Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Kung Fu Week! If You Blinked You Missed...Hands of the Dragon

Greetings my Groovy Grasshoppers! In 1974/1975 kung fu was hot, so naturally Atlas/Seaboard publisher Martin Goodman would demand a kung fu superhero, right? Regular Skywald horror-mood writer Ed Fedory and neophite Canadian artist Jim Craig (who would later help Roy Thomas launch What If...? and the 3-D Man) took familiar elements from Marvel's Master of Kung Fu and Iron Fist to create...The Dragon. Yeah, you could tell a lot of thought went into this one. Well, what they lacked in originality and inspiration was propped up with some energy and enthusiasm, so what could have been a monumentally bad comic turned out to be...well, pretty bad, still. Sorry fellas. Still, if everybody was'a kung fu fighting during 1975, it wouldn't be right if we left out...The Hands of the Dragon #1 (March 1975). Even if it is a little bit frightening...
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4 comments:

  1. BooksteveJanuary 19, 2010 at 6:47 AM

    Sure looks like Jim Mooney art doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. joe ackermanJanuary 19, 2010 at 4:45 PM

    Jim Mooney inked it, didn't he?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew WahlJanuary 20, 2010 at 12:09 PM

    Great topic for a week, Groove. I gave this issue a B when I reviewed it awhile back. It could have evolved into something, but instead was just "typical of the type" of kung fu books that were seemingly everywhere during the Bronze Age.

    Booksteve and joe bloke: Though uncredited, both ComicBookDB and Grand Comic Book Database say Jim Mooney actually inked this issue.

    Cheers,
    Andrew
    ComicsBronzeAge.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Groovy AgentJanuary 22, 2010 at 8:55 PM

    You're right, guys! Ol' Groove got in a hurry and left Jim Mooney out of the credits. (Just like Atlas/Seaboard did for some reason. Mine was from being a dingbat--wonder what they're excuse was?)

    ReplyDelete

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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