The Yang Reports #3

Yang Volume 2, Number 3 is dated July, 1974. It was published by Charlton Publications Inc. The editor is George Wildman. The cover was done by Warren Sattler, who also did the interiors of the book with the guidance of a Joe Gill script. Here's a link to see what else was on sale when this issue of Yang hit the stands.

The story opens with a reprise of the situation between our hero Yang and Yin Li, the daughter of the villain Chao Ku. It is assumed that Yang was killed after jumping from a speeding train in the previous story, but Yin Li is certain he is still alive since she would know in her heart if her beloved were dead. She vows not to make the same mistakes she has made in the past, but what those mistakes were is uncertain. Chao Ku has put a $10,000 dollar bounty on Yang's head and he is certain that if he is alive that will solve the issue. Yang on the other hand is stealthily entering Chao Ku's lair at that moment and confronts the evil Slaver in his main chamber.

"The Impossible" is a one-page text piece which tells of a village named Kuan-Chioh which fears a pirate named Liu-Mien. They go to a wise man to seek counsel about what to do when the pirate appears and he tells them to get all the metal in the village and create a multitude of fish hooks. They do so and when the pirates appear they are captured in vast elaborate nets and the hooks in those nets kill most of the enemy. The rest are taken prisoner and the boats burned to keep others from becoming pirates. As the wise man says, the difficult takes a lot of time to accomplish and the impossible only a small time longer.

"Prisoner of Evil" begins as Yang throws a spear into the body of Chao Ku, but it turns out it is only a dummy decoy placed in the chair by Yin Li to draw in out her opponent. She kisses Yang but he is leary of her poison ring, but she has gotten rid of it and instead Yang is distracted and finds himself trapped inside an iron cage dropped from the ceiling. Chao Ku and A.J.Hartley, the railroad robber baron have drinks and enjoy their prisoner's plight and intend to kill him quickly. Yin Li takes the gun and shoots Yang point blank, but when he is inspected Yang fights back and escapes. He knocks out Yin Li with a nerve punch and carries her unconscious to the roof, fighting off thugs all the while. The pair slip into a secret passage which leads to ready horses and escape into the city of San Francisco. Yin Li takes Yang to a warehouse of opium, but it turns out she has betrayed him yet again and Chao Ku is waiting.

"The Fireship" begins when Yang escapes this most recent plot, setting fire to the warehouse and dodging bullets from Chao Ku and his henchmen. He takes Yin Li and dives out the window into the water of the bay. He swims to the very clipper ship which brought him to America captained by Keegan. The ship cuts anchor and slips out of the harbor to avoid the fire which is spreading. Safely out of harms way, they drop anchor again and then Yang and Yin Li climb to the deck, but they are immediately waylaid and Yang finds himself chained to a wall. As he is about to be shot Yin Li again demands the honor and shoots at Yang four times point blank, but instead of killing him, she fires at his bonds and frees him. He battles the smugglers and then frees others who have been taken into slavery from China. The clipper comes under attack by another boat led by Chao Ku, but Yang fends it off with a great cannon found on board. Yin Li though cannot allow her father to be killed and attacks Yang and their battle knocks over a lamp setting the boat on fire. The clipper ship burns as well as its cargo of opium, Yin Li returns to her father, and Yang slips into the bay where sharks gather.



This issue was reprinted twice, once in 1977 under the Modern Comics label and again in 1986 as Yang #17, the final issue in the run and one of the final Charlton comics ever. Notice how when they flip the cover art, they conveniently have the UPC symbol placed to obscure Sattler's signature.

The battle between Yang and Yin Li gets stranger and stranger. Despite what he understands about their dual natures, it's getting harder to understand why he keeps falling for her nonsense. At some level he is gambling her good nature will always win out, and so far it seems to be the case, but it makes him seem foolish to keep tumbling blindly into the same pitfall. On the plus side, Yang does keep scoring victories against Chao Ku, this time destroying much of his opium stores.


About this time, the Charlton Portfolio by the CPL Gang hit the stands and it had an article on Charlton's martial arts heroes Judomaster and Thunderbolt titled "From the Mystic East" by Doc Larry Brnicky, with Yang getting a mention, and the artwork for issue four's cover being included. Here is that article and the artwork.


