Manly Wade Wellman's Lee Granger, Jungle King!

I began talking about Manly Wade Wellman yesterday. As noted there, he worked for a while in the comic book industry. Fawcett Comics were his patrons and he did a number of text stories (some about Captain Marvel) plus a number of comic book heroes.

As I've been using this blog to occasionally feature Angola in the Comics, when I first learned Wellman had been born in Angola I wondered if any of his comic books touched upon that background. And as it turns out, he did write a jungle adventure hero character for Fawcett!

The hero in question is Lee Granger, Jungle King who appeared in every issue of Slam-Bang Comics: #1-7 (1940). When the series ended he popped up in Master Comics #7-10 (1940-41), then entered comic book limbo. Slam-Bang Comics was populated entirely by action-adventure heroes and, as comics history has always been biased towards super heroes, none of the characters featured in Slam-Bang Comics went on to fame.

The Grand Comics Database credits Wellman as authoring the first Lee Granger story (Slam-Bang Comics #1) and he said in an interview that it was the first script he ever sold to Fawcett, but none of the stories featured creator credits (or story titles for that matter) and no one is certain whether or not Wellman wrote the other tales. The art is thought to have been done by Jack Binder, but not confirmed. Essentially, these are anonymous comic book stories. The Digital Comic Museum has all of Lee Granger's appearances so I've just read through them all. You may have questions about the material:

Well, how about it? Is Lee Granger, Jungle King set in Angola? Nope. In fact it's set in a very generic kind of fantasy-land-Africa.

That's too bad. But are there interesting flashes of insight about Africa, as you'd expect from someone who was born there? No, no more so than any other jungle adventure hero series. The author might as well have been born in Alaska.

Okay. But it isn't racist, is it? Er, it's about as racist as any other comic book from 1940-41.

You're depressing me. Why even bother looking back at Lee Granger? Oh, there's a good reason: it is the weirdest jungle hero series I've ever read!

WOW! Weirder than Fletcher Hanks' Fantomah? ...I meant, it is the second-weirdest jungle hero series I've ever read!

With that out of the way, let's go!

Above is the masthead for the first story and it shows you how Lee will be depicted for pretty much all of his adventures - bare-chested and clad in blue jodhpurs. We open on "noted scientist-explorer" Lee flying over "Africa's most dangerous jungle" unaware Arabs who are trying to protect their secret slaving operations have planted a time bomb on his plane. The Arab slave trade in Africa was pretty much over by 1940 but boy, it lived on a lot longer in pulps and comic books. Anyway, the bomb explodes and shatters the plane into pieces, yet leaves Lee unscathed. He has no parachute but improvises one using his jacket. That doesn't sound too likely to me, but all of this is waaaay more believable than what's to follow.

Alighting on the ground, he's confronted by a tribe of pygmies. Pushing aside the chief's spear, the spear's tip brushes against the chief's chest and poisons him. Granger works quickly to save the chief by lancing out the poison. "You are no white devil - but a white friend." says the chief. The pygmies invite Lee back to their village but the huts are too small for Lee. Lee builds himself a house from hand-crafted bricks (no idea how long it took him to do this; having built brick buildings in Africa myself, that should be the better part of a week) and the pygmies, impressed by his "wisdom" ask him for lessons. He teaches them how to domesticate zebras (quite a feat! zebras are notoriously difficult to domesticate) and how to forge iron (no idea what their spear-heads were made of previously). Then with "the acid, and these parts made from various metals, we will have electricity." Yes, within no time, Lee Granger has built electrical devices out of nothing. Soon the entire village has been revamped into brick homes and a flag with a large 'G' flies over Lee's home. Credit where due: the pygmies don't speak in any kind of 'Negro' dialogue popular in stories like these, nor are they drawn with the 'big lip' style found in other Fawcett comics such as Captain Marvel. The pygmies are more problematic in that they're physically inferior to Lee - drawn like children. It's a bit patronizing and emasculating. But let's keep going...

One day a lion attacks a pygmy. Lee saves the pygmy and ties up the lion. Bringing him to his laboratory, Lee hooks up the lion to a machine and runs electrical currents through its body. "This lion will be almost human." Lee claims. How on Earth can he know that? What is this machine? How could he possibly have built from scratch something sophisticated enough to increase an animal's intelligence to human levels? Darned if I know; but it works: the lion can speak! The now-intelligent lion takes the name Eric; he will be Lee's supporting cast going forward.

Anyway, the Arab slavers from the beginning of the tale return, but Lee, Eric and the pygmies vanquish them. The pygmy chief offers to guide Lee out of the jungle but Lee intends to remain. "Then we shall make you our king!" says the chief. Hence the series' subtitle: 'Jungle King.' And so ends the first story.

I won't go into as much detail about the other stories, especially as I have no idea whether Wellman authored them. In Slam-Bang Comics #2, the daughter of a consul general in 'Sudana' (Sudan?) is held prisoner by the bandit Boko tribe. Lee and Eric save her and the pygmies declare "We shall make her our queen!" but instead Lee returns her to her home. This establishes a pattern for future stories as Lee is constantly meeting attractive white women in the jungle, then parting ways without so much as a chaste kiss.

