie trend in the United States; for Thomas, it seems to have made its strongest impression by way of the hero’s “iron fist” ability, which, when he uses it, causes his hands to glow red. It occurred to the editor/writer that “Iron Fist” would be a good name for a Marvel hero; after some musing over whether the name was too close to that of Iron Man to be comfortable, he eventually convinced himself that this wouldn’t be a problem. (As he put it in a text piece that ran in Marvel Premiere #15’s letters column: “… we’ve got both Captain America and Captain Marvel running around; we’ve got a Black Panther and a Black Widow and a Black Bolt and who knows what else; there’s even a Thing and (heaven help us all!) a Man-Thing! So why not an Iron Man and an Iron Fist?”)
After getting publisher Stan Lee’s approval to proceed with the idea, Thomas turned to his friend, the artist Gil Kane, for help in developing it further. Thomas and Kane had collaborated fruitfully a number of times in the past at Marvel, including on the revamp of Captain Marvel in 1969 as well as on the development of the character “Him” into the messianic superhero Adam Warlock in 1971-72; the earliest episodes of the latter feature had in fact appeared in the first two issues of Marvel Premiere itself. Kane was amenable; and before Thomas could relate any of his own early ideas for the new character other than “he’d be a Caucasian who adopted the martial arts” (that’s a quote from Thomas’ 2011 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Iron Fist, Vol. 1) , the artist quickly suggested they incorporate elements from an obscure old superhero feature that had been created in 1939 for the long-gone Centaur Comics by an artist and writer both men admired: Bill Everett.
That feature was “Amazing-Man”, which ran for 22 issues through 1941 (the first seven stories, incidentally, were drawn by Everett concurrent with the earliest tales of his much better known creation, Marvel/Timely’s Sub-Mariner). Its first episode in Amazing-Man #5 (there were no first through fourth issues, if you’re wondering) introduced John Aman, a white guy who, after being orphaned as a child, had been raised by the Council of Seven — residents of a lamasery in “the dismal country of Tibet” — to ultimately become someone who could “dominate the world of men by his strength, knowledge, and courage.” After passing a final series of strenuous tests, the adult Aman was sent into the outside world with abilities that include superhuman strength, speed, and physical resiliency, low-level telepathy, and the knack of disappearing into a cloud of green mist.
In his Marvel Masterworks introduction, Thomas writes: “The Amazing-Man concept had been heavily influenced by James Hilton’s bestselling 1933 novel Lost Horizon, which had introduced the timeless lamasery known as Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas.” That seems likely; in addition to having been successful as a book, Lost Horizon had been made into a popular film in 1937, just a couple of years before Bill Everett created Amazing-Man. (For the record, the book was adapted to film a second time in 1973; while this musical version was a critical and box-office disaster, it nevertheless afforded the “Shangri-La” concept a level of cultural currency it arguably wouldn’t otherwise have had at the time of Iron Fist’s creation and debut.)
We’ll be looking at the various ways Iron Fist’s origin narrative calls back to its various inspirations as we progress through the story. But for now, without further preamble, let’s join Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and inker Dick Giordano for “The Fury of Iron Fist!”…
By Thomas’ own admission, he wasn’t much of a martial arts buff. So I’m thinking it quite likely that he made up the names of our hero’s moves — “elephant kick”, “monkey blow”, and so forth — right on the spot. (I could be wrong, of course.) As for Kane, your humble blogger has no idea as to whether he based his compositions on a study of authentic martial arts stances and blows; but the artist’s signature approach to dynamic physical action — which tended to stress agility and grace over raw power — made him a perfect choice of illustrator to “fake it”, if nothing else.
There are still two fighters left — but Iron Fist takes them down in just as many panels, and the fight is over. (A narrative caption informs us that the whole thing has taken no longer than a minute.)
“…scouring half the Himalayas, in search of your own mad version of Shangri-La…” Well, you can’t say that Thomas is trying to hide his and Kane’s tale’s influences, in any event…
In his Marvel Masterworks intro, Roy Thomas writes that “K’un-Lun came out of a book I owned on Chinese mythology, merged with the Shangri-La concept.” And indeed, the Kunlun Mountan (or Mountains) is an authentic concept of Chinese mythical lore, in which it symbolizes the axis mundi (or “Earth’s center”, per Thomas’ script) and is represented as a paradise. This mythical Kunlun is frequently conflated with the real-world Kunlun Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau — which, unsurprisingly, is offered as the general geographical location of Shangri-La in James Hilton’s novel.
And speaking of Hilton’s novel, one of the key ideas of Lost Horizon is the quest of the protagonist, an Englishman named Conway, to somehow find his way back to his lost paradise after having left it. Anyone familiar with that story, then, whether through the book itself or through one of its adaptations, is likely to pick up on the hints offered here that Wendell Rand — an “enigma” who’d appeared “out of nowhere” years earlier to start up a business “with mysterious funds” is an exile of much the same sort as Conway — albeit one who has rather unwisely brought his wife and child along with him on his obviously dangerous quest.
Presented as a full-page splash panel, Kane and Giordano’s depiction of Wendell Rand’s violent death packs a brutal punch — fifty years after my sixteen-year-old self first glimpsed this image, it remains indelible in my memory.
“…now there is no more Meachum & Rand — only Rand, Inc. –” Um, I think Harold Meachum may have gotten a little mixed up in the excitement of the moment, there…
The two previous pages were composed by Kane as a single double-page spread; indeed, they were drawn on a single piece of art board. As Heritage Auctions’ web page for the original art so aptly puts it: “It was created during the very brief period where a managerial edict from Marvel instructed artists to create two pages sideways on a single Bristol board per issue. (For which, they were only paid the single page rate.) This proved to be understandably unpopular with the artists and was quickly abandoned.”
The author of the HA piece goes on to note that “the lettering for this page was not done on the board (since the size of the letters would have been out of whack with the rest of the issue).” That’s something that it evidently took Marvel several months to figure out, as some of the earliest examples of this practice do in fact have what appears to be “blown-up” lettering.
Even without the lettering in place, however, I think it’s helpful to see the artwork in this format, as it gives one a better idea of how it would have appeared to the artist at the time of its original composition — and, for me at least, suggests how Kane might not have realized just how grisly that splash panel was going to come across when it was printed at full (double) size.
