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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2011 - 12:27 PM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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#106: "The Assassin Master" After defeating Razor-Fist Two, Shang Chi and Leiko Wu head to the Marquesas Islands to defeat the resurgent Carlton Velcro (he from long-ago issue #29-31). There’s a third Razor Fist assassin, as he and his brother were configured into replicas of the original killer, with each man having the sword arm-- I love how MoKF makes the villains as outlandish as possible while still not being a super-hero book! It’s the best—or worst—of latter-period Connery 007 and 1970s Moore Bond combined with gritty cloak-and-dagger stories which make Master of Kung Fu unique in comics of this period. Carlton Velcro is a different villain this time around. He’s no longer the smooth, confident drug-dealer cum nuclear arms salesman he was during Paul Gulacy’s run as artist, but a damaged—steel plate in skull and button-activated weaponized arm gizmo to boot—and frightened, broken man who surrounds himself on an island with dozens of hired killers. Because of his cowardice, we know Shang will beat him to a pulp with ease…and he does. The mission to Velcro’s island was a way for Shang and Leiko to “be as one” again, given their recent romantic difficulties. Clive Reston and Black Jack are mere afterthoughts in this tale, arriving at the end, with Black Jack getting an amusing one liner about the captured assassins wishing they’d been killed by vigilantes instead if they try anything with him and Reston. Gene Day is in good form. Some of his fight scenes look rushed, but he creates a genuine wonder panel on the third-to-last page, with Chi and Carlton Velcro locked in an insanely brilliant combat grip: Doug Moench boasts some more dialogue that should have sent me scurrying to copy it down for this review, but then he always does that to me in this book. Once again, the philosophical ruminations coupled with the moody, introspective, and gothic art are an ideal pairing. It’s such a shame that the editor-in-chief would later try and rein in Gene Day’s genius panel layouts…
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Posted: |
Feb 25, 2012 - 1:22 PM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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#107: "A Painless Result of Having Lived" Shang Chi, always trying to maintain a peak fighting and spiritual edge ("The art of living life as a work of art"), purposely deprives himself of food by fasting for twelve days during the duration of a cruise vacation. Chi is summoned via telegram in Naples by Sir Denis Nayland Smith, who wants Chi to meet with a defector in Rome, an assassin code-named Dark Angel. There of course must be peril involved, as a former Si-Fan killer of Fu Manchu's, Sata, is assigned to terminate the defector. Moench's description of Chi's changing mental and spiritual state requires a lot of text from Moench the Masterful One, but it's a more philosophy-heavy story than usual. It could easily have been a stand alone "archive" story, but the thread of the upcoming Dark Angel two-parter of #108-109 runs through this issue. I like Chi's conversation with the monster images conjured through the fast, as we get a brief treatise on death reminiscent of Epicurus' "Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not." Chi has a perfunctory battle with Sata, and discovers that the cowering old man was not Dark Angel, but rather the father of the super-hot female Dark Angel, who is the defector assassin in question. All the secret agent stuff is just so appealing; It's a relief that MoKF was largely kept separate from the super-heroes in the Marvel Universe. Gene Day's artwork here is hampered by the inks of Armando Gill, but in the panels where Day renders his trademark stone and castles, it looks to be his work alone, and of course it's gorgeous. As the cover advertises, don't forget that Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends premieres September 12, 1981....oh, Jim Shooter...you're too much.
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Posted: |
Jun 29, 2015 - 8:18 AM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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Warning: MoKF Geek Out aka 'What a Thrill' Dept. I had the chance to meet MoKF stalwart Mike Zeck yesterday at Florida SuperCon. Zeck comes across as a quiet, soft-spoken guy, and, I kid you not when I say that he flashed a smile and his eyes lit up when I asked him to sign my copy of MoKF #82. He said "It's nice to see one of these again." He talked about Gene Day and recalled his MoKF inker fondly, talking about how both he and Day loved martial arts stuff and so they had that in common when they began working together. Zeck even wryly commented that Gene would do any and all work asked of him just so long as he had plenty of cigarettes, coffee, and doughnuts to fuel him, all of which Zeck pointed out, contributed to Day's early death. I also said, without a hint of hyperbole, that he, Zeck, was the "savior" of MoKF, as it had been on perilous artistic ground since Gulacy's departure. Zeck laughed and said, "Yeah, because the guys they had on it couldn't turn the work in on time."
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That is cool you met Mike Zeck. He is an amazing artist. I first saw his work on the Punisher mini-series he did with Steven Grant. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to draw the last issue of that series, but his work on the first four issues is stellar. Anyway, his version of the Punisher is who I always picture when I think about the character. Of course I also remember his work on Secret Wars and all those great G.I. Joe covers. I also need to track down his Captain America work at some point. Is Zeck still drawing comics? The last I had read about him, he was concentrating on commission art. Anyway, here is one of my favorite of his covers: Master of Kung Fu is a big blindspot in my Marvel knowledge. Do you know if any of that work has been reprinted? I recall the rights issue is a bit murky as I don't think Marvel owns the rights to Shang Chi's father. That hasn't kept Shang Chi from showing up in the Marvel Universe from time to time of course.
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Posted: |
Jun 30, 2015 - 8:39 AM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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That is cool you met Mike Zeck. He is an amazing artist. I first saw his work on the Punisher mini-series he did with Steven Grant. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to draw the last issue of that series, but his work on the first four issues is stellar. Anyway, his version of the Punisher is who I always picture when I think about the character. Of course I also remember his work on Secret Wars and all those great G.I. Joe covers. I also need to track down his Captain America work at some point. Is Zeck still drawing comics? The last I had read about him, he was concentrating on commission art. That is a great cover; possibly his most well known. His Punisher work is after I was paying less attention to comics but it's good that he's associated with such a popular character. I myself consider him the definitive Captain America artist--and not just because his run (done with writer J.M. DeMatteis) was during my comics-reading peak. Zeck does the raw, kinetic energy and motion kind of thing so well but the man himself is as soft spoken as they get. His work also conveys total over-the-top insanity brilliantly. Zeck did do a "Walking Dead" variant cover a couple of years ago but I'm not sure what else's Zeck's been up to recently. He had lots of Punisher fans come by, but I was the only one I saw with anything MoKF related; it's quite early in his career. Zeck's lighting up like he did was the highlight of my convention day (the other was talking with Jim Shooter--more on that in the Marvel thread). It was a HUGE thrill getting to chat with him. Master of Kung Fu is a big blindspot in my Marvel knowledge. Do you know if any of that work has been reprinted? I recall the rights issue is a bit murky as I don't think Marvel owns the rights to Shang Chi's father. That hasn't kept Shang Chi from showing up in the Marvel Universe from time to time of course. The Sax Rohmer estate controls the rights on Fu Manchu and a few other supporting characters and I guess their asking price is more than what Marvel is willing to pay; it's all absurd. Fu Manchu himself isn't exactly a hot property right now. Hopefully withing a few years there will be something done to get MoKF reprinted, what with Marvel being so hot these days. Five years ago, I bought a near-complete run at my LCS. The average price per issue was between $2.00-$3.00. Even the Gulacy issues were pretty inexpensive; they're all well-worth seeking out though they've been tougher to find recently. MoKF exists largely apart from the Marvel Universe and the stories are better for it. The more I think about it, it's a miracle of sorts that the book lasted as long as it did, being so different from everything else. It started amid the Bruce Lee craze of '73 and lasted ten years.
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