But now we're at Slam-Bang Comics #3 my friends and this - this is where it gets truly wild. This is the only time Lee Granger rated the front cover for one of his appearances and it might be the best of all Lee Granger stories; not saying much, right? The villains, who you can make out on the cover, are called the Djinn (after Jinn) and these bat-like humanoids threaten this month's lady-in-distress Ameera, a lost Arab girl (the demonizing of Arab men while lusting for Arab women is a well-worn trope of Orientalism). Ameera's father and tribe were all wiped out by the Djinn, so Lee prepares his pygmies for combat, arming them with anti-air weapons (spear-launchers) and a one-man aircraft (called a "flying suit") which allows Lee to battle the Djinn mid-air with his sword and shield. At this point, Lee building a flying suit from scratch should be small potatoes next to giving Eric human-level intelligence, right? But he's about to top it.

The Djinn overwhelm Lee and carry him away as a prisoner. Ameera plans to save him with another flying suit which she somehow knows about. But Ameera doesn't intend to wear this flying suit herself - she equips Eric with it. Yeah, the talking lion is now a talking, flying lion!!! The Djinn's king offers to let Granger live if he gives them his scientific secrets. Granger refuses, of course, and Ameera & Eric fly in to save Lee at the last moment. Ameera hands Lee a pistol and he shoots the king dead with one shot. And then, because this is the last page of the story, the Djinn are just... beaten. Without the king I guess the rest of the Djinn just... don't matter?

Onward to Slam-Bang Comics #4. This time we have a small party of white people exploring the jungle when the warlike Kolu tribe attack, kill one of their party and take the remaining two prisoner (need I even mention one of the two is a beautiful white woman?). Lee and Eric head to the rescue because "It's our duty to save them, Eric. They're white people." I guess as a white guy it is kind of his mess to clean up, but the implication is that Lee wouldn't feel duty-bound to involve himself if the prisoners were anything other than white? Anyway, Lee saves the man and woman from the Kolus and helps continue their expedition, battling giant a giant gorilla. Finally they arrive at a series of ruins which they wanted to explore. This leads to a particularly bad piece of comics storytelling which I've presented above. In the first panel, the woman tries to open a door; in the second, the ceiling collapses. Without the text, you can't really tell what's happening. The doorway is just barely in frame in the first panel and the wall is just a featureless void. In the second panel, you'd assume the door and wall had exploded, not that the ceiling had fallen in. Comic books were still a young format in 1940, but comics storytelling itself wasn't; this sort of lousy storytelling is what helped ensure comic books would continue to be considered inferior to comic strips.

Slam-Bang Comics #5 pits Lee against two white hunters who want to capture Eric, as a talking lion is quite a novelty. The most notable information here is that the pygmy chief finally gets a name: Jabor. (hopefully not as a corruption of 'jabber') There's a rare appearance by a female pygmy, but for some reason all the pygmies in this story are coloured pink - but the Kolus reappear and are still brown. In Slam-Bang Comics #6 we return to the kind of high fantasy camp of the Djinn story as Lee and his white-woman-of-the-month battle a woman leading an army of massive ants. In the end, Lee's ally kills the queen of the ants; on the one hand, that's a bad ass moment for a woman in a 1940 comic book; on the other hand, it's mostly done out of expediency to keep Lee from murdering a woman.

Slam-Bang Comics #7's white-woman-of-the-month is a news reporter looking for a story on Lee. I kind of like the above panel because of how nonchalant Eric is. "I was waiting for you." I'd like to imagine Eric's voice has a very flat vocal register.

Anyway, moving to Lee's new home, in Master Comics #7 the villains are the Leopard Men, Africans dressed in animal skins (likely inspired by the Leopard Society). A white woman who commands an army of elephants calls for Lee's help and there are a few notable moments... like Eric 'talking' to an elephant (we only see Eric's side of the conversation) and the above sequence where the artist suddenly attempted to channel one of Jack Kirby's inventive page layouts by depicting a Leopard Man hurled between panel borders by the elephants. At least the art is improving!

Master Comics #8 pits Lee against gold plunderers and Jabor gets a moment of heroism by blowing up the plunderers' camp with dynamite. Master Comics #9 again pits Lee against the Kolus as they build a dam to try and starve the pygmies. Finally, we get to Master Comics #10, wherein the feature is dubbed 'Jungle King,' no longer prefacing Lee's name. Appropriately, this final story looks back to the first one as Lee has rebuilt the engine from his plane. Using a newly-discovered oil well on the pygmies' land (oil and gold? those pygmies should be living large-- er, living comfortably today) Lee builds a new airplane. Never mind that a few months ago we saw Lee had built two flying suits for himself and Eric, building this new airplane is treated as a big deal. "From the air we can patrol the region better," Eric notes, as though they had no means of aerial surveillance. But for this final month we have a new kind of enemy for Lee to face -- very hazily-defined Europeans! Yep, by this period the comics were beginning to stand up to the fascists in Europe but weren't quite ready to call them out by name. The artist on this final story seems to be a completely different person than whoever did the previous 10 stories.

The story in Master Comics #10 ended by asserting Lee and Eric would return in the next issue of Master Comics. They didn't. They have never appeared again. And, sure, good riddance to them. These were some lazily-crafted and lazily-drawn stories, no question about it. But man, when this series went wild, as in the Djinn story, it had some promise. If the series had embraced a little more weirdness, who knows - it could have been a diamond in the rough. As it is, it's not as bad as some comic book stories of the time and genre. The talking lion Eric is appealing. That's about all I can say in its favour.