Check out Yang on the back of the wraparound cover above. He looks quite different rendered by Don Newton and Bob Layton.




More to come.

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Tall In The Sattler!

Warren Sattler has stated in interviews that his Charlton years were among his most exciting in that he got to work in genres he was most excited about. While comic strips proved ultimately to be more reliably profitable, the Western genre was no longer a viable part of that environment. But at Charlton, the Western was in vogue still during the Bronze Age.

Sattler's work on Yang could be well be considered a Western, a major reason he was tapped for the job I'd reckon. But clearly his highest profile pure Western work for Charlton was Billy the Kid who he took over from Jose Delbo. Sattler's covers for Billy were especially keen.

Here are some original bits of artwork and the covers they became for Sattler's memorable run on the infamous Western character.





And here just for the pleasure of looking at them are five more of his best Billy covers.






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The Yang Reports #2

Warren Sattler
Due to a paper shortage and the energy crisis in 1974, many of Charlton's comics were delayed for several months. Such was the case with Yang #2 which hit the stands six months after the debut issue.

Yang Volume 2, Number 2 is dated May 1974 and was published by Charlton Publications Inc. The editor is George Wildman, and the writer is Joe Gill. Warren Sattler is again on board as the artist, both for the interiors and the for the cover. Here's a link to see what else was on the stands when the second issue of Yang hit. I'll have more to say about that later.

A "Prologue" brings the reader up to date on Yang's story, and how as a student Chung Hui saw his father killed by killers of the slaver Chao Ku. Becoming a force of good, Chung Hui becomes "Yang" for the people and vows to bring down Chao Ku and his forces including his daughter Yin Li who uses a poison ring to fell our hero and then transports him to the American West where he escapes the clutches of those who want to enslave him and others to build the railroad.

Part 1 "Death in the Desert" begins with a bounty hunter finding Yang in the desert after his escape but Yang quickly turns the tables and takes the cowboy's horse and uses it to return to the train where he finds the owner J.L. Hartley, and partner of Chao Ku's. Yang finding some dynamite in a shed uses it to blow up the train and the tracks, in an attempt to free the slaves. He succeeds and leads them into the mountains, but he himself then falls victim to Yin Li who confronts him on horseback and knocks him unconscious with the butt of a pistol. She chooses not to kill him there, but take to a secret lair where he will not become a martyr.

"Tang's Tales" is a trio of text stories. "Sim Sung's Song" is the tale of a happy man who sings when he works which pleases a local rich man who then gives Sim Sung gold so he can enjoy life, but which after a short time actually causes him sadness because it was his life and work which made him sing. He returns to his happy ways. "The Respectful Son" tells of a son who is beaten by his father or carelessness with melons and how it is the son's responsibility to only allow himself to be beaten slightly to preserve the honor between father and son, according to Confucius. "The Learner" speaks of a man who enters a garden to seek enlightenment where all his needs will be met and who stays for twenty-six years proving he's a slow learner, but a clever fellow.

Part 2 "Die for Freedom" begins with Yang chained in a cave and about to be killed by Yin Li and her thugs. But he snaps his chains instead and escapes fighting the thugs and taking Yin Li deep into the cave where many statues are located. A message says that those with evil hearts should not pass into the cave and in fact the thugs do fall victim to falling debris. Yin Li tries to use her ring on Yang again, but finally he stops her and says that his feeling for her and her for him are like the Yin-Yang symbol, each section possessing a spot of the other making neither of them purely good nor purely evil. He escapes the cave and fights his way out finding a horse. He is followed by Hartley's men, Hartley having survived the train explosions, and Yang fights many of the bounty hunters before returning again to the train. He gets aboard and confronts Hartley and Chao Ku again but is knocked out from behind. The train heads to San Francisco and later when they go to kill Yang, they find he has escaped the speeding train helped by Yin Li.

Note the cool lighting effects and horses are now missing.
Yang #2 was reprinted in 1985 as Yang #16.

The story of Yang to this point is a hectic one, with him rushing from fight to fight with abandon. It has already become something of a gimmick in the stories for Yin Li to trip him up, but given the thematic connection they share, the story is not necessarily damaged by this constant turnabout. There was a real attempt to enliven the Western aspects of the story in this chapter, with lots of men on horseback playing a brief but highly visual role.

The time which passