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Post by tarkintino on Feb 13, 2023 11:25:04 GMT -5
Karate Kid. Introduced in Adventure Comics #346 (July, 1966): Arguably, Karate Kid might have been the medium's fist genuine "superhero" with martial arts as his central ability (as opposed to secret agent, detective, pulp-y stereotype, et al.). At the time, martial arts were already popular (to a degree) and had been seen in a number of movies and TV series, but DC's Karate Kid was not necessarily capitalizing on external influences, so he was unique, especially with his antagonistic attitude, which one would have believed would make him a rapidly rising DC star, but that did not happen. Even after The Green Hornet TV series' debut in September of 1966, with Kato catapulting Bruce Lee and his martial arts talent to widespread attention (increasing enrollment in martial arts classes, no matter the discipline), there was no residual impact or interest in DC's character. Perhaps he was a poorly constructed character (consider Shooter's age when he created Karate Kid), or was seen as irrelevant standing next to characters of overwhelming power (e.g., Superboy or Mon-El), but he never grew to be an A-lister. Curiously, his biggest "promotion" came after the martial arts boom in American media of the early 70s (obviously thanks--in large part--to Bruce Lee's films, the intense interest in his all-too-short life & wide distribution of non-Lee films of a similar genre), with a solo title starting in April of 1976: ...but it sputtered out after a mere 15 issues. While i'm aware of other K.K. stories in recent years, his initial chapter seemed to offer the promise of a thrilling character, but there's was a good deal of creative mishandling that prevented Karate Kid from fulfilling said promise.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2023 12:35:13 GMT -5
Karate Kid. Introduced in Adventure Comics #346 (July, 1966): Arguably, Karate Kid might have been the medium's fist genuine "superhero" with martial arts as his central ability (as opposed to secret agent, detective, pulp-y stereotype, et al.). At the time, martial arts were already popular (to a degree) and had been seen in a number of movies and TV series, but DC's Karate Kid was not necessarily capitalizing on external influences, so he was unique, especially with his antagonistic attitude, which one would have believed would make him a rapidly rising DC star, but that did not happen. Even after The Green Hornet TV series' debut in September of 1966, with Kato catapulting Bruce Lee and his martial arts talent to widespread attention (increasing enrollment in martial arts classes, no matter the discipline), there was no residual impact or interest in DC's character. Perhaps he was a poorly constructed character (consider Shooter's age when he created Karate Kid), or was seen as irrelevant standing next to characters of overwhelming power (e.g., Superboy or Mon-El), but he never grew to be an A-lister. Curiously, his biggest "promotion" came after the martial arts boom in American media of the early 70s (obviously thanks--in large part--to Bruce Lee's films, the intense interest in his all-too-short life & wide distribution of non-Lee films of a similar genre), with a solo title starting in April of 1976: ...but it sputtered out after a mere 15 issues. While i'm aware of other K.K. stories in recent years, his initial chapter seemed to offer the promise of a thrilling character, but there's was a good deal of creative mishandling that prevented Karate Kid from fulfilling said promise. Great write-up. I agree 100%. Didn’t Karate Kid study and master every known form of martial arts? There’s a He-Man villain (Jitsu) who had also mastered not only every known form of martial arts, but had created some of his own. So any martial arts gimmick should, in my opinion, lend itself to a long running title. Martial arts is pretty ingrained in the culture, I mean the magazine Black Belt is still going after many, many years. UFC is probably more popular than it has ever been. There’s Cobra Kai. Karate Kid has a good luck, a good “gimmick” and should have had a longer run.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Feb 13, 2023 13:21:51 GMT -5
Karate Kid was always fairly bland to me.
I never understood why, when Marvel was creating all these martial arts superheroes, they did nothing with Karnak?
He did eventually get a miniseries, but a bland one which tried to pass him off as nonpowered.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 13, 2023 13:34:38 GMT -5
Karate Kid was always fairly bland to me. I never understood why, when Marvel was creating all these martial arts superheroes, they did nothing with Karnak? He did eventually get a miniseries, but a bland one which tried to pass him off as nonpowered. I would have loved to see Karnak clash with the Leader. High brow comics indeed!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2023 17:20:09 GMT -5
As a hardcore Legion fan, I see Karate Kid a bit differently. The brief trying to leverage him as a breakout martial artist character during the 70's craze was not well executed, but as a Legionnaire in the future, that was a whole different matter.
First is the "everyman" concept...how could a non-powered superhero hope to hang with the power levels of the other Legion teens? The message was a hero's heart was just as important a part of the equation. And then his romance with Projectra...how could this outside commoner be accepted as her consort?
And the saddest moment I have ever read in any Legion comic book...his showdown with and death in combat with Nemesis Kid during the early Baxter series.
I was having a chat with Jim Shooter a couple of months ago at a convention, and asked him who is favorite Legionnaire was, and he didn't hesitate, it was Karate Kid.
Sure, he was not destined to be a big solo breakout character, but as a noble character more than holding his own without superpowers on a team like the Legion, Val Armorr was always a very cool character to me. And I'm still bitter he was killed off!!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2023 17:35:04 GMT -5
I was surprised Ambush Bug fizzled out along the way, I feel that character could have been so much bigger. I thought First Comics' Badger was one of the best indie comics I had ever read, I was surpised that never got more popular.
