Dave-El's Not So Proud Moments In Comic Books: Karate Kid

As a comic book reader, I like to boast of having read some high quality projects like Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons as well as other Alan Moore projects like Swamp Thing, Miracleman and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or series like Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Grant Morrison's runs on Animal Man and Doom Patrol. 

Or Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples and anything by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

But for all the good stuff I've read, I've also paid good money for comic books of a more questionable value. And I'm not talking about a random single issue of something that I found to be not that good.

No, I'm talking about committing to a series and wondering why the hell did I read that. 

One such comic book series of this type that I followed in the 1970s was Karate Kid.

No, this is not about the Karate Kid series of movies. You may notice in the closing credits there is a blurb crediting DC Comics with permission to use the name Karate Kid.

Because Karate Kid, the super hero, got here first before Ralph Macchio took to the silver screen.

Who the hell was Karate Kid anyway? 

Karate Kid is Val Armorr from a thousand years in the future and is a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Karate Kid's super power is... "Super Karate!"

Now that's just silly. Who would call a super power "Super Karate"?  Val is a master of every form of martial arts to have been developed by the 31st century. He can severely damage various types of hard material with a single blow.

Let's watch him "karate" a meteor into rubble.

He can hold his own against Superboy through use of what he called "Super Karate".

Never mind! It is called "Super Karate".  

So how the hell did he get his own book?

In the 1970s, a big trend in movies were martial arts movies as exemplified by Enter the Dragon starring Bruce Lee. Suddenly there was plethora of Asian masters of martial mayhem kicking and chopping across the screens across America.

Marvel Comics wanted in on that and launched The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu starring Shang Chi (who will be getting his own Marvel movie in a couple of years).

DC saw that The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu starring Shang Chi was selling pretty good and decided they wanted in on that.

And thus Karate Kid vaulted over the centuries and landed in then present day New York for a series of…

Well, I want to say “exciting adventures” or “thrilling adventures”.

I will settle for “adequate adventures”.

Here is Karate Kid in line at the bank.

Paul Levitz in his first work writing for the Legion of Super Heroes wrote the first issue which brought Val across time to the present and kept him there.

Starting with issue #2, the book would be written for most of its run by Barry Jameson. I only recently learned, nearly 40 years after the fact that Barry Jameson was an alias for David Michelinie.  

Anyway, Karate Kid gets his own comic book. It was pencilled by Ric Estrada and inked by Joe Staton, both of whom had a cartoonish style.  

In their own way, the team of Estrada & Staton were good at what they did. Their work showed expressiveness and a fluidity of motion.  But if DC wanted Karate Kid to be their answer to Marvel's Deadly Hands of Kung Fu starring Shang Chi, this cartoonish approach seems outdated compared to the more detailed work Paul Gulacy, Mike Zeck or Gene Day was providing for Shang Chi's adventures.

The art in Karate Kid wasn't even on par with what we got from Karate Kid's first solo story in an issue of Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes by Mike Grell.  

We eventually learn that Karate Kid was staying in the past as a test of sorts to proof he was worthy of marrying Princess Projectra. 

Karate Kid goes back to the future to kick Black Dragon's ass and tell Projectra's pop he's gonna marry his daughter and the king is all, "Well, damn son! Go for it!"  

Barry Jameson leaves the book and Bob Rozakis & Jack C Harris tag team the writing on the book until it's cancellation with the DC Implosion.   

I have no information on why David Michelinie used the nom de plume of  Barry Jameson for his run on Karate Kid.  Was he embarrassed by the whole thing? His work on Karate Kid was not particularly noteworthy but I've read worst thing things by David Michelinie that he's put the "David Michelinie" name on.  

I did not buy the complete run of Karate Kid. I left when "Barry Jameson" left. But I was there for 10 straight issues. 

Why, I do not know.