Stan Lee Presents: The Amazing Bruce Lee

After Bruce Lee’s death in 1973, the martial arts star and kung fu fighting continued to influence pop culture in America, including the realm of comics. Contributing writer Nigel Clarke looks back at Marvel Comics’ black and white periodical “The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” (1974-77) and talks to some of the creators behind it, including the legendary Stan Lee.

In a sense Bruce Lee did, for an instant, following his untimely and unexpected demise, have his own comic magazine entitled “The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu”, presented by Marvel Comics’ very own Stan Lee.

The comic magazine began circulation in April of 1974 and was published by Marvel’s black and white and more mature imprint, Curtis Magazines.

The publication was a combination of martial arts comic stories, articles on martial arts cinema and martial artists who were active at that time.

I was fortunate enough to acquire this comic magazine collection recently. It has taken me some time to digest the information. The stories, the articles and movie reviews were from an era long gone.

Each comic magazine managed to reference the amazing Bruce Lee in one way or another. The magazine would include reviews of Bruce Lee movies, or have some reference to a dragon one way or the other. One issue actually told Bruce’s life story in comic format. You truly get a sense of the impact of Bruce Lee’s death, when you revisit these comic magazines.

As I went through the pages, I became interested in the magazine’s origins. So I got up with the original wall crawler himself, aka Mr. Marvel, Stan Lee.

I won’t lie to you. I was a bit nervous when I called him. After all, I grew up reading his comics and hearing his voice in cartoons. I don’t get starstruck either. I’ve been in the journalism game for a while. However, there are a few people that I will turn into a “Stan” for, and Mr. Lee is one of them.

I was greeted by Stan Lee, who still has the same enthusiastic voice that I remember from cartoons in the 1980s. For an instant, it was Saturday morning, I was eating cereal in my pajamas, getting ready to watch on of my favorite superheroes get into action.

Stan spoke about the special person that Bruce Lee was.

“What made Bruce Lee special was the fact that he was a human who did extraordinary things! He was believable, he was a superhero, but the attraction was that he was real! You felt like you could be him.”

It made sense, after all, I don’t think there is a person who has watched a Bruce Lee movie and not emulated him or at least felt the urge to act like him, even for the slightest moment. We started talking about movies and how Bruce brought martial arts to cinema, Stan said, “It was only natural. Before Bruce Lee there wasn’t much hand to hand combat, you had guys like John Wayne, and when he fought, he would use a gun or just punch guys in the face… now there is much more of it.”

We started talking comics and specifically, “Deadly Hands.” Stan didn’t remember much on the creation of “Deadly Hands” but he did speak on similarities that Bruce had with many Marvel characters. “Bruce Lee was a man of peace, he was a man of philosophy, he encouraged people to be the best they could be. He wasn’t violent. In fact, that was the similarity between Bruce and many of the characters at Marvel. They weren’t looking for a fight, they did their best not to get into fights.”

The comic magazine was in circulation from 1974 until 1977, with only 33 issues printed. The characters that appeared in the comics were a reflection of Bruce physically or metaphorically.

First and foremost, there was Iron Fist. He was known to most humans as Daniel Rand, who made his first “Deadly Hands” appearance in issue #10.

A young Daniel Rand is on an expedition with his parents in search of the city “K’un-Lun.” His parents are killed by a member of their party. Young Daniel is saved by inhabitants of “K’un-Lun” and taken to the city, where he lives and learns martial arts hoping to avenge his parent’s death.

He trains for ten long years and is given a final test, before he can seek vengeance. He must confront “Shou-Lao,” the serpent lord who happened to be a dragon, living outside the walls of “K’un-Lun.” While grappling with the dragon, Daniel is branded with the dragon’s emblem on his chest. After plunging his hands into the dragon’s heart seven times, his hands glow with the power of the Iron Fist!

I spoke to the co-creator of Iron Fist, Roy Thomas, and asked him about the comics’ origins. “I don’t recall the title, [the movie] had an “Iron Fist” ceremony in it. A day or so later I suggested to Stan Lee that I be allowed to create an Iron Fist character.”