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Post by james on Feb 13, 2023 20:13:17 GMT -5
When we say big are we talking Spider-Man big or Mar-vell big? I know I am using in Marvel examples.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 13, 2023 20:47:17 GMT -5
I thought that Nova would have had more staying power . He did join the New Warriors but his own book was kind of short lived. I kind of thought the same of Speedball. Really neat idea and it felt like a silver-age style hero for the modern age.
But in hindsight, Robbie's own series didn't read well and I think he was handled far better in the New Warriors
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 13, 2023 21:48:36 GMT -5
I definitely thought New Warriors would be the the Marvel version of the Titans in the early 90s. I was also a big fan for Force Works, and Century in particular, though I don't think I ever really thought they would be the next big thing.
I think the thing I thought would work the best that never caught on was Hal Jordan as the Spectre. I also definitely thought Stormwatch would be huge.. I guess it morphed into things that did pretty well, but the original team, not so much.
I was also super excited about the Helix Line... that fizzled sadly very quickly other than Transmet.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 13, 2023 22:07:10 GMT -5
Leave It To Chance was great and Robinson was really on fire, during that timeframe. I also thought Starman would be bigger than it was, though it had a pretty good run. If Tony Harris had stuck around longer, I think it might have really become a hot book; but, at the same time, he left because of differences with Robinson and the book would have been different, had they continued, together.
I honestly thought the Roger Stern & Tom Lyle Starman would be a bigger book; but, it never really rose above a loyal, but small following. I do think the costume didn't help, either the original or the revamp. On a similar note, I thought the Impact line would do much better than it did, at DC, with the MLJ/Archie heroes.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2023 22:30:46 GMT -5
Another I really liked and thought it had a lot of potential because the writer was a novelist with some success in the genre (Robert Weinberg), and that genre was very popular at the time (urban fantasy) in the early 2000s, and I liked the character designs was a 4 issue mini done for Marvel in 2001, when Jemas and Quesada were actively recruiting creators from outside comics to make comics and hopefully bring their audience with them to comics. It was called Nightside, an urban fantasy/crime/horror comic with a strong female lead (the titular Nightside) Weinberg was looking to tell stories with the character in multiple mediums) prose and comics and cross promote them, and try to catch the Buffy crowd that was quite prominent at the time. And the 4 issue mini was actually quite good, it just didn't sell well at all, and everything fizzled. I think Marvel at this time was trying to be experimental and see if stuff outside superheroes would sell (Mike Carey's Spellbinders came from the same efforts, Elsa Bloodstone had her introductory mini at about the same time, etc.) but I don't think Marvel customers were open to this stuff at that time so it was a bad fit. Marvel would do some urban fantasy comic adaptations of popular series in that genre soon after this (such as Sherrilyn Kenyon's Lords of Avalon and even Stephen King's Dark Tower books came out of this impetus), but Nightside was never seen again. -M
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Post by DubipR on Feb 13, 2023 23:45:56 GMT -5
Ghost (Dark Horse Comics) In the 90s, I loved DHP's Comics Greatest World line. 16 new characters. 16 new comics. 16 bucks. While most of them fizzled but they had some serious potential. Barb Wire came out of it, which was pretty decent. As was X; a good balls out action comic. But Ghost was the one that I still think has potential. Creator Eric Luke made an interesting concept of a news reporter getting murdered and her trying to figure out who did it. But she came back a spiritual vengeance warrior. A beautiful character design and a cool noir-esque comic. She had 3 series but never felt like it held enough. I still think she's cool.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 14, 2023 6:01:03 GMT -5
Ghost (Dark Horse Comics) In the 90s, I loved DHP's Comics Greatest World line. 16 new characters. 16 new comics. 16 bucks. While most of them fizzled but they had some serious potential. Barb Wire came out of it, which was pretty decent. As was X; a good balls out action comic. But Ghost was the one that I still think has potential. Creator Eric Luke made an interesting concept of a news reporter getting murdered and her trying to figure out who did it. But she came back a spiritual vengeance warrior. A beautiful character design and a cool noir-esque comic. She had 3 series but never felt like it held enough. I still think she's cool. Ghost is definitely another I really loved, she's had a few pushes since her debut but they all seemed to fizzle out.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2023 6:08:43 GMT -5
Another one I quite liked: Seems the “New Universe” became the comicbook equivalent of WCW Thunder! I liked the realistic aspects of the New Universe, such as one character having to get his bearings when he first began to fly. I think the New Universe had so much potential, especially if they had kept it totally separate from the mainstream Marvel Universe (did I read something once that there was overlap eventually?)
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 14, 2023 6:22:55 GMT -5
(...) Seems the “New Universe” became the comicbook equivalent of WCW Thunder! (...) Yeah, the New Universe as a whole was supposed to be the next big thing, but it just fizzled out pretty ignominiously. At the time, I picked up the first two issues of Starbrand and about the first half-dozen of DP7. I thought the latter in particular was pretty solid and promising.
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