Friday Night Fights--Master Of Kung Fu 1981 Style!!

Welcome, miscreants. It's timer for another bout on Friday Night Fights!!

But this is also Marvel 1981 Week here at Slay Monstrobot, so I'm bound to using only comics published by Marvel with a November 1981 cover date this entire week.

So what's the fightiest comic that month?

Oh, yeah.

First up, our title and creators??

Our plot?

Insane billionaire/drug kingpin/nuclear arms dealer (ah, Master Of Kung Fu, how I miss you!) Carlton Velcro was supposedly killed by Shang-Chi and company long ago. But, this being Kung Fu James Bond, he didn't stay dead--it turns out he survived, albeit in a mostly prosthetic body. And he's back for revenge!!


Velcro sent assassins to kill Shang-Chi and friends, but they were thwarted. And now our heroes are taking the fight back to him.

Shang has just witnessed the cowardly Velcro gun down one of his own men. And now, it's on!!

(Please don't ask why Shang and Leiko Wu are wearing ancient samurai armor. It's MOKF--just roll with it...)















Ohhhh...put him down hard!!

And we need a happy ending:



Spacebooger wishes that he could look so good in a headband and pajamas!!

We'll continue Marvel 1981 Week after the jump, but please--go vote!! And, if the mood pleases you, join in the Friday Night Fights action!! It's open to everyone. All you need is a comic book where someone fights someone else, and a scanner. Come play! And in the meantime, come vote!!



Back to 1981.

Not too much more to discuss here, as we've pretty much dealt with the whole plot.

So let's spend a couple of minutes discussing Gene Day.

I was never as impressed as some with his Master Of Kung Fu work. Don't get me wrong--he was a great artist. Sometimes, though, his style seemed ill-fitted for comics, especially for an actioner like MOKF.

He had this habit of drawing ridiculously ornate backgrounds and settings, which I thought distracted the eye away from what we were supposed to be looking at:

Also, far too many of his non-fighting actions felt very, very stiff, like the characters were models voguing for a camera instead of just being people:

Oh, yeah, that's Pavane--the leather bikini-wearing, whip-wielding, trained-panther-commanding assassin. That's how MOKF rolled under Doug Moench, people.

Bit that ornate thingie behind Pavane? That was another hallmark of Gene Day's work, crazy-ass statuary and decorations, often seemingly random, taking up huge amounts of panel space (and again, pretty damn distracting to the story's flow). More examples:


Still, those criticisms aside, Days pencils were prettier than hell, and he knew how to bring the action when called upon. He was pretty much unrivaled in the "making one background into several panels while movement is going on in front of it, making it seem cinematic" technique (which I'm sure there is a name for, but damn if I know it):


And more...


Yup, Gene Day could bring it.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

This all seem familiar to Hulk:

Hulk controlled by stupid Purple Guy!

(editors' note--he means The Corrupter!)

Purple Guy force Hulk's friend Rick to call Avengers so he can control them, too!!

But radio is stupid, signal goes wrong, and only stupid costume people in stupid Southwest hear message!!

Stupid heroes gather after intercepted message, and form new team!!

Hulk tells Mantlo, "this is rip-off of Avengers #1!!" Mantlo says is something called pastiche.

Bah, pastiche is stupid. Team is stupid!! No one knows team!! Team never has own book!! And Hulk beats team!! Hulk is the strongest one there is!!

Oh, and Rick saves Hulk from Purple Guy with power of love.

Hulk get sick now.