Iron Fist returns to “K’un-Lun,” receives his mystical costume and goes off to seek vengeance for his parents death.

There have been rumors circulating regarding an Iron Fist movie starring Ray Park. However, the current writer and one of Marvel’s publicists who helped with this article are silent on this project.

Then, there were the Tiger characters. Originally created for the “Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” and called “Sons of the Tiger,” they featured three characters, conveniently from three races. The leader, who favored Bruce Lee in appearance, was Lin Sun. A White actor from Hollywood named Robert Diamond and finally a black guy from Harlem named Abe Brown.

The three wore pieces of an amulet that gave them “The Power of the Tiger.” In the comic series, their master, named “Kee” is killed and they spend issues number one through 19 trying to avenge their master’s death. In issue #19, the three abandon their amulets which is then found by a young Hector Ayala, the first Puerto Rican in comic book history, who went on to become “The White Tiger.”

I know what you’re thinking, Marvel creates a Latin superhero and then makes him White. That’s what I assumed at first, but Hector holds his people down. He speaks Spanish frequently during the comic and the creators did a commendable job of respectably presenting Puerto Rican culture in comic format.

Roy Thomas remembers the editorial direction of the “Tiger” series saying, “Different Kung Fu Adventures. I seem to recall having the basic idea for the ‘Sons of the Tiger’ series to mix things up racially.”

The comic magazine’s main character was Shang Chi, also known as “The Master of Kung Fu”. Shang was the son of the evil conspirator, Dr. Fu Manchu. Shang Chi opposed his father’s ambitions of world domination and fought against him. Regarding Shang Chi and similarities to Bruce Lee, Roy Thomas said, “Shang-Chi was often drawn to look a lot like him.”

I also caught up with Marv Wolfman, “Deadly Hands” chief editor and the guy who created “Blade.” He spoke on Shang Chi and the creation of “Deadly Hands.”

“It’s a long, long time ago and I don’t remember how it got started but I was asked to put together the magazine as Editor of the black and white line. I was probably listed as Associate Editor but I actually put the thing together. We had our own martial arts character, Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu, and he was the star. We were going to do martial arts comics in the book, but I remember I came up with the idea of using our text section of the book to be based on real martial arts. The Marvel black and white magazines had a very low budget so we needed as large a text section as possible to keep the costs down (comics were expensive, the prose articles were not), so I came up with the idea of doing a pull out section that was reality based. We had to figure out exact page count here in order to let the reader pull out those sections if that’s all they wanted. I doubt anyone did but it made it a magazine within the magazine and I thought it was a cool idea to promote.”

I asked Mr. Wolfman to share his memories on Bruce Lee and martial arts movie cinema. He recalls, “I think I first saw him (Bruce) on the GREEN HORNET TV show, then I started to see his regular movies as they were brought to the US. Although the GREEN HORNET show was about the main character, you couldn’t keep your eyes off Kato. He was like a caged tiger and you just felt at any moment he was about to spring. I kept wanting them to get rid of the Hornet and just do the show about Kato. I was a huge fan of the KUNG FU TV show and as soon as the movies started coming out I went to see them. The first one I remember going to was THE FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH. I walked out of that movie doing very bad kung fu moves. I was into the Chinese and Hong Kong cinema pretty early on and stayed with it.”

In issue #28, Bruce Lee made an appearance and the entire comic magazine was devoted to him. The comic told the story of his life, his training with Yip Man, success in cinema, and his untimely death.

Two short lived stories that appeared in the comic magazine were “Swordquest” and “The Daughters of the Tiger.” “Swordquest” tried to capitalize on the emerging Japanese martial arts and samurai culture, but didn’t have the appeal of the other stories.

“Daughters of the Dragon” were Collen Wing and Misty Knight, a female tandem who went around kicking ass and showing everyone their curves.

