Quick Shots: Richard Dragon Kung-Fu Master #1 Dragon's Fists by Jim (Dennis O'Neil & James R. Berry) Dennis

Here's an odd little one. "Kung-Fu Master Richard Dragon: Dragon's Fists" was published by Award Books in 1974. My copy is a Tandem British edition, so it was published across the pond as well. It was written by two guys who aren't named Jim Dennis but are actually noted comic book writer Dennis O'Neil and comic-strip creator James R. Berry. It's one of those "infamous" Men's Adventure paperbacks since it didn't launch a series of books but rather comics based on the character. It's been well covered by the Cadillac of paperback reviewing over at Paperback Warrior. I'm more like the Yugo. To give you non-car people context to that remark, me and three other guys once picked up the Yugoslavian car and moved it three spaces over. As for quality, it was a light weight. 

I had been wanting to read this one because of the odd backstory, my love of O'Neil's comic writings and I mean it's a 70's Bruce Lee cash-in. Those three things are hard to beat. After the book came out Dragon made the switch to comics. I assume because it was quicker and easier to write comic scripts then other novels for O'Neil and Berry. Also, Marvel had a couple of martial arts (Shang-Chi and Iron Fist) characters and DC probably needed to drum up some competition. O'Neil was already working there so why not just do the book he wrote? Still, it's an odd origin for a comic book character. Though I guess Shang-Chi's original dad was Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, so I guess shit was just weird in the 70s.

"Dragon's Fist" is sadly really hard to come by and that makes this following statement harder to write its nearly hands-down the best martial arts book from the 70's that I've read. Only some entries in the "Black Samurai" series are in competition with it. It's a damned shame that this is out of print and probably never will be, I'm sure the various entanglements legalities of DC Comics/Warner Bros will prevent that. I got lucky paying only $15 to get it shipped from England to me, so keep your eyes peeled and you might snag a reasonably priced copy. As much as I liked it, I would pay the crazy prices that I see for it. 

Richard Dragon (his real name, some people get all the luck) is a master of a special kind of martial art that combines the best of all the ways. After a criminal way of life, he finds himself being taught by O-Sensei and given a new, better lease on life. He's got a few friends, a dojo in New York and as soon as the book opens, he's got a lot of trouble. See O-Sensei's brother is murdered, and his niece is kidnapped by an evil dude named The Swiss. The ball is rolling for kung-fu fights galore, sex, death, deadly martial arts weapons, funny-named organizations like GOOD, and fire truck chases. Dragon is a stoic kind of guy but the amble (sometimes too much) flashbacks of his life round him out nicely for a Men's Adventure hero. With the origin out of the way I imagine that if there was a book #2 it would have been a corker. 

Despite the multiple flashbacks O'Neil and Berry show their comic book roots by making the book barrel to the end and it's a glorious cinematic ending, which doesn't always happen in M.A. fiction. Humorously Dragon stays at a hotel where a Sci-Fi convention is going on and there's some soft jabs at the "Buck Rogers-people" in attendance, an audience they both probably knew well. Also, the treatment of the female characters is pretty bad which is always a bit of a let-down for me, but it goes with the territory. The book really shines when it comes to action and Kung-fu mysticism. It feels like a lost 70's kung-fu movie. I could just almost see George Lazenby in his Hong Kong years starring in the adaptation. Sigh. 

Triple-Shot of 70's Men's Adventure: Radcliff, The Liquidator, Shannon!

Paperback racks had a bit of a swell for the influx of "Blaxploitation" cinema in the early 70's with the likes of "Shaft," "Coffy," and "Superfly."  The good folks at Holloway House seemed to want to get in on Pinnacles "Executioner" action and brought out a couple of contenders. One being Joseph Nazel's "Iceman," a high-class pimp vigilante and Roosevelt Mallory's "Radcliff," a stone cold mafia hit-man who shouldn't be fucked with. Roosevelt Mallory should be counted along with the great work of Donald Goines and "Iceberg" Slim in the Holloway House line, or any publisher for that matter.

