The other day I happened to be watching an episode of the classic
television western Wanted Dead Or Alive starring Steve Mc Queen. The
episode titled " Black Belt " featured Robert Kino as Sammy Wong , a
Chinese karate expert hunted unjustly for the murder of his employer.
The 1960 second season episode was written by John Tamerlin. And was
proof that Stan Lee wasn't the only one that got it wrong.
The
Invincible Iron Man's arch - foe the Mandarin was introduced in Tales
Of Suspense No. 50 ( Feb. 1964 ). And from the get go was depicted as
being a " karate master ". Of course in retrospect being Chinese it was
more likely that he would have been a master of the Chinese fighting art
of kung fu. But back in 1964 most Americans probably thought that kung
fu was something you ate with egg roll. You can reason all you want with
any fanboy theory you can come up with why the Chinese villain was
using a Japanese fighting style. But the simple truth is that when Stan
handed the original story over to Don Heck to draw he most likely said
to the artist " let's make the bad guy an expert of that new fangled
karate stuff everyone is talking about. He's so good at it that he's
able to break iron bars with it. "
This is what
most people at the time thought karate was. Breaking wooden boards ,
bricks and blocks of ice with the side of your hand while shouting a
popular American greeting. And the Mandarin's tameshiwari ( breaking )
skills were so great he actually posed a threat to an adversary who wore
armor that could resist cannon fire. Of course the Mandarin had
significant back - up in his 10 power rings. Each one had a seperate
super power.
Tales Of Suspense No. 86 ( Feb.
1967 ) featured my favorite throwdown between Iron Man and the Mandarin.
The Golden Avenger removes his gauntlets to give his opponent a taste
of good old western styled fisticuffs. Pretty cool stuff until you
realize that though Iron Man took off his gloves he kept on the rest of
his armor. Which of course protected him from the Mandarin's karate
chops ( shuto blows ).
I'm old enough to remember a time when every Asian fighting art was referred to as judo or jiu jitsu.
ReplyDeleteRacism has been a feature (not a bug) of comics since the beginning. Lee’s ignorance of Asian cultures was hardly unusual. Iron Man in particular was a product of Red Scare attitudes born in the Korean War. The Commisar was a contemporaneous Avengers villain also rooted in ‘yellow peril’ politics, which were a staple of Martin Goodman’s publications.
ReplyDelete