Iron Fist manages to land the first two blows of his match against Shu-Hu, “the lightning-lord” — but he’s stunned when they seem to have no effect at all on the big guy…
Shu-Hu continues to pummel and kick Iron Fist over the next few panels. It’s not looking good for the man in green and yellow…
The wolves pick up speed, even as Heather and Danny remain unaware of their presence…
A “dream place”, that “never really existed“? I kinda hate to come down too hard on Heather Rand, considering the heroic self-sacrifice she’s about to make, but jeez, lady… if you really believed that your husband Wendell was deluded about this whole K’un L’un thing, then hauling your child out into the Himalayan wastes just for the sale of humoring him was really unconscionable. Just sayin’.
Anyway… no sooner has Heather made this confession of un-faith than she sees something that bids fair to change her worldview…
Knowing now that his foe is inhuman, Iron Fist cuts loose, and is able to stagger his foe at last: “Now, You can feel the hard, man-forged metal beneath the hood — feel it start to give and bend and twist…”
“…it begins to smoulder and glow — until it becomes like unto — a thing of iron!” Err, does iron smoulder and glow? I guess that when it’s been heated in a forge, or melted in a foundry, that could be a valid description — although I sincerely doubt that most people, upon seeing someone’s fist glow, would think, 
“gee, that looks just like iron!” But, whatever. The basic idea, if not the wording, for how Marvel’s newest superhero’s power manifests itself is straight out of Five Fingers of Death, where (as we noted earlier) both of the hero Chi-Hao’s hands glow when he uses his iron fist technique. Presumably, either Thomas or Kane — or both — thought that limiting the effect to a single hand was more visually effective.
I have to say, I kind of wish that Gil Kane had put off drawing the required “single-page-printed-as-two” until he reached the climax of the story, as this sequence of Iron Fist powering up and defeating his foe seems a bit rushed, as well as cramped for space. Surely this scene would have made for a more effective use of large panels than the one where Wendell Rand has his brains dashed out? But what’s done is done, and, at any rate, we’ve come to the end of our story…
The issue concludes with a dedication to the late Bill Everett (who’d passed away in February, 1973) — and it’s an especially appropriate place to feature the dedication’s “amazing man” reference, since the story’s final panels echo the moment in Amazing-Man #5 where John Aman hears the verdict from his own set of masked judges, as shown at left.*
Despite the fact that they ran out of room (probably on purpose, but still) before showing us Danny Rand’s fateful choice, or “the other full, unfettered secrets of the uncanny origin of Iron Fist“, neither of the new hero’s co-creators would be back for their storyline’s next installment — at least, not in the same roles. As Thomas’s text piece on MP #15’s letters page explained:
Next issue, because Gil and I have moved on to other projects (not out of boredom, just out of necessity), we’re turning the reins (except for some co-plotting by Ye Editor, natch) over to Len Wein and a talented newcomer, Larry Hama, who’s been into martial arts back when the rest of us thought the term referred to basic training at a U.S. Marine base. Len and Larry will complete the eerie origin of the man called Iron Fist — and carry him into new realms of far-out fantasy and kung fu thrills.
Of course, it wasn’t hard to imagine how Thomas’ workload as Marvel’s editor-in-chief might make it difficult, if not impossible, to pick up an additional scripting gig. And, in fact, helping to get new features up and running, and then stepping away, was what Thomas had been doing on a fairly regular basis for several years now (the aforementioned “Warlock” being only one example of such). But Kane? His next regular series assignment after this would be the upcoming new quarterly, Giant-Size Conan, which he’d draw for four issues beginning in June, 1974. Otherwise, it was mostly one or two-issue stands until he began drawing John Carter Warlord of Mars… in 1977. Those, and, of course, covers. A lot of covers.
Decades later, in an interview published in Comic Book Artist #2 (Summer, 1998), Kane allowed that his relatively short stints on every series he worked on for Marvel in the 1970s might not have been the best long-term career strategy:
I made a bad mistake: I didn’t stick with any one character but was an opportunist, just jumping to the next best opportunity. I missed the chance of being identified with a character, whether Spider-Man, Conan, or any of those features, like I held on to Green Lantern. Every time there was an opportunity, I would jump. The covers paid more than anything else, so I would jump to the covers…
Asked by his CBA interviewer if he hadn’t jumped around “to sustain some interest in the work”, Kane candidly replied:
No, it was just the money, my boy. I was under pressure, divorced, re-married and I needed money.
But, naturally, Kane opting to spend most of his time and energies serving as Marvel’s most prolific cover artist of the early-to-mid-’70s ultimately meant that he’d keep his hand in on Iron Fist — even if only on the covers. It’s been estimated that Kane drew over 800 covers for Marvel during this period; among them were those for ten of the eleven issues of Marvel Premiere that featured Iron Fist, as well as for four of the first five issues of the hero’s own title. Unsurprisingly, this group includes the cover for Marvel Premiere #16 — Iron Fist’s second appearance, and the issue that fills in most of the details of his origin (although the overall revenge-quest story arc which had begun in MP #15 wouldn’t actually conclude until #18).
As noted in Thomas’ issue #15 lettercol note, he co-plotted #16’s “The Heart of the Dragon!”, while the script (and, one presumes, at least some measure of the plot) was by Len Wein. Also as noted by Thomas, the story was the Marvel debut (under his own name, at any rate) of Larry Hama, a 24-year-old artist of Japanese-American heritage who had of late been working at Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s Continuity Associated art studio. There, he’d been one of the various inkers credited collectively as the “Crusty Bunkers”; here, Hama’s own pencils were inked by his old boss, Dick Giordano (whose continued presence helped provide visual consistency with MP #15, as well).
Interestingly, Marvel Premiere #16 doesn’t pick up right where the previous issue left off; instead, Wein and Hama open with a scene of Iron Fist walking the streets of New York City. So we readers will be dependent on flashbacks to let us know what choice our hero made following #15’s final panels, and how that choice has led him to his present circumstances, as well as to fill in the gaps between young Danny Rand’s arrival in K’un-L’un and his “day of destiny”, as chronicled in MP #15.
The issue’s first flashback (presented, as indeed is the rest of the story, using the second-person narrative voice that Thomas had established in the first issue) tells how the orphaned Danny was adopted into the lamasery-like community at K’un-L’un, where he was given over to the martial arts tutelage of Lei Kung, “the Thunderer”. For the next several years, a revenge-minded Danny pursued his training with enthusiasm, and by the time he reached his sixteenth birthday, he’d proven himself a highly exceptional pupil. Still, that wasn’t enough…
Obviously, the “Iron Fist” character concept comes laden with a certain amount of Orientalist baggage from the outset, carried over directly from both Amazing-Man and Lost Horizon. But this panel, which establishes that Danny Rand is “by far the best” of all who’ve ever studied “the Way“, puts him squarely in the role of “Mighty Whitey” — a common figure in 18th and 19th century adventure fiction that the web site tvtropes.org describes as “usually a displaced white European, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative.” After all, it’s one thing (though perhaps still somewhat problematic) to have a white Western hero who travels to the East to be trained in certain skills, then returns to his own cultural milieu to employ them as one set of abilities among several (the Shadow and Batman being a couple of notable examples of this approach). Or even to have a hero excel so at his training that he ultimately becomes the supreme exemplar of his East-learned (but not exactly East-“presenting”) skill set, following his return to the West. (Paging Doctor Strange.) But to not only become the unquestioned GOAT in his clearly Asian-based martial arts discipline, but to also continue to function almost exclusively within that specific context in his subsequent adventures? Yeah, that’s Mighty Whitey of you, Danny Rand.
Granted, back in 1974, comic book creators (and other purveyors of popular fiction) could carry off this sort of thing without raising many (if any) eyebrows. (I know for a fact that my sixteen-year-old self never thought twice about whether it was appropriate for Iron Fist to be a white guy.) But in the 21st century, it’s understandably become an issue in how modern audiences (and creators) deal with Iron Fist as a hero. While I’m not personally ready to completely write off Danny Rand as an irredeemably racist character concept, I do get why a lot of people were eager to have him re-imagined as being Asian-American prior to the casting of the Netflix Iron Fist TV series — and why Marvel Comics’ latest iteration of the hero isn’t Danny at all, but a young Chinese man, Lin Lie.
But, getting back to our present tale… master of the martial arts though he might already have been, the teenage Danny nevertheless returned to his training, focusing now on techniques to make his hands really, really, really tough (by thrusting them repeatedly into buckets of sand, then gravel, then rocks). But even though, after several years of this, his hands had themselves become like rock — “unfeeling, irresistible” — it still wasn’t enough. So he went back to Yu-Ti once more, and this time…
The dragon symbol branded onto Danny Rand’s chest was perhaps the most striking idea Roy Thomas had come up with for Iron Fist early on that didn’t derive from Asian culture in some fashion; rather, it was inspired by a Western hero named Bulls Eye (created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1954 for their short-lived publishing company Mainline Comics), who’d had a target branded onto his chest in a similar fashion (though there was no dragon involved in his case).
Sometime after his defeat of Shou-Lao, Danny — now costumed as Iron Fist — underwent his three challenges before Yu-Ti and the Dragon Kings; after a brief recap of the events we’ve already seen transpire in Marvel Premiere #15, we’re finally shown what happened immediately after that issue’s last panel, as Yu-Ti escorted Iron Fist to the Tree of Immortality…
That last sequence wraps up the issue’s flashbacks. As previously mentioned, the present-day scenes which fill the rest of Marvel Premiere #16’s pages find Danny Rand (in full costume, naturally) in New York, searching for Harold Meachum while being simultaneously stalked (and attacked) by various lowlifes intent on collecting a $10,000 bounty for bringing him in, dead or alive, to… Harold Meachum. By the issue’s end, Iron Fist has learned the location of Meacham’s Manhattan skyscraper and is on his way there to collect his debt of vengeance.
That quest continued into MP #17 before concluding (on a predictably hollow note) in MP #18. But though both Larry Hama and Dick Giordano remained on the art chores for those two issues, Len Wein had departed, leaving Doug Moench to pick up the writing reins. The team of Moench, Hama, and Giordano continued for one more installment — issue #19, which saw the introduction of an important new supporting character, Colleen Wing. Then all three of them were gone, replaced as of #20 by Tony Isabella (writer), Arvell Jones (penciller), and Dan Green (inker). This crew remained in place for one issue, after which… actually, let’s stop here, as we’ve pretty much reached the end of 1974; and, more importantly, I think, have established that the “Iron Fist” feature went through quite a bit of creator turnover in its early days (not that that was at all unusual for new Marvel series in the early-to-mid-1970’s, of course). Arguably, Iron Fist didn’t really find his groove until Marvel Premiere #25 — the last issue to feature the Living Weapon before he graduated into his own title, incidentally — when new artist John Byrne joined continuing writer Chris Claremont for what would be their first (but hardly their last, or best-remembered) collaboration… but that, naturally, is a topic for another post, another day.
I’ve referred a couple of times in this post to the text piece by Roy Thomas, concerning the origins of the Iron Fist feature, that ran on Marvel Premiere #15’s letters page. But that piece wasn’t the only special editorial message to appear on that page… or even the first one. That distinction belonged to the following:
This was the first across-the-board price increase at Marvel since the shenanigans of summer, 1971, which had seen the company increase both the price and the page count of their “standard” comic book from 15 to 25 cents, and from 32 to 48 pages, only to drop the price to 20 cents and the page count back to 32 pages a month or so later.
The publisher’s official explanation for the increase is one of the lengthier ones on record — a reflection, perhaps, of the general economic anxieties prevalent in the American zeitgeist around this time. It’s worth noting that rather than relying on the usual talking points about the steadily rising costs of everything Marvel’s readers (and/or their parents) were spending their money on in addition to comics, this “special announcement” invokes some very specific-to-the-era concerns, such as the paper shortage and the energy crisis. Of course, the problem with linking price hikes to such factors means that when things inevitably change — when the paper supply gets back on track and the energy crisis subsides, at least somewhat — and the prices don’t drop in response, these explanations can’t help but seem a little self-serving. “Let’s lick this thing together, okay?” Yeah, right.
Also of note — although not at all untypical of such pieces — Marvel’s announcement writer (anonymous, but probably Roy Thomas) takes the opportunity to plug some of the company’s more expensive offerings (characterized as “bargains”, naturally), including not only their expanding black-and-white magazine line, but also their brand-new innovations in “Giant-Size” formats. Marvel’s experiments along that latter line are worthy of further discussion — but that’s another topic we’ll have to save for later posts.
