Please Help, it's driving me nuts! See if anyone can answer

Cap Haggis · Post by **Cap Haggis** » 20 Dec 2006, 12:10

This is an intriguing one, everything about it sounds very much like "Iron Fist" with the marks on the arms, the origin , he is Caucasian etc (altho he had short hair). There werent that many Kung Fu characters in comics at that time, despite the obvious sucess of Kung Fu films/TV - Iron Fist, Shang Chi, Yang (Charlton) Richard Dragon (DC) some TV and Film adaptions and a few UK strips - it must be out htere somewhere !

reker1701 · Post by **reker1701** » 20 Dec 2006, 13:22

I agree it does sound like Iron Fist, but I don't think it is, couple of problems, 1) I never read those sorts of comics, very much a British comic fan, Buddy, Victor, Warlord Eagle etc 2) The character I remember had marks on his forearms not his chest, this was a key element of the story as he had to grip the burning pot with his forearms, to escape being crushed, hence the marks.

Just hope dementia hasn't set in as I am sure of all the facts I know, but It really has been bugging me for , not years anymore, decades!

Cheers

reker1701

reker1701 · Post by **reker1701** » 19 Jan 2007, 14:57

I'm posting this cause I still haven't found what I'm looking for, (song there somewhere, at least it's better than The Lion Sleeps Tonight).

I am over halfway through reading the complete collection of the Buddy. It isn't in there I think. The publications I can eliminate (I have complete collections of all of them) are as follows

2000AD
Eagle
Crunch
Buddy
Starlord
Tornado
Scream

I REALLY appreciate everyone putting ther ideas forward, am now running out of ideas, one of my last one's is could it be The Hotspur, late 70's or early 80's.

PLEASE PLEASE help if you can

Thanks

reker1701

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 20 Jan 2007, 12:31

I've checked through all the later Hotspur and there doesn't seem to be anything in those issues that would fit. I think someone had already suggested a Hotspur character named Kenji the Samurai but it is certainly not him. He featured in a strip titled Son of the Sword but his origin is nothing like the one you remember and in any case this series appeared in 1973.
If you can think of any other Thomson title that you might have read at the time I'll happily have a look through the relevant issues. What about Victor, Warlord (unlikely) or Bullet?

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 20 Jan 2007, 12:43

I can confirm that this is not in the Warlord for issues 1 to 36 (Sep 74 to May 75) and issues 82 to 426 (Apr 76 to Dec 1982) as I have them and just re-read them all!

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 22 Jan 2007, 15:00

Hi Reker, I've managed to track down this elusive strip for you. It was titled The Knot of Courage and appeared in Hotspur Nos 781-796 (Oct 1974- Jan 1975). As you said you were only 4 in 1974 I can only surmise that you somehow came across these older issues later in the decade as the strip certainly wasn't reprinted.
Your memory of the strip is pretty accurate except that the monastery sequences only form the latter half of the story. Brief synopsis as follows -
In medieval Japan a thin rather frail boy named Haru and his mother work as a servants to the local lord.
One day in the market place a beggar makes the boy a gift of a luminous bird and tells him that the bird will show him the pathway to his destiny if when he next sees it he follows where it flies. The bird then subsequently leads him to the mouth of a cave in which lives a strange hermit. The inhabitant of the cave is named Matajura an old Samurai warrior who teaches Haru how to become a warrior like himself and so earn the right to wear the Chon-Mage or 'knot of courage' in his hair.
At the very point at which Matajura finishes the boys training he is killed by the men of the local warlord Kano and with his dying breath he tells Haru that he must now go to the Shaolin monastery to complete his ascent to warriorhood.
The final test in the monastery is to escape from a room with spiked walls that move inexorably towards each other with the only means of escape being to pull a red hot metal lever in the crook of both arms, a consequence of which is being branded on both arms with the monastery's badge of honour.
On leaving the monastery Karu avenges the death of both his mother and his old Samurai master Matajura by killing the warlord Kano.
Hopefully you've now got one less thing to ponder on.

AztecComics · Post by **AztecComics** » 22 Jan 2007, 18:39

The secrects of William Wilson in Spike, this sounds familier & he also found the secret to staying young from the monks....

could be?

reker1701 · Post by **reker1701** » 22 Jan 2007, 21:21

Kashgar

You have no idea how much that's been a part of my subconscious for the last 25+ years, I must have read a reprint. It sounds exactly right. I will now look for those issues so I can finally put the "Lion to Sleep"

Thank You!
Thank You!
Thank You!

I got goosebumps reading your post, can't think where I read it, unless it was reprinted later on in the Hotspur, or a publication it joined with (???)

Thanks again, you've made my year (sad, but very true) !!!!!!

Right e-Bay & 26pigs here I come!

Cheers

reker

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 12 Apr 2007, 20:21

I have an alternative answer. It's called The White Tiger and is set in Asia during WW2. Johnny Lang's parents are murdered by the Japs and Johnny fights back against them. Forced to flee, he eventually ends up at a Shaolin Temple and is inducted to become a fighting monk. The final graduation is to go through a killing zone that is full of traps and the final trap is escaped is by gripping a burning brazier, that burns a tattoo onto each forearm, to swing him out of danger. First Victor issue is 976 in Dec 1979 and runs for about 18 episodes.

reker1701 · Post by **reker1701** » 13 Apr 2007, 12:14

One of them must be right, have been trying to get the Hotspur's mentioned by Kashgar. It really sounded right apart form one fact. I was only 4 when it was released.

The date range of the Victor you mentioned is smack bang in the middle of my comic "childhood". I will try and get the issues of the Victor you mentioned because it seems, as with the previous story, exactly as I remember.

I will definitely know it when I read it.

Thank you for a) remembering my "pain" and b) hopefully solving it

Cheers

Robert

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 14 Apr 2007, 10:52

Well done Col! It just goes to show what a minefield identifying strips and stories can be. It seems obvious that the Victor strip used the central idea of the earlier Hotspur one and updated it to WWII. No doubt there is a story in Rover or Wizard from 1935 with a slightly different spin on the central idea which started it all if we did but know about it!

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 14 Apr 2007, 14:32

That's what happens when you go back and have a quick butcher's at your back library of comics! Was in the UK and picked up a few more bits of gen for the Victor database and decided to have a look at some of the comics to see how many stories were reprint and how many were originals. And I caught sight of The White Tiger and went

That's the one that Reker is looking for!

or words to that effect!

So I took note of it and brought the gen back in my little notebook along with another 40 or so stories from the covers.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 16 Apr 2007, 11:53

This was a also a classic case of being led inadvertantly astray by what the questioner remembered. Had he recalled the fact that it was set during WWII 'The Knot of Courage' would have been exactly what it turned out to be, a near miss but a miss none the less.
The artist responsible for 'The White Tiger' was Victor's favourite European illustrator Mattias Alonso.

reker1701 · Post by **reker1701** » 17 May 2007, 12:12

Hi Everyone

Finally managed to get some of the Victors, The answer "White Tiger" is exactly right. I felt a great weight lift off me when I read it. The "Lion" has finally gone to sleep.

Really chuffed about this as it had been nagging away at me for decades, just flicking through some Victors I recently bought off e-bay and it wasn't just the 900's the story appeard in, it runs at least a couple more times

Thanks to everyone for their input

reker1701

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 17 May 2007, 12:54

Success at last! Chuffed that you got the comics and enjoyed them again. It reminds me of the nightmares that I had searching for the final episode of Invasion! in the pre-Internet days. Took me 14 years from date of publication to date of finding and reading it. Also took me...a lot of years to re-find the Breda Douglas story that featured in The Crunch.