The comic magazine also succeeded because it reviewed martial arts cinema. In many instances, stars would frequent the covers of the comic magazine itself. Aside from Bruce Lee, people like David Carradine (KUNG FU), Roger Moore (James Bond), Chuck Norris, Tom Laughlin (BILLY JACK) and James Kaan (KILLER ELITE) appeared on the covers. It was a great way to fuse the creativity of cinema with comics and martial arts culture on a whole.

There were also the great articles that featured then martial arts celebrities and stars in the martial arts film world. For instance, issue #2 featured an article on Barry Chan, entitled “The Next Bruce Lee.” “The Dragon Has Entered” was an article that told the entire story of the movie ENTER THE DRAGON, and spanned several issues. It included text and pictures from the movie.

Oddly enough, the last issue of “Deadly Hands” featured an article with Bob Wall, who played “Oharra” in ENTER THE DRAGON. For whatever reason, Wall uses the interview to slam Bruce Lee and discredit him.

“He [Bruce] was very popular on the outside level; people who didn’t really know him loved him. People who really did, didn’t.” Wall spends the rest of the article talking about how he didn’t like the fight scenes in ENTER THE DRAGON because his true skills weren’t showcased. He goes hard at the late great one, by even bringing up the subject of Bruce’s whereabouts during his death. I thought that this guy needed a reality check. ENTER THE DRAGON was Bruce’s movie, his time to shine, not a film to showcase the talents of Bob Wall.

Each magazine reviewed current movies in a section entitled “Fighting Arts Review,” and unless the movie was absolutely horrible, the writers wrote a favorable review, helping and promoting the culture. Most of the movies reviewed were mainstream. Very few Shaw Brothers movies were reviewed.

Another great thing about the magazine was the interviews with martial arts personalities and articles on martial arts tournaments. Issue #17 has an excellent article with Aaron Banks and his show, which featured a number of people exhibiting their martial arts talents. There were people breaking ice and wood. There was also a mixed martial arts fight between karate and kung fu. There was even a guy in a wheel chair, who had a black belt.

Issue #19 featured Ling Chi, in an article called “Dragon of The Mind.” Ling, who was from Chicago, was one of those exhibitionist who did anything to prove his supremacy in martial arts. He actually caught bullets with his hand and went to the hospital when doing so.

You get the sense, when reading about some of these people, that in the wake of Lee’s death, the entire martial arts world was vying to fill his shoes.

The ads within the magazine were also entertaining. There were booklets you could buy which turned you into a kung fu or karate master. Issue # 6 first showcased an advertisement by someone who was called himself “The most
Dangerous Man Alive”, named Count Dante. The magazine carried these ads until issue #19, when they did an article on Count Dante and the Black Dragon society. Count Dante is an exceptional character, who is worthy of his own article.

“Deadly Hands” was also a source of information that educated some of your favorite movie writers. For instance, although there is a documentary with the name, there was actually an article in issue #22 entitled “Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance.”

Issue #19 has an article entitled “Karate – History of Open Hand.” In this article it talks about King Satto of Okinawa and how some guy from Okinawa named Miyagi brought karate to America. Sound familiar?

Oddly enough, in issue #23, there is an editorial letter with the title “And then there’s the one about the Karteka who Catches Bullets in His Teeth while Whistling the third movement of the Brandenburg Concerto.” All of this should be very familiar to you.

I learned many things while reviewing these magazines from a long gone martial arts cinema era and talking to the legendary creators. I came to have a greater appreciation for the death of Bruce Lee and how it must have affected the martial arts community. I learned that Roy Thomas doesn’t like to answer his phone. I learned that Marv Wolfman doesn’t like to be called “Mr. Wolf”, even if you mean it like a hip nickname… It’s Mr. Wolfman.

I learned that Stan Lee liked all of Bruce Lee’s movies, but also expressed interest in the television series KUNG FU and he was more interested in the stories then the actual fighting.

And finally, I learned that Stan Lee still has the same amazing wit and personality that attracted us to him in the first place. In closing my conversation with him I said, “Mr. Lee, it was a privilege to talk to you, I really appreciate it.”

He replied the way only Stan Lee could.

“Nigel… I’m sure you did”