Unearthed: All-Negro Comics #1

As I noted yesterday, it's Black History Month here in Canada and our neighbours to the south, the USA. Having previously looked in on a rather shameful episode of comics' past depictions of African-Americans, whatsay we turn our attention to a rather more laudable effort: 1947's All-Negro Comics #1.

Most of what I know about All-Negro Comics comes via the book's Wikipedia page. There was only one issue published and it was the only series published by the eponymous publisher. The entire creative team were African-American, each of those creators an unknown.

The cover was priced at 15 cents, which was more than the 10 cent standard; this probably didn't help the book's sales at all. The Wikipedia article also speculates that other publishers tried to force All-Negro Comics off the stands in order to clear a path for their own publications (Fawcett published Jackie Robinson in 1949 and Negro Romance & Joe Louis in 1950, while, more significantly, Parents' Magazine Press printed two issues of Negro Heroes in 1947). The comic book business was waking up to the fact that there were a number of African-Americans reading comics but precious few comics marketed to them and fewer African-American talents producing comics (Phantom Lady's Matt Baker being a noteworthy exception).

Like most comics of the time, All-Negro Comics #1 is an anthology book with a number of different features varying in genre type. After an introduction on the inside front cover by journalist/publisher Orrin C. Evans, the first feature begins: Ace Harlem! Ace is a police detective who investigates a murder committed by two zoot-suited killers. The art by John Terrell is crude and in one panel the speech balloons are presented in the wrong order (above). Still, in comparing this to yesterday's Steamboat story, we see African-American depicted with speech patterns bereft of the slang & mispronunciations typical of the time and faces drawn to look natural; it's also interesting that the colourist chose skin tones which are very light brown instead of the dark brown tones found in most US comics of the time. Ace appears again at the end of the issue to promote the (non-existent) 2nd issue.

The Dew Dillies by Cooper seems to be in the vein of Rose O'Neill's Kewpie characters. Bubbles and Bibber are a pair of adorable children, Bubbles being a water-dweller and Bibber possessing wings. At one point Bibber fights off Goolygator, a little boy who seems half-alligator. It's about as saccharine as comics get, making it an odd choice to follow a story about murder.

"Friendly" is a relative term

Lion Man by George J. Evans Jr. is an interesting one. Visually, Lion Man appears like just another jungle hero strip, the sort of thing you'd find in Fiction House's Jungle Comics of the day. But Lion Man is introduced as an African-American scientist who's serving in the Gold Coast on behalf of the United Nations; his hut is full of mechanical equipment such as a massive radio set. In a way, he's like a forebear to the Black Panther. Of course, he also has a kid sidekick named Bubba, who's a Zulu. Zulus being on the southeast coast of Africa, you might wonder why he's in northwestern Africa; the answer is: African-American comics creators are about as lousy as Caucasians when it comes to African geography (speaking as a Caucasian who didn't get African geography at all until I actually went there). Anyway, Lion Man's job is to protect the uranium deposits in the area and in the course of this adventure has to deal with a pair of ne'er-do-wells.

Two humour pages follow. Hep Chicks on Parade by Len is a one-page collection of gag cartoons, typical of the era (notable only for being gags about African-American women). Li'l Eggie by John Terrell is a one-page comedy strip about a hen-pecked husband named Egbert who is, appropriately, drawn to be egg-shaped. It's a typical sparring couple strip.

Finally there's Sugarfoot by Cravat, which follows the kind of minstrel show tropes found in most representations of African-Americans in popular culture of the time. Sugarfoot and his pal Snakeoil are a pair of hobos who spend a night at a farmer's house wherein Sugarfoot romances the farmer's daughter, who is exactly what you'd expect from the trope (it does have a decent running gag in the daughter repeatedly announcing, "I'm Ample"). In his introduction, Orrin C. Evans claimed he hoped to "recapture the almost lost humor of the loveable wandering Negro minstrel of the past." I suppose as a white guy I'm not qualified to call this one unfortunate, given that the creators were black people who had some purpose in perpetuating these old tropes which were normally kicked around by white creators. Anyway, I do give this one credit for the lead characters being apparently aware that they're in a comic book (see above).

All-Negro Comics #1 is ultimately as much a product of its times as yesterday's "World's Mightiest Mistake." The difference is mainly who's responsible for producing the pages. There is definitely more dignity afforded to the cast of characters, even in the Sugarfoot feature.

As noted before, publishers like Fawcett & Parents' Magazine Press began producing comics aimed at an African-American audience in the late 40s, but it turned out to be short-lived experiment as they didn't last through the 50s. African-American characters would finally get their turn as protagonists again in the 1960s and this time weren't going anywhere.

All images via The Digital Comics Museum

Unearthed: The World's Mightiest Mistake

I first became aware of Fawcett's Captain Marvel through issues of All-Star Squadron which I read in the 1980s. Immediately, there was something about him which captivated me in a manner other DC super heroes didn't. I've retained a fascination with the character over the years and I'm certainly privileged to be living in a time where all of the hero's Fawcett adventures are available for free reading at sites such as The Digital Comic Museum.