Reading an Iceman is a fun way to spend an afternoon, but reading a Radcliff is closer to looking down the barrel of a sawed-off double barrel, tension ratchets up and Radcliff is a whole lot of damned trouble and it don't seem to matter to him. Radcliff lives in the same type world that Richard (Donald Westlake) Stark's Parker lives a noir wasteland of thugs, dirty cops, evil men and women. "Double Trouble" is the third book in the series it's suitably gritty, a wild blast of funky 70s Men's Adventure. Radcliff is a badass assassin on the run after being set-up by the mob for killing several cops. It was a fast read that really hits all the right buttons. If you like the idea of slightly seat-of-the-pants writing writing for fast money, quick moving, very violent action and the feeling of being surrounded by shag carpet and wood paneling while reading it, then it's a book for you. It wasn't a perfect book it suffered a common problem with a lot of these books: too much build up and a rushed resolution plus some hyped stuff on the cover that didn't amount to much but it was entertaining enough to be forgiven, plus a little too much focus on the other characters when all I really wanted was Radcliff using his dual .38's to gets some payback. I got one more Radcliff and it's a shame that they are so hard to find because this was a fun hard hitting book.


Larry Powell was R.L. Brent for this medium length series called "The Liquidator," I picked up the
whole series almost accidentally before reading a single word of it, then to top it off I started with the second book cause I'm a weirdo. The good thing about most serialized 70's fiction is that they are made for you to have missed a book or two, so they explain everything you need to know in most of the volumes. "Contract for a Killing," told me Jake Brand was an honest cop who's brother is killed and he takes it personally (of course) and decides to take on the mob single-highhandedly. The Penetrator, The Executioner, The Liquidator, Lone Wolf,  Death Merchant and the like might have got the job done quicker if they had just teamed up to face the mob, but what do I know?

Brand is out of jail and looking for the hitman-dude who iced his brother and gets mixed up with the paid killers next hit, a woman who Brand wants to warn and basically use as bait to snag his killer. Brand spends the time on the run, gathering guns and whooping information out of people. Also sexing ladies. This is all standard stuff but Powell writes well and it unfolds at a nice pace, never bogging down with any filler-bullshit. Brand is a likeable enough version of the mob-killer archetype, the ex-cop/ex-con thing is a nice touch cause he's truly alone no cops or crooks would trust him. It builds to a nice ending that's a bit of a cop-out but it's that way to keep the series going. There's just enough of a ending to the volume for it to feel like a full book. Powell is now on my radar, I have a couple of Nick Carter: Killmasters he wrote and I'll have to move them up to the To-Be-Read pile. This is solid B-level stuff; it's not going to change your life but it's certainly better written then some.

Finally Shannon #1: The Undertaker is the TECHNICALLY the worst book of the three but I probably had the best time reading it. This is a utterly ridiculous book in the best ways. I think it belongs to the the unsung-genre of Men's Adventure Fiction: The Inaction Adventure book, right there with Hardy by Martin Meyers and Decoy by Jim Dean. Patrick Shannon our "hero" doesn't do much action stuff. In fact he mostly drinks, boinks ladies and fucks up until he defeats the baddies with I dunno, luck?

Jake Quinn was J.C. Conaway who wrote a bit of this type of stuff two female P.I. series that seem to be the same character roving around under different names, i.e. Janna Blake and Nookie, er, um. Also horror books, gothics, stand alones and this three book series, some under names like Jim Conaway and Ross Webb. I'll tell you I had enough fun with it that I bought a large sample of his work half way through. Why you ask? Because I'm certifiable. So, Shannon works for a top-secret spy agency, has a butler named Joe-Dad who's racial insensitive to two demographics, a penthouse, a Porsche, a untraceable Beretta and a stocked bar. Someone is kidnapping beautiful blondes of the street, starlets, figure skaters, models, that type of blonde. Shannon looses a girlfriend, snoops around, gets an old blind woman killed, looses more women, adopts a cat and plays with a god-damned Seal over the course of this novel. Also has sex with EVERY female character, including a lesbian because its the 70's and a pulp novel. Eventually (like the last 20 pages or so) he fucks up enough to get kidnapped and shipped in a coffin to a bad-guy island in a coffin and almost inadvertently saves the day tangling against a deformed villain/henchman combo and literally saving his penis. Also then has some more sex. All in all this is the stupidity, violence and twisted fun I want in a funky 70's paperback. Conaway seemed like he was "in" on the joke to me, which makes it worthwhile as pure entertainment.