*The historical legacy of Amazing-Man extends well beyond Iron Fist — who, for the record, wasn’t even the first post-Golden Age comic-book hero to have an origin based on that of John Aman. That distinction would seem to belong to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt — a Charlton Comics hero created by Pete Morisi in 1966 — who was introduced to readers as an orphaned white American that had been raised by Tibetan lamas to ultimately attain “the highest degree of physical and mental perfection”, then given access to secret knowledge that gave him even greater abilities. Gee, that sounds familiar. (Two decades later, of course, Peter Cannon would provide writer Alan Moore with the template for a new character named Adrian Veidt, thereby indirectly making Watchmen‘s Ozymandias a member of the A-Man extended family as well.)
Amazing-Man also lent his name, if little else, to a DC Comics character who made his debut in All-Star Squadron #23 (Jul., 1983). Wanting to add a Black American superhero to his World War II-era super-team — and having no authentic Golden Age character available to slot into the role — Roy Thomas created this Amazing Man (no hyphen) out of whole cloth. Visually designed by artist Jerry Ordway, Amazing Man had a completely different look, origin, and power set than his Centaur Comics predecessor — but Thomas paid further tribute to his new character’s namesake’s creator by giving the DC hero a civilian identity named “Will Everett”.
Finally, in addition to the later characters he’s inspired to one degree or another, John Aman has had a post-1940s afterlife in his own right. Centaur Comics went out of business in 1942, and like a number of other short-lived comic-book publishers, its properties eventually lapsed into the public domain. This allowed Malibu Comics to revive a bunch of ’em, A-Man included, in a series called The Protectors in 1992; since 
then, Amazing-Man has also turned up in offerings from Dynamite and Gallant… and to bring things full circle (at least as far as this blog is concerned) has even been folded into the mythology of none other than Marvel Comics’ Iron Fist himself. Now going by the moniker “Prince of Orphans”, John Aman made his Marvel Universe debut in The Immortal Iron Fist #8 (Aug., 2007), courtesy of writers Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and artist David Aja. He’s since appeared not only in various “Iron Fist”-related comics (such as Immortal Weapons #5 [Jan., 2010], whose cover by Aja is shown at right), but also in other Marvel features, including one iteration of Secret Avengers.
All in all, I’d call that a pretty good track record for a guy whose last original appearance was over 82 years ago.
Thanks for another great review, Alan, and for the Lost Horizon nugget. I hadn’t read the book or seen the Ronald Colman film at that time, so wouldn’t have picked up on that back then.
Gil Kane wasn’t the best fit for every character for me, but Iron Fist was definitely one of the good ones. Dick Giordano’s inking is very impressive here, and it’s interesting to compare the simpler style he uses here with the busier one he uses on Neal Adams. Something that struck me looking at this art for the first time in an age, if it didn’t know that it was Giordano’s work, I would swear that it was inked by a young Klaus Janson.
“I hadn’t read the book or seen the Ronald Colman film at that time”…but we surely all read “Least Horizon” in MAD’s December ’73 issue…?
Top review, Alan, I only ever bought the next issue…martial arts weren’t of great interest to me, nor was Gil Kane’s artwork (OK, that one turned around eventually), and my budget only stretched so far, so this had to make way for other titles.
PS I’m with T Cactus about the inking – any idea how often Giordano’s inks had appeared in Marvel titles before this?
Not counting his late ’50s-early ’60s work on Marvel’s romance titles 😉 , Giordano had been picking up occasional work at Marvel since 1971. In addition to the stuff published under his own byline, he was also one of the Crusty Bunkers, credited as inkers on a variety of Marvel and DC titles (including “Doctor Strange” in Marvel Premiere). At this time he’d also just begun pencilling as well as inking a serialized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” for the b&w title Dracula Lives, one chapter of which we’ll be looking at next week. 🙂
Also, Giordano usually helped out his wife’s brother, Sal Trapani. on his jobs, almost like Giella often helped out Giacoia.
Janson served as an assistant to Giordano early in his career, so it’s not surprising to see some similarities in their styles (especially when the younger artist was just starting out).
Along with Mighty Whitey (I think the same as Richard Slotkin’s “The Man Who Knows Indians”) IF also fits into a sibling trope, the white Westerner who gets special powers from a non-white culture: the western Ghost Rider, B’Wana Beast, British comics hero Tim Kelly (get ancient Aztec talisman that makes him invulnerable).
The reveal in #16 that the supreme leader of Kun Lun, as Danny’s uncle, is also a white dude, seems even more inappropriate though. They latter retconned that to make Wendell and August Personage adopted brothers.
For all the jokes we fans make about “nobody ever stays dead except Bucky … oops” Iron Fist’s parents did stay dead. That really surprises me as “You’re alive!” is such a standard comics twist and it could easily be done (“Your mother was savaged almost to death but placed in the Lazarus Pit she survived … and transformed.”).
Good post on the creative backstory. This kind of lost mystical citadel is so common I wouldn’t have pegged Lost Horizon particularly if Roy hadn’t been specific. I do like the musical Lost Horizon though I probably shouldn’t.
Was Danny really much of a White Savior trope? He led no one and had no say in policy. He was just muscle. I hate his replacement but not for just replacing him though. Wasn’t the character the star of the Sword Master minis? That was the worst written and drawn of the Korean minis at that time and while I could accept a new character or even most other existing characters, I can’t stop thinking of Lin Lie is a complete idiot and unworthy of being a hero.
“Was Danny really much of a White Savior trope? He led no one and had no say in policy. He was just muscle.”
Steve, that’s why I went with the “Mighty Whitey” formulation of the trope — if you read the tvtropes entry, you’ll see that while that concept *can* include the leader/deliverer aspect, it doesn’t have to.
Totally agree, there was absolutely no need to replace Danny with such a lacklustre character as Lin Lie.
Other than pandering to diversity of course.
When I read this arc in 1974, I assumed the reason Danny Rand had progressed so far was that, unlike the average student (in a mystical city, so kind of an odd population to begin with), he had the experiance of his father’s murder and his mother being devoured by wolves as motivation in his studies.
I assumed Danny Rand cane so far, so fast because he had a score to settle. That is (perhaps) less “Euro-centruc” since it relies on Rand’s personal background, rather than the idea his culture is better, In the John Broome/Gil Kane Green Lantern stories, there is always the idea that Hal Jordan might be the best Green Lantern of them all. The sense I got from that was not because Hal Jordan came from a more advanced culture but that he came from a **LESS** advanced culture and was more willing to ask questions or to not accept authority and make decisions based on his own beliefs Coming from a less technologically advanced world, he was a “square peg” and had a unique (and useful) POV.