Captain Marvel's 1940s adventures definitely stand apart from much of what was published in that supposed 'Golden Age' of comics. The truth is that once you get past Kirby, Eisner, Cole and Everett, you have a mighty big load of second-rate talent with awkward storytelling skills. Fawcett, however, tended to employ quality artists such as C. C. Beck and fine writers like Otto Binder. In its time, Captain Marvel's comics were more popular than Superman's, which is one reason why DC attempted to sue Fawcett out of business; when Fawcett finally did give up on Captain Marvel, the book's creators eventually found themselves developing Superman's Silver Age.

But I'm here today to reflect upon the unfortunate side of Fawcett's Captain Marvel. I've previously noted the racism in one of their Captain Marvel Jr. tales and now I feel compelled to talk about Steamboat. It's hard to overlook Steamboat when discussing Captain Marvel's Golden Age - after all, he appears during the epic 'Monster Society of Evil' storyline which is considered to be the greatest Captain Marvel story of them all.

There is no getting around how embarrassing Steamboat is. At the same time, he was typical for his era. The massive lips which took up most of his face, the speech littered with 'jive talk' and mispronounced word with a vaguely southern accent - this is how so many African-Americans appeared in comic books of the 1940s. It may not have been malicious in origin, but it was incredibly ignorant. Further, there were creators in the 40s who were able to develop persons of colour with some dignity. There is no good excuse for Steamboat.

Let's look in particular at the story "The World's Mightiest Mistake" from Captain Marvel Adventures #16 (1942) by artist C. C. Beck (no writer credited). We open on Steamboat working as valet to Billy Batson, Captain Marvel's alter ego. Billy is a child with no apparent legal guardian in the Fawcett stories, but he's still an echelon above Steamboat. The opening narration refers to Steamboat as a "colored boy," the first of many repeats of that phrase. I suppose it is possible Steamboat was underage like Billy, in which case 'boy' would be valid... but that 'boy' never appears without 'colored' preceding it gives away the casual racism in that term.

Billy gives Steamboat a night off so Steamboat calls up his girlfriend Elocutia Jones for a date. This done, Billy secretly changes into Captain Marvel, then reappears to exit Billy's apartment via a window. Steamboat is unaware Billy is Captain Marvel which makes it bizarre for Billy to change identities just outside of Steamboat's field of vision. Shouldn't Steamboat be wondering where Billy has gone?

Anyway, Captain Marvel sets out to stop the Coloni mob from robbing a bank. Steamboat meets up with Elocutia who - in contrast to every African-American male in this story - has the kind of good features you'd expect on a Caucasian character. Hello, double standards! Steamboat and Elocutia journey to see a hypnotist's stage show. The hypnotist uses Steamboat as a subject and offers to hypnotize Steamboat so that he can become anybody he likes. Steamboat most desires to be like Captain Marvel, so the hypnotic spell is cast.

Attempting to speak Captain Marvel's magic word 'Shazam,' (but saying 'Shazowie' instead), Steamboat steps in one of the foootlights (or 'feet lights' as the hypnotist terms them) and causes a short circuit which plunges the theater into darkness (leaving the crowd's eyes, teeth and giant lips visible). When the lights come on, Steamboat has somehow torn apart his clothing into a weak facsimile of Captain Marvel's costume. Credit where it's due, Steamboat's mock costume fits the elements of Captain Marvel's clothes well - his red flannel underwear matching CM's red tights, yellow shoes in place of yellow boots, a torn white shirt hanging like CM's white cape and a yellow tie hanging in place of CM's lightning bolt.

Steamboat exits the theater to confront 'bank robbehs.' Speaking of which, Captain Marvel arrives at the bank but doesn't see the Coloni mob, so he departs. Two panels later the crooks turn up at the bank, taking advantage of our hero's short attention span. But then! Steamboat comes running up to the bank. The crooks don't even try to shoot him, assuming he's the bulletproof hero. Calling himself the Harlem Marvel - er, or "Hahlem Mahvel," Steamboat punches the robbers. They climb to the roof of the bank to escape; Steamboat, still thinking he's Captain Marvel, can't understand why he's unable to fly to the roof but pursues them via the ladder.

The crooks cross to another building using a conveniently-placed board, then kick the board away to stymie Steamboat. Steamboat tries to fly and nearly splatters himself on the ground, only for our impatient hero Captain Marvel to return and catch him. Captain Marvel catches the gang, then tells the police Steamboat deserves all the credit, earning his friend a cash reward.

Thoughts: What are the positives surrounding Steamboat? Well, (in this story at least) he isn't shown to love craps, watermelon, fried chicken and malt liquor, nor is he lazy or afraid of ghosts. What I mean to say is, if you tried to fill out your Racist Bingo Card to this story you wouldn't make bingo.

The bad? Pretty near everything else the paper and ink were made to do in this tale. Note that the story is titled "The World's Mightiest Mistake." To be sure, Steamboat is not Captain Marvel - that is a mistake. But the very idea of an African-American man aspiring to be a hero is played for lowbrow laughs. A Mistake. It's patronizing, in the worst way. At the time of this story's original publication the USA had entered World War II and African-American men were sacrificing their lives for their country; comic books were immensely popular with servicemen but while there were plenty of opportunities for white soldiers to envision themselves as the heroes, black GIs were not nearly as fortunate. How appropriate that this year's Black History Month will feature the debut of the Black Panther, comicdom's first true black super hero.

The Fawcett tales would eventually introduce the talking tiger Mr. Tawky Tawny as Captain Marvel's friend and he basically provided the sort of comic relief Steamboat had meant to supply, but without bringing in minstrel show visuals.

All images via The Digital Comic Museum

Iron Fist, Shangri-La, Amazing-Man, Kung Fu and the Mighty Whitey

With the debut of Netflix's Iron Fist television show nearly upon us, many people in and about the internet have been commenting on matters of race in the Iron Fist saga - that is, that the hero is, in the comics and on the show, a white guy who gained his powers from an Asian culture.

So, let's begin our history lesson - but first, we'll have to step way back and do some pop culture history.

#1: The Fabled Lost City

There is a tradition in fiction of lost civilizations, places which are kept out of reach of modern man. These places may be hidden in a distant jungle, in an underground cavern, atop a high mountain, on the bottom of the ocean or the surface of the moon. Iron Fist's homeland, K'un-Lun, is such a place; it is a city which lies within an alternate dimension and can only be accessed through a portal found in the Himalayan mountains. And so, before we can start talking about K'un-Lun as an appropriation of Asian culture, we have to acknowledge it's actually an appropriation of western culture which could be said to have been appropriated from Asian culture. Er... or something like that.

British author James Hilton wrote Lost Horizon in 1933. It tells of a fantastic city called Shangri-La which is virtually hidden in the Himalayas and unknown to the world at large. Shangri-La is a paradise of knowledge and is used in the novel (and 1937 film adaptation) as an escape from the punishing realities of contemporary times - the idea that even if western civilization perished in World War II, humanity's knowledge would be maintained in the yet-peaceful land of Shangri-La. The only truly fantastical element in the novel is that people in Shangri-La have extraordinarily-long lifespans but outside the city's borders age rapidly. And so, K'un-Lun is likewise a remote Himalayan retreat which, nevertheless, boasts a surprising understanding of the western world - Lost Horizon was an extremely popular book in its day and was remade as a (terrible) film in 1973, a year before Iron Fist's debut. Yet Hilton had himself based Shangri-La upon a pre-existing city in Asian lore: Shambhala, a Tibetan kingdom which was likewise a repository of knowledge ruled by the wise and just. But K'un-Lun owes a debt to more than simply James Hilton and Shambhala.

I suppose we also have to talk about the 1947 musical Brigadoon by the American Alan Jay Lerner. It's the story of a Scottish village which appears for only one day every 100 years. Similarly, K'un-Lun appears on Earth only once every 10 years. It feels as though one of the reasons K'un-Lun had that restriction was because the initial creators (Roy Thomas & Gil Kane) didn't believe Iron Fist would ever be returning there after his origin. Besides Brigadoon, you can see many ideas from Scottish/Irish/English folktales about fairies in the concept of a place which is sometimes there, sometimes not and where time does not necessarily pass at the same rate.

#2: The Hero Who Journeys to the East

The super hero genre owes a tremendous debt to the pulp magazine hero the Shadow, who directly inspired many of the earliest comic book heroes. In the radio version of the Shadow, he bore "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so that they cannot see him," which was a secret he learned "many years ago in the Orient." Well, that set off a mawkish band of imitators. According to the resources of my friend Jess Nevins, some early comic book heroes whose origins consisted of brushing up against the mysticism of "the Orient" (usually Tibet) includes: Thin Man, the Vision, Howard Thurston, the Green Lama, Wonder Man, Thun Dohr, the Human Meteor, Illuso, the Flame, Gun Master and Commando Ranger. But, most significantly, there was Amazing-Man.

Amazing-Man was created by Bill Everett and published by Centaur starting in 1939's Amazing-Man Comics #5. In that comic, we were first introduced to John Aman, an orphan who was selected for his "superb physical structure" and brought to the Council of Seven in Tibet. Said Council was comprised of men in hoods not unlike those of Iron Fist's uncle Yu-Ti (and one of the Council is a heavy, much like Yu-Ti). The Council gifted Aman with "kindness, tolerance and bravery" and set him through a barrage of tests where he had to be strong as an elephant, quick as a cobra, survive being stabbed with throwing knives and prove himself adept at various languages. Following this, one council member injected Aman with a serum which permitted him to become invisible while generating a green mist around his body (hence his other alias, "The Green Mist").

Roy Thomas, being quite the fanboy, deliberately cribbed many details from Amazing-Man's origin for Iron Fist. At the time, the old hero-goes-to-the-mysterious-east origin was mostly neglected, although the 1960s had included a few notable heroes in that mould such as Doctor Strange, Doctor Droom (later Doctor Druid) and Deadman. You might be surprised to hear that Batman was not one of these heroes at the time; it wasn't until a fill-in story written in 1989 by Christopher Priest that Batman's origin was altered to include a trip to Tibet - a detail which would subsequently become quite visible in the 2005 film Batman Begins.

#3: The Martial Arts

Next up, we have to talk about the martial arts film phenomenon. By 1974 it was a big business, coming one year after Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, which became a major point of reference for martial arts films in popular culture. More than that, there was the television program Kung Fu starring the not-at-all-Asian actor David Carradine. Kung Fu brought the martial arts craze into living rooms across the USA, including those of Marvel Comics' creators. Steve Englehart & Jim Starlin lobbied Roy Thomas to obtain the license for Kung Fu but Thomas noted the series was owned by Warner Bros., owners of their rivals DC Comics; instead, in late 1973 they debuted the new Marvel series Master of Kung Fu featuring as protagonist Shang-Chi, whose personality and ethos were roughly based on that of Kung Fu's Kwai Chang Caine.

Gil Kane said that Iron Fist came about after he saw his first kung fu movie. He was instantly jazzed about creating a kung fu comic book series himself and this led to him joining with Roy Thomas. Therefore, we can trace the lineage of Iron Fist thusly: Kung fu movies -> Amazing-Man -> Lost Horizon -> Shambhala.

However, Iron Fist faltered somewhat shortly out of the gate. Kane was interested enough in the martial arts to draw the first issue, then he jumped off. Larry Hama stepped in for four issues as the new artist, while Len Wein and Doug Moench became the writers. Tony Isabella & Arvell Jones covered only three issues, then after two issues by Chris Claremont & Pat Broderick, John Byrne took Broderick's place and the Claremont-Byrne team became the longest-lasting Iron Fist creative by a country mile.

Due to the immense upheaval, Iron Fist didn't quite gel as a series until the Claremont-Byrne days. The initial storyline dealt with Iron Fist's origin, then his quest for vengeance against his father's killer. Isabella & Jones shook up the concept a little by introducing the idea that K'un-Lun could be reached at other intervals through magic, setting the stage for many of Iron Fist's return visits to the extent that K'un-Lun's supposed disconnection from Earth would become largely forgotten.

#4: Iron Fist's Race

"But Mike," you say, "this is all very interesting and well-researched but you're dancing around the real issue: Iron Fist is just another Mighty Whitey." I appreciate the compliment, but I do prefer "Michael." I won't argue the point of Iron Fist being a Mighty Whitey; like many of those to whom the trope applies, he's a white guy who travels to some remote place inhabited by non-whites, then proceeds to be better at whatever it is the locals specialize in than any of them. Sure enough, Daniel Rand is raised in K'un-Lun from approximately ages 9-19 and succeeds at every trial placed before him (just like Amazing-Man), claiming the power of Iron Fist.

Yet if you had asked me about Danny's race 10 years ago, I would have told you he's half-Asian. And 10 years ago I wrote for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, so that would have been a rather authoritative declaration.

Here, let's go back to Danny's origin again; what is often overlooked in the origin story is that Danny's father originated in K'un-Lun. As narration in Marvel Premiere #15 puts it: " Even as a child, you knew your father had always been an enigma to everyone! Appearing out of nowhere, nearly a decade before -- becoming an instant entrepreneur, with mysterious funds" Then in Marvel Premiere #16, K'un-Lun's ruler Yu-Ti, the August Personage of Jade, reveals Danny's father Wendell was his brother - making Yu-Ti Danny's uncle. Therefore, Danny's lineage is half-K'un-Lun! That seems pretty conclusive, huh? Danny's 50% Asian, which mitigates all that 'Mighty Whitey' stuff. Danny's full name would even be given as "Daniel Rand-K'ai" on occcasion (usually in the OHOTMU). It seems as though Iron Fist's creators intended for Danny Rand to be half-Asian!

Of course, Gil Kane didn't drawn Wendell Rand to look Asian. You could chalk that up to an art error if you really wanted to. Later, in Power Man & Iron Fist #75 (1981), Jo Duffy suggested Wendell had been adopted into Yu-Ti's family but it didn't catch on, nor did it make sense based on anything previously established about Yu-Ti. But, unfortunately, Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist undid these little-explored fine details. Immortal Iron Fist kinda makes the 'Mighty Whitey' thing even worse by introducing Orson Randall, the previous Iron Fist, who was also a white guy who wound up in K'un-Lun. For a character who died within six issues he's actually got a backstory which is just as convoluted as Danny's. Brubaker & Fraction did at least introduce the idea of K'un-Lun possessing various sister cities which each had their own champion or "immortal weapon;" most of those immortal weapons were Asian guys (one of them was Amazing-Man, who had fallen into the public domain).

So it was that in Immortal Iron Fist Annual #1 (2007), Brubaker & Fraction established Wendell Rand as an All-American orphan kid who met Orson Randall and through him, eventually went to K'un-Lun and became a citizen. So, there was a perfectly acceptable means to firmly establish Iron Fist as one of Marvel's most prominent Asian heroes, but they went the opposite direction. Thanks for ruining it, white guys.

Angola in the Comics Part 6: Roy Lance

Yesterday I looked at the creative and moral bankrupt ways of DC Comics. What's my transition? Well, Angola went financially bankrupt. Boom. Welcome back to Angola in the Comics!

This time I'm heading back to Fiction House's Jungle Comics and issue #6 (June, 1940). The Grand Comics Database does not know who wrote this story, but they think it might be Nick Cardy.

