Yesterday’s post about Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story seemed like a good set-up for this:

1974. Bruce Lee had been dead for nearly a year and the martial arts craze he kicked off was still going strong. Lee’s epic Enter the Dragon was still in theaters.  The song “Kung Fu Fighting” was a hit the radio. Producer David Wolper gave ABC a backdoor pilot, Men of the Dragon, the first ever American martial arts movie of the week (unless young count the pilot for Kung Fu, which was still on the air as a series). The paperback racks were filled with pulpy martial action novels featuring heroes like K’ing Kung Fu, SuperManChu, Black Samurai and Jason Striker, Master of Martial Arts.

Marvel Comics, meanwhile, had their own roster of martial arts stars including like Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu and Iron Fist, Sales were good, so Marvel decided to take their heroes to the magazine rack, with a larger-format black and white comics magazine. Free of the color comics rack and the authority of the Comics Code, Marvel wanted to amp up the action for their new magazine, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.

To launch the new book, Marvel tapped artist Neal Adams, who had exploded onto the comic book medium after a career-building turns in commercial advertising art and newspaper strips (Ben Casey, based on the ABC TV series starring Vince Edwards). Whether he was drawing Batman, The X-Men, Green Lantern or The Avengers, Neal Adams employed a naturalistic, photo-realistic style. He didn’t draw characters, he drew people. He didn’t just depict action, he made it hurt. (One of the many reasons why Adams was tapped a couple of years later to draw the hand-to-hand action in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. See sketch above)

And so what we have for the enjoyment of your eyeballs here in the Cyclops Central Picture Gallery, are the six covers artist Neal Adams drew as Deadly Hands of  Kung Fu covers, plus a bonus piece. Enjoy The Art of Neal Adams. And don’t forget to block.

We begin with a flying sidekick from Lin Sun, one of the stars of the new Sons of the Tiger series to be found inside Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1.

Adams on Shang-Chi, Master of Fu, with Chi fighting for a lady’s honor. Deadly Hands #2.

Lin Sun is back and he’s brought fellow Son of the Tiger, Abe Brown, with him (evoking Bruce Lee and Jim Brown in Enter the Dragon). Deadly Hands #3.

David Carradine as Caine is out front and center for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #4.

Deadly Hands #12. Adams takes on the Roger Moore version of James Bond, inspired by the martial arts-influenced 007 epic, The Man with the Golden Gun.

When Masters meet: Neal Adams pays tribute to Bruce Lee. Deadly Hands #14.

A perfect example of what makes Neal Adams great. He could have chosen to re-create any complicated martial arts scene from Enter The Dragon…but he goes for the impossible one with the fractured-mirror effects. Deadly Hands #17 was Adams’ last.

Finally, the bonus: Neal Adams’s poster for the 1974 low-budget movie known as both The Death of Bruce Lee and The Black Dragon’s Revenge. Adams went for a Bob Peak-style montage, making dynamic imagery out of what I would imagine was a fairly undynamic movie.

Neal Adams. We’ll get back to him at some point…

“As you think, so shall you become.”

Bruce Lee

Let’s talk motion picture music, shall we?

A great movie score is one that fully projects, supports and elevates all of the emotions within its movie. When it works the way it should, it is a rare and special thing.

Now, if that same score can then also have a secondary life, one that’s divorced from the movie’s visuals and dialogue, and exist as its own free-standing emotionally satisfying experience, well, then it’s probably something close to great art.

But for that score to possess a power so compelling that it is then employed to market other films (and television show), well, then that score would have to be composer Randy Edelman’s score for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

Created for the 1993 biopic about the martial arts movie legend directed by Rob Cohen, Edelman’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story score is as strong-hearted, optimistic and triumphant as Bruce Lee himself.  This is music that tells the story of a man who came from nothing and rose to such heights that he changed the cultural landscape in much the same manner that Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali did before him.

Dragon is a soaring and cascading work. Its bells and cymbals may feel Hong Kong Cinema-inspired, but this is a Great American Story and Edelman employs the cultural influences to support the proud, almost patriotic emotions surging forward on nearly every track. It’s music infused with desire and hope, romance and love, optimism and heroism.

Maybe that’s why producers and editors working on movie trailers and TV promo campaigns have turned time and again to Randy Edelman’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story as a tool sell their sagas. Dragon has been used countless times in the mass marketing of entertainment properties like Forest Gump, The Truman Show, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Iron Chef, American Dreams, The Olympics, the World Figure Skating Championships and others.

Want to hear some it? Below is a cue from the soundtrack called “Dragon’s Heartbeat”. It seems to embody all of the primary themes of the soundtrack. Give it a listen and you’ll understand why Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story just might be a masterpiece.