I also assumed K’un L’un was “not of this World,” extra-dimensional and Danny Rand’s dad was “not from around here,” I figured K’un L’uniams were like Americans, some might be Phenotypically Europeans, or Africans or Asians but were K’un L’uniams, even though K’un L’un interfaced with our Plane in Asia.
Kane and Giordano were a nice team. Giordano had inked the cover of GL #67 and had edited a Mike Friedrich/Kane/Wally Wood Teen Titans story and (I believe) a couple of Gil Kane Western stories in All-Star Western while Giordano was editing that, The first thing Giordano did for Marvel that I saw was his inks on the Gerry Conway/John Buscema adoption of Fredrick Brown’s Arena in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction # 4,
Kurt Busiak’s hero, Triathlon, alwats gave me an Amazing Man vibe, even though he derived from another Roy Thomas created hero, 3D Man. Comics are a constant attempt to combine originality with nostalgic pleasures. Everything old can be appplied to something new (we hope sells).
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If I’m not mistaken, 3D Man was also derived from Everett’s Amazing Man. Thomas must have liked the character,
John, I think you’re right that the in-story reason that Danny Rand becomes better than everyone else is his motivation to avenge his parents; I don’t believe that either Thomas or Kane ever meant to imply that Danny is so good just because he’s white. Unfortunately, that doesn’t keep the basic setup from echoing the Mighty Whitey trope, even if it was unintentional.
I’m less convinced about K’un-Lun — the native inhabitants may in fact be extradimensional aliens, but everything we learn about their culture in these first episodes presents as Asian.
I especially liked how Giordano handled Gil Kane’s early 1970s trope of shots looking up a character’s nose. Ernie Chan also did a good job of weaning Kane off this habit.
My first exposure to Iron Fist was probably seeing the character on a Marvel value stamp. Though I enjoy Kane, Giordano, and Hama as artists, the character never really did anything for me.
Loved the “Lost Horizon” film of 1937. It’s a shame there are still a few lost scenes, though the entire soundtrack has been found. As for the 1973 film, it had a great cast, with Peter Finch essaying the Robert Conway role previously played by Ronald Colman, and with Burt Bacharach scoring, after his huge string of hits in the 1960s/early ’70s pop music charts, and his successful score for the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” one would expect “Lost Horizon” to have been a smash hit as well—-it was anything but! I always thought Dr. Strange’s origin story owed a bit to “Lost Horizon” as well.
I especially liked Larry Hama’s work on those first two issues of Atlas Comics’ Wulf the Barbarian when they were new.
So far, no one here has made a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘Mazing man.
I wouldn’t agree on Dr. Strange. “Mystic initiation in Tibet” has a history going back well before Lost Horizon.
“I always thought Dr. Strange’s origin story owed a bit to “Lost Horizon” as well.”
Now that you mention it, Stephen Strange does have a passing resemblance to Ronald Colman…
Especially when Gene Colan drew him in the late ’60s.
That “Rand, Inc.” line from Mr. Meachum has haunted me for fifty years — thank you for mentioning it!
“Shangri-La” for me will always be a Kinks song on their 1969 rock opera *Arthur, or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.*
One of the stars of the 1937 “Lost Horizon” is Edward Everett Horton, whose appeared in the Adam West “Batman” series as Chief Screaming Chicken in “An Egg Grows in Gotham” and “The Yegg Foes in Gotham.” He was also in six episodes of “F Troop” as Chief Roaring Chicken.
Colonel Sanders may want to cook his goose, based on the Fools’s parody of the Talking Heads’s “Psycho Killer”:
“Psycho chicken, qu’est-ce que c’est, Oh oh oh oh aye aye aye aye aye…”
The Kinks’ Shangri La is one of my favorite songs. First heard it on the excellent Kinks Kronikles kompilation I got in the early ’80s. A bit later got the album Arthur: Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. Great album, even if it didn’t do well on the charts upon its release. Also love Psycho Chicken — heard that many times 45 or more years ago on the Dr. Demento show
The Who’s 1969 rock opera *Tommy* hit #4 on the *Billboard* charts. The Kinks’s *Arthur* reached #105 that same year, and compared to the poor sales for their previous efforts, that was almost a smash.
Maura Kennedy has covered “Shangri-La,” and the results are on YouTube.
The Kinks wished they could fly like Superman and invoked Captain America in “Catch Me Now I’m Falling.”
If you want something more high-brow, rock critic Ken Emerson once likened Ray Davies to a pop Marxist and said that no one since Balzac has insisted more on the primacy of class.
When I saw the film of LOST HORIZON, it cracked me up seeing Edward Everett Horton in that Oriental-style get-up.
Horton was also a mainstay of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, besides narrating the beloved Fractured Fairy Tales segments of the ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW.
Believe it or not, I saw “Top Hat” yesterday (and then “Jackie Brown”).
The centers of attention may be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but they were lucky to have Edward Everett Horton supporting them, to say nothing of Helen Broderick. (Broderick was the mother of Broderick Crawford, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1949 with his Willie Stark in “All the King’s Men.”)
And Eric Blore does some superb scene-stealing as Bates the Valet, reminding me of how good he was as another valet in “Sullivan’s Travels.”
Thinking of dancers reminds me that Marvel’s Dagger (Tandy Bowen) and Shadowcat (Kate Pryde) have a reputation for terpsichorean activities. Are there any male characters in comics who enjoy similar reputations?
A crazy aside: Laurel and Hardy were originally considered for the roles that went to Edward Everett Horton and Thomas Mitchell in the 1937 “Lost Horizon.” I don’t know whose idea that was, but it would have undermined the film, much as I love the comic duo.
Alan, I didn’t realise that Marvel had led the way in the 1974 price increase in comic books until this and last week’s posts. DC held back until late 1974 (early 1975 cover dates).
Thomas may have also taken some inspiration from the Kung Fu TV series for Iron Fist’s chest brand. In the TV series, the monks get arm brands from lifting a heavy burning cauldron with just their forearms, without using their hands. So maybe there was some Asian culture in this as well (assuming the TV show had drawn from Asian culture, which I can’t say for certain).
Good observation! Thomas has always said he wasn’t particularly a fan of the show, but I’m sure he’d at least seen it once or twice — and the sequence where the hero, Caine, gets his arm-brands was included in the opening titles, IIRC.
Iron Fist was another series I didn’t latch onto until a couple of years later, mainly the last few issues of his self-titled run produced by Claremont & Byrne, although I continued following his adventures in the newly renamed Power Man & Iron Fist. In 1974, however, my lack of keen interest in martial arts-themed comics and my limited budget meant that when making my choices of what to get, Marvel Premiere starring Iron Fist didn’t make the cut.
Anyhow, my later purchases contained just enough information for me to get the gist of his origin, even if I didn’t get all the details. Aside from the trope of obtaining his powers from a remote Asian/alien culture, ala Dr. Strange, among many others, there’s also the Batman revenge trope — “he killed my parents and I must have my revenge.” Ok, technically, Meacham didn’t kill his mother, but still, by killing the elder Rand, he was responsible for putting her in the situation that did result in her death. Also, I really wonder if wolves genuinely exist that high up in the mountains? What the heck would they subsist on? There certainly didn’t appear to be sufficient vegetation to support the sort of herbivores that wolves would ordinarily prey on and it would be too ridiculous to claim they just hang out waiting for the next humans attempting to get to that magical village in the sky. Probably not something that would have come to my mind 50 years ago but certainly does now. Also, I must admit that the bit with the dragon struck me as highly ludicrous. Yeah, yeah, somewhat more entertaining and dramatic than just getting a tattoo but still ludicrous. But, admittedly, not all that more so than an alien travelling many light years from another solar system and arriving on Earth still in infancy but gaining a multitude of powers including the capacity to fly just by jumping up and capable of going into space without need of any protection or even oxygen; or another guy getting various spider powers from the bite of a dying radioactive spider.
So with Iron Fist, Marvel now had two martial arts super-heroes inspired from Western novels based on Asian-themed tropes, but Daniel Rand is differentiated from Shang Chi not only in being a Euro-American but also in having an actual albeit limited super-power while Chi’s powers are entirely natural, based only on years of training (I hated that in the movie, he was given super-powers). I rather liked the Power Man/Iron Fist combo, which was certainly distinct enough from Master of Kung Fu as to not invite comparison. Having captions regularly refer to what particular move Danny was executing as Thomas did in this debut would have gotten very tiresome. “Now he is engaging in the Sloth Ballet to thoroughly confuse and confound his foes prior to executing the sawfish blows to their necks….”
More fun going through the fares of 50 years gone by!
Didn’t give a damn back in the day for martial arts books (and don’t really care for them now, either), but I love me some Gil Kane and man, was this artwork pretty. I’m also surprised at how clean and uncluttered the inking is when all I usually remember of Giordano is that he tries to make everyone’s art look like a slicker, more generic Neal Adams. I also liked what you showed us of Larry Hama’s artwork, Alan. He’s not Kane, but he obviously had an investment in this book and it showed on the page.
I know nothing of Lin Lie or what’s currently going on in the Iron Fist book (didn’t even realize there was still an Iron Fist book, TBH), but I remember the hullaballoo when Marvel/Netflix announced that the Danny Rand of the TV show would be white like he was in the comics. I realize it was the poor writing and shoddy martial arts choreography that really dragged the TV version of Iron Fist down, but would it have killed them to make TV Danny an Asian American? Talk about not reading the room.
Thanks for the rundown, Alan!
I could understand them casting a white dude with spectacular star power or spectacular talent but Finn Jones had neither. Not that either would have saved that dull series.
Fraser, I have always thought 90% of why Finn Jones was cast as Iron Fist had to do with the fact that he’d just come off Game of Thrones and that was the hottest show on TV at the time. “Look guys, Iron Fist used to be on GoT! That’s cool…isn’t it?” Turns out, the answer was “no.”
That’s plausible As I didn’t follow the show, I had no idea about that (my wife, who’s not normally into fantasy, is way more into the series and the books than me).
He was pretty good on GoT. Not so much on Iron Fist. I guess he’s an actor elevated by the material and not the other way around.
Alan, as much as I enjoy revisiting beloved stories from 50 years ago, I think I even more enjoy reading about the books that were under my radar at the time. I had no interest in martial arts, and it was only the Englehart connection that led me to the first issues of MASTER OF KUNG FU. That said, I’m a little surprised at myself for not at least trying this title. The combination of Thomas and Kane would have been catnip, and Giordano’s inks would have been the cherry on top (to mix food metaphors). How did I miss this?
In any event, I thought this was a solid story. The “on-screen” death of Rand, though, sure IS shocking, and I’m a little surprised that the presence of the blood and the splotch that was his head made it through the Comics Code Authority. Yikes.
That said, I probably wouldn’t have hung there on this book with the revolving door of creative teams (especially the writers). I did, after the fact, pick up on the Claremont-Byrne run, though, and even knowing little about the characters still enjoyed that.
By the way, I have read LOST HORIZON, though it was a LONG time ago. (I also read James Hilton’s other “greatest hit,” GOODBYE MR. CHIPS) I remember liking it and being particularly intrigued by the idea that moderation is what contributes to the idyllic setting. I’m pretty sure Shangri-La was also the model for Nanda Parbat over at DC. (I believe “Shangri-La” was FDR’s original name for the Presidential hideaway in Maryland now known as Camp David.) (And yes, “Shangri-La” is a song by the Kinks.)
This really was an interesting period at Marvel, with the introduction of new characters like Iron Fist, Deathlok, and Killraven, the expansion of the horror line, and the black-and-white titles. I always felt that Roy Thomas had the right blend of a laissez-faire attitude toward his writers (“the ideas are weird, but if they sell, fine”) and hands-on editing when needed. I’m sure the folks who worked under him at the time had their own opinions, but from the fan point of view, Marvel really WAS the House of Ideas in the first half of the 1970s.
Yes, Shangri-La was absolutely the inspiration for Nanda Parbat in Strange Adventures (featuring Deadman) in 1967-69. Jack Miller was the original scripter, then Neal Adams took over the writing chores near the end of his run on the title. I was surprised and delighted to see Neal wrap up the storyline in three Aquaman backup stories in 1970, as SA had been cancelled after perhaps Adams’ most classic issue (with smoke rising in a cave, spelling in elongated letters, “Hey, a Jim Steranko effect” and the full page of storytelling panels which, looked at as a single image, form a portrait of Deadman). The story was also left unresolved at that point.
In fairness, I would DC was also quite innovative in the early ’70s, with such titles as Swamp Thing, the Shadow, Tarzan, Korak, all of Kirby’s material (fourth world and otherwise), and short-lived comics like Hot Wheels, Seord of Sorcery, Weird Worlds, Plop!, besides all the great mystery and war titles—-and the mainstay super-hero fare.
It was a creatively fertile time for both companies, and by 1973 (and especially 1974) Warren had gotten his magazines back on their feet.
In fairness, I would *say* DC…
I, too was surprised by how violent this issue was in comparison to other CCA-approved issues at the time. Might it originally have been intended for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu?
Camp David did begin as “Shangri-La,” although its formal name was “Naval Support Facility Thurmont.” (I don’t know much about Franklin Roosevelt’s reading habits, but he was reading Carter Dickson’s *Punch and Judy Murders* at the time of his death.) “David” was for for Dwight Eisenhower’s grandson David, who later married Julie Nixon.
James Hilton had a third, albeit smaller, hit with *Random Harvest,* which also became a movie with Ronald Colman. (Colman was the star of “Lost Horizon,” and in his appearances on radio with Jack Benny, there’s a good gag about it: when he wants to go to the movie with his wife Benita, he insists that “‘Lost Horizon’ must be playing somewhere!”)
To me, though, Hilton will always be the host of a radio version of George Orwell’s *Nineteen Eighty-Four,* in which he says that while you might not want to meet any of the story’s characters, “you do feel as if you’d want to meet Mr. Orwell…if only to have an argument with him!”
Certainly by this era there was a lot more variety in the types of stories Marvel was publishing than had been the case just a few years earlier, and many of the new series were either set either very much outside of the mainstream Marvel universe – i.e., Conan, Deathlok, War of the Worlds – or otherwise only very rarely interacted with the regular M.U., such as Tomb of Dracula and Master of Kung Fu. At the time, I was too keen on the mainstream material, but later came to appreciate the variety (and got much that I had missed when it was new on the racks).
I missed the first issue but picked it up shortly thereafter. It was interesting but I never took the plunge on the character until he teamed up with Luke Cage. I wasn’t expecting much with that but was pleasantly surprised and read that series a long time.
The second person narration bugged me a little bit too. Just never wrapped my head around it.
You see it in many EC comics you find a bit pretentious and you see it used all the time in Atlas Horror and War comics reprints that slavishly chased this noisome trend in stories you now find being reprinted to fill space at Marvel.
You complain and no one listens . . . ., You think that Roy Thomas used it in Iron Man # 50 and he can’t get it oit of his head . . . .
When E.C. and Atlas used second person narration in the 1950s it usually came with almost an almost frantic, accusational tone. Some of Basil Wolverton’s stories for Atlas were free of pretence because they were so over-the-top. The readers were in on the joke. Probably the classiest use of it was in “Master Race,” written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Bernard Krigstein for E.C.’a Impact #1.
That was one of the best things in the history of the Medium.
It’s worth noting that the big news in February 1974 which you discussed at the end of this review was indeed the price increase for Marvel books from 20 cents to 25 cents. This may seem like nothing today when current comics cost 4 or 5 dollars or much more, but 50 years ago this was a big deal. I still remember how surprised I was when I went to the newsstand in June 1971 and Flash 208 (with a cool Neal Adams cover) was 25 cents..at least it had more pages! But when I went to the newsstand in February 1974 to pick up DD 109 and Tomb of Dracula 20 I was very surprised to see that these books were now 25 cents. And here was the rub…when the Marvel books went to 20 cents in 1971, at least we still got at least 20 pages of story, if not more. However by 1973 that was starting to change to about 19 pages, and if memory serves by 1974 it would be 18 pages eventually going down to 17 pages. It would be the last time I would be surprised by a price change, but of course there would be many price increases in the 70s and beyond. But for a while we wouldn’t be getting as much for our money, which is probably why Marvel and DC would experiment with different formats and prices.
Regarding Marvel Premiere with Iron Fist, I did buy this issue (who could resist Thomas, Kane and Giordano?). Just wondering..was Gil Kane ever inked by Dick Giordano at DC? I don’t remember that but it’s certainly possible. And yes I do recall seeing Giordano starting to do work at Marvel, such as inking Gene Colan in Dracula Lives 2 (a very nice job) and of course the beginning of the Dracula adaptation in Dracula Lives 5 in January 1974. Of course as others have pointed out there would be more Giordano work to come such as inking Buscema on Conan. With respect to Marvel Premiere this would actually be the last regular issue I would buy. While I liked the story well enough, I never had any great feeling for the whole Kung Fu genre, and never saw the TV show or any of the movies of the genre. I was buying MOKF only because of Starlin and Englehart and while I stuck around that book for about a year longer, I lost interest but did eventually return to MOKF many years later. I do believe I must have seen MP 16 at some point because I recognize the scene with the dragon, but otherwise found it interesting that there were so many creator changes during the MP run of Iron Fist. But the book must have sold since Iron Fist eventually was awarded his own book. While I admit that I missed the Iron Fist book completely when it came out, I became a fan of the Claremont/Byrne X-Men and after that run ended, when I learned that Claremont and Byrne had actually done all of Iron Fist 1-15, I did get the back issues in the early 80s. While I did like them, it never interested me enough to start buying Power Man and Iron Fist. It sounds like in MP 15 what Roy and Stan were trying to do was create a more straight forward “Kung Fu superhero” who would interact more with the Marvel Universe in a way that Shang Chi would not and that does appear to be what happened with Iron Fist. I’m not sure if it was lack of interest or the price increase but I know that I did drop several Marvel books over the next few months (50 years ago), and Marvel Premiere was one of them. Of course there were others that would get cancelled such as Kull and the Sub-Marine by the summer of 1974. I believe that Iron Fist would be the last character to be spun off into his own series from Marvel Premiere (not completely sure that’s correct but may be). From then on MP would feature different characters and once in a rare while they would be featured for more than one issue. I recall that I may have picked up an occasional issue but did not buy MP on a regular basis. Still MP 15 is a well drawn and written book and it’s interesting that while Thomas and Kane are co-creators of Iron Fist, they are probably not as associated with the character as others such as Claremont and Byrne.
Giordano inked Gil Kane on the cover of GL# 67. Despite Giordano editing Kane on the GilKane/Wally wood Teen Titans # 19 and (Ithgink) some work in the 2d Volume of All-Star Western.
Dick Giordano also inked John Buscema on a Frederic Brown adaptation (the basis for Star Trek’s “Arena” episode) for Marvel’s Worlds Unknown #2 in 1973. This was reprinted a year or so later in the black and white magazine Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1.
Sometimes it was quite surprising (to me) to see these artists pop up in comics that were not mainstream super-hero fare. John Buscema had wanted to draw some westerns for Marvel, but Stan Lee told him that the rate of pay would be lower since those comics (like Two Gun Kid and Kid Colt Outlaw) didn’t sell as well. Therefore you pretty much saw JB on super-heroes until Conan came along.
Like many others here I started reading about Iron Fist in his 15 part solo run by Claremont & Byrne; do believe #15 was the first one I read and enjoyed it so much I tracked down the rest.
It was only a few years ago I grabbed a MP#15; honestly the TV show was so dull that it damaged the brand really lowered the price of the book (this also occurred with Morbius & Carnage) aso I took the opportunity to purchase the book whilst it’s value was on the low and I thought it was a great first appearance & very entertaining read, a really strong start to the character…and that splash of his father plummeting was impactful. I haven’t read very much Kane internal art (we all own a tonne of his covers I imagine) other than his ASM, Daredevil, John Carter & MTU runs but thought it was some of his strongest work that I’ve experienced. I’ve only chased down MP#25 with Byrne & Claremont – I’ve read all the comments looking for guidance as to whether to hunt down #16-24!
I have to confess, Spider, that back in the day I dropped “Iron Fist” after MP #21, only picking up a smattering of the later Claremont/Byrne IF issues thereafter. When I re-read those stories a few years ago, as well as everything after them up to the “merge” with Power Man (all as prep for watching the Netflix series, BTW), I thought that the stuff between the last Moench/Hama (#19) and the first Claremont/Byrne (#25) was by and large pretty “meh”.
But maybe you shouldn’t go by my taste — after all, I seen to be the only person out here who actually liked the TV series (both seasons) and thought that Finn Jones was just fine in the role. 😉
I liked the show OK, Alan. But I had next to nothing to compare it to, so when people started to complain about it, it was easier for me to see their point. You’re right, the second season was better than the first.
My 10 year old was watching it and was incredibly bored, to much talking, not enough butt kicking! So I grabbed Iron Fist #15 and gave it to him and in his words ‘there’s more action in the first 3 pages than the first 3 episodes of the show!; so there was a positive – anything that gets a child away from the screen and onto the printed page is great!
Yeah, I can see how at age 10 I, too, might have gotten bored from the lack of action. At age 60-something, though, the intrigues among the Meachams were enough to keep me interested.
Anyway, I’m glad your son enjoyed the comic, Spider!
“…and that splash of his father plummeting was impactful.”
In more ways than one . . . .
This has nothing to do with Iron Fist – I’ve just looked, via Mike’s Amazing World Of Comics, at what else was cover dated May ’74, and….any chance you’ll be doing Deathlok?
Oh, I absolutely will. But Astonishing Tales #25 was cover-dated August, 1974 — so look for that post in May, the 50th anniversary month of its on-sale date. 😉
Marvel Premiere #19, cover dated November, 1974, has interior art credited to penciller Larry Hama and inker Dick Giordano…except Neal Adams sneaked in to draw two pages. Here they are:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhokiQEh8C-2IBmq5lf3Yy4kw6oQLhjxLBV5VieROEKs3BK8z5jJyjlNfPwrpY2btNAVkjamLp8Qh2XK3GSEBjQ1cBrtIZRlNsjx_fHKXKVaE_ZVWzzwYGbLe07_6UuBeTrmC06TczVR6hi4P55W9uL8pG_gMePPB08524VxCk2QpnGZlc4xHH1a24E/s1044/RCO007_w_1462450206.jpeg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iTnPWw62OZ0/TkmTZvDOIvI/AAAAAAAAJsg/dmDDCB6Q1kU/s1600/Marvel-Premiere-19-12.jpg
Chris, those pages do look very Adams-y, but do you have documentation for that attribution that you could share? (GCD lists Hama as the sole penciller for this issue.)
I can spot artists like Adams and Wrightson quite easily, and have found Wrightson inks in odd panels drawn by Kaluta, Bruce Jones, Howard Chaykin, and even Gil Kane (in a Conan #13 backup) long before comics.org confirmed it—-and those confirmations come from people like us.
Someone else here also also recognised Neal’s work in MP #19:
https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2009/03/marvel-premiere-19-iron-fist-neal-adams.html?m=1
To be honest, Chris, I’ve also always been leery of the GCD when it attributes credit based just on the supposed expertise of one fan or another.
I mean, you and Pencil Ink are *probably* right. But you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t accept your opinion as stone cold fact without confirmation from an authoritative source — i.e., someone directly involved in the work (such as the artist themself), or someone closely associated with them.
One of us could ask Larry Hama, I’m sure. He’s quite accessible on social media. I met him a few years ago, and had a pleasant conversation.
I’ll leave that to you, Chris, since you’re the one who brought the matter up in the first place.
I wonder if this was done in around the period where Hama got behind on Wulf the Barbarian #2 and Adams, Wally Wood and others pitched in to get it done? https://www.comics.org/issue/28495/
A friend of mine reached out to Larry on FB and here is his reply:
“Neal penciled the last four panels of page 17. Actually, I did the layouts, and shot the reference photos that Neal drew from. Pat Broderick was the model for Iron Fist.”
So, just for the record, Chris… Adams only pencilled the last tier of panels of the two pages you posted?
Larry Hama was not able to open the link to those pages, but made that statement from memory (pretty impressive for only one 50 year old job among perhaps a thousand he has done). If you are dying to know what he has to say about page 10, ask him. *I* know it’s Adams, but if you have any doubt, he is on Facebook and Instagram. I don’t want to impose on my friend again.
Chris A, I frankly couldn’t care less whether or not Larry Hama drew these two pages. I *do* care about the information shared on my blog being accurate — yes, even in the comments — which is why I asked you for corroboration for your claims.
*You* may consider your opinion to be as authoritative as Mr. Hama’s 50-year-old memory, but *I* am not under any obligation to do so. Nor is anyone else who follows this blog. If you’re not willing to do the legwork to back up your assertions, I suggest that you post them in some other online venue, and not here.
For future reference — any future shares of artwork attributed to a creator other than the one credited in the published source will need to be accompanied either by third-party documentation *or* a statement along the line of “in my opinion”. If not, they’ll simply be deleted without further comment.
Now you are moving into jackass mode, Alan. I will give you no further inside info— and I’ve freely offered plenty on this forum, which others have been grateful for. My last reply was to John Minehan, not to you.
No matter.
Ciao.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.