Our hero is one Roy Lance (who appeared in Jungle Comics from 1940-1942), one of that popular breed of action heroes best described as "the great white hunter." Unlike other brands of jungle heroes, the great white hunter seems to owe more to reality than fiction. Journalist Henry Stanley did his part to popularize his own brand of fiction - depicting himself as an unstoppable explorer, the type art would imitate with pith helmets and jodhpurs. This type of hero flourished in the first half of the 20th century (when jungle heroes were at their peak), with the likes of Allan Quatermain managing some staying power. As independence came to Africa the idea of white men "taming" the wilderness went out of fashion, but the romanticism associated with them endures to this day - witness the recent Cecil the lion story.

Our tale begins with Roy (clad in a smart red shirt and - of course - a pith helmet) aboard a ship bound for "the port of Angola, French Equatorial Africa." Er, what? Being a country, Angola is rather more than a port. At that time it was under the control of the Portuguese, not the French. Right here in panel number one, I'm tempted to give up; the problem with comic books set in Africa - no matter what era they're created in - is that so few comic book people have ever set foot in the continent, thus their ability to render the place believable is limited to the state of their reference files. Right here, it seems like someone totally misunderstood Africa's borders. Angola lay just beneath French Equatorial Africa.

Anyway, Roy is accompanied on this trip by Jill March, a "young woman scientist" whose mission is to combat "the dreaded tsetse fly." However, the governor of Angola, Malraux, orders them to stay out of the interior. Lance quickly decides to ignore him and leads Jill to the interior with a few Africans bearing their supplies. On their second night, a band of "savages" steal some of their supplies, but Lance heroically shoots them in the back. They finally reach a small village on the floor of a valley where they discover a population of white people who have been enslaved in order to manufacture weapons for Malraux.

One of the imprisoned men explains he used to work for Malraux and that the white people are a "lost tribe" and Malraux "took advantage of their ignorance. They were easily enslaved by Malraux's black brutes." Ugh! Once again, simply terrible; much like the popular H. Rider Haggard fiction of the day, this story posits the existence of white civilizations in Africa, a subtle way to validate the white man's supposed ownership of the continent. Further, the native Africans are the "brutes," the ones inflicting slavery upon white people. This is the kind of comic a racist of the time would look at, nod and remark, "sounds legit."

Anyway Malraux hears Lance is in the hidden village and sets out to confront him, but he's bitten by the tsetse fly and needs Jill to save his life. Jill does so and Lance uses Malraux's sickness as an opportunity to rally the white slaves to rebel. "You have a right to rule yourselves," Lance states. Which would be great, if the African population he was addressing had been, you know, African. Lance's words are effective and the slaves destroy the munitions factory. Lance brings Malraux back to Angola where the French authorities take charge of him. Lance kisses Jill, then goes on his way.

• -5 estrelas for lousy understanding of African geography
• +1 estrela for depicting the tsetse fly in Angola
• -5 estrelas for putting the French in charge of Angola
• -10 estrelas for immensely problematic racism

TOTAL SCORE: Negativos dezenove estrelas!

The Great White Intransigence

Much of the work I'm currently doing at the Grand Comics Database is cleaning up existing records which use an out-of-date term called "filler." You can understand how a "strange facts of history" page might be a filler compared to surrounding super hero and cowboy tales, but the term is so broad as to be unhelpful.

I've used the Digital Comic Museum to help identify what many of these "fillers" really are and it means I occasionally come across some interesting pages, but usually the pages are instantly forgettable. Here's a somewhat memorable page, from 1946's Sparkling Stars #10:

It's credited to "Ink Higgins" (Morris Weiss) and was one of three Fight Facts pages which appeared in that issue. This page stayed with me while others I checked over were forgotten; while many of these "filler" types contain several facts which may or may not be related, this particular page chose a single topic: legendary boxer Joe Louis. And, as you may have noted, it's not precisely laudatory.

At the time, Louis was the reigning heavyweight champion, although his service in World War II had interrupted his career trajectory and he never really regained it. Louis worked hard to promote himself not only as a good fighter but a good man - to present himself as morally unimpeachable to help counter the sex-and-booze antics of former heavyweight Jack Johnson. Why did Louis have to take so much care about his life outside the ring because of Johnson? Because he and Johnson were both African-American.

And that's the point where this page makes me uncomfortable. After all the effort Louis placed into being a good man, people still wanted him to fail. And thus, this page does not celebrate Louis' victories, but instead questions them (essentially, "Hey you guys, Louis isn't that great!"). It points to three fights which Louis either almost lost or could have lost. That he did, in fact, win those fights seems beside the point to Weiss. Louis is barely even seen on the page, obscured by the referee in the central image and being struck in the face in the lower left (not sure what to make the ridiculously huge frame Weiss gave him either; he looks like a circus strongman, not a fighter).

Oh, and those other two Fight Facts pages Weiss drew in Sparkling Stars #10? One was of John L. Sullivan and the other of Max Baer. They were laudatory towards their subjects.

"The Yellow Curse": there are not enough facepalms in the world

When I'm delving through comic books of the 1930s and 40s I see a lot of casual racism in the tales of the time. I've learned to accept that they exist, shake my head and move along. I'd much rather uncover a forgotten character like Torgon who defies the tropes of the times. Every so often, however, a story so racist comes along that I can't get past it.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, comic books happily indulged in characterizing the hated Japanese as yellow-skinned, buck-toothed, murderous fanatics. Who could blame the creators, considering their nation's leaders had consigned the Japanese populations of the States and Canada into internment camps - and at a time when both the USA and Canada had fairly liberal governments, mind you! Racist Japanese caricatures are surely the most common racial stereotypes in comics of the 40s - certainly much moreso than the "big-lipped Negro" character.

I've been cleaning up a few entries at the Grand Comics Database, using the Digital Comics Museum as my guide. After happily tidying up a number of issues of Captain Marvel Adventures (Captain Marvel being one of my favourite 40s heroes), I turned to the series Captain Marvel, Jr.
I should explain that in the 40s, Captain Marvel, Jr. was (ostensibly) the more grounded of the two heroes. Beyond their shared fantastic powers and frequently out-of-this-world adversaries, Captain Marvel was rendered by the cartoonish (and wonderful) C.C. Beck, while Captain Marvel, Jr. was drawn by the more photorealistic Mac Raboy (Raboy would often draw CM Jr. when he guest-starred in Beck's stories, maintaining that visual divide between the two). Captain Marvel, Jr.'s adventures often pit him against social problems of the day; after all, in his identity as Freddy Freeman, he was an impoverished crippled newsboy.

With that out of the way, I give you "The Yellow Curse" from Captain Marvel, Jr.#10 (August 1, 1943). The title alone suggested some racist tomfoolery to me, but I decided to examine the story because it might (might) have proved to be racist in a kitschy, head-shaking way. Oh, my head did indeed shake. We open with Freddy Freeman ("a patriotic American through and through") visiting a blood donor clinic. However, the doctor in charge of the clinic, one "Dr. Ching" is in reality "Dr. Kursyu of Nippon!" Evidently he used the name "Ching" to pass himself off as a Chinese doctor. If you grade on a curve, that is the least-racist moment of the tale.

Kursyu places a dose of "the Yellow Curse serum" into the blood. When one General Otis is rushed to the clinic in need of a life-saving transfusion, Kursyu administers one of the tainted supplies to him. Almost immediately, Otis' skin turns yellow, his eyes become slanted and he begins talking like a typical Japanese comic book character: "Banzai! Hurrah for the Mikado! Down with America!" Kursyu is pleased to note his serum "makes the victim think like honorable Jap too!" Freddy says his magic word and transforms into Captain Marvel, Jr. to stop the rampaging general, but being patriotic, CM Jr. first tries to reason with him rather than strike an American officer. However, the transformed Otis cannot be reasoned with and he punches Captain Marvel, Jr. into a cannister of ether, which slows the hero down long enough for Kursyu and Otis to escape (so, um, I guess all the tainted blood samples will be destroyed now; Kursyu's really not going to undermine the USA that badly if he can only manage one transformation before being discovered).

For some reason, Captain Marvel, Jr. decides to change back into Freddy Freeman in order to help one of the doctors whom Otis attacked. Stranger still, the doctor's face is mistakenly coloured yellow as the colourist apparently lost track of which character he was working on (however, the doctor's ears are still pink). With this done, Freddy goes to warn "the other generals" about the plot because... uh... I guess they're more likely to believe the story of a crippled newsboy than a popular super hero? Anyway, it's good that Freddy thinks of this because Kursyu has already ordered Otis to phone up his fellow generals for a conference so that he can infect all of them with the Yellow Curse. Freddy tries to stop the generals' car but they hit him (Freddy gets no respect). The generals decide to bring Freddy along to the supposed conference (sure, let's go with that). Of course, with Freddy ko'd they have no idea what awaits as they're met by Kursyu and Otis.

Kursyu agrees to tend to Freddy's injury before going any further and also takes the opportunity to infect Freddy. Sure enough, Freddy becomes yellow-skinned and slant-eyed. His first words are "Banzai! What can I do for the Mikado? Banzai! Banzai!" However, Freddy struggles against his transformation, thinking "I know it isn't right to hate America," and is finally able to speak his magic words, turning into Captain Marvel, Jr. However, CM Jr. is likewise infected by the Yellow Curse (rendering him into Japanese Elvis, I suppose) and Kursyu sends him to destroy a munitions plant. Captain Marvel, Jr. flies away as Kursyu prepares to infect the captured generals, taunting them with his antidote labeled "White Serum." At once, Captain Marvel, Jr. bursts back into the room, revealing he wasn't under Kursyu's control and only wanted to learn about the antidote. Gulping down the formula, he becomes Caucasian again and similarly restores General Otis ("I had a horrible dream that I was a Jap!"). With the plot ruined, Captain Marvel, Jr. takes Kursyu prisoner and delivers the White Serum so it can be used to treat any other victims of the Yellow Curse.

Let's tally up this wartime racist paranoia:

1. Japanese men could be passing themselves off as Chinese! Remain vigilant around Asians!
2. Which points again to the need of internment camps - if you give a Jap a chance, he'll try to destroy America single-handedly!
3. When we are rendered vulnerable by illness and placed under the power of people from other races they will attempt to bring us to their level! Maintain segregated hospitals!
4. Hatred of America is literally found in the blood of all Japanese!
5. Further, good patriotic Americans - even military officers - will turn against all their principles if found to be Japanese!
6. Also the usual business of banana-yellow skin, "Banzai!" and a strange fascination with the Mikado.

That's a big heaping bowl of racist crap right there.

The next time you're inclined to comment on how racist a contemporary comic book is, do bear in mind it wasn't so long ago that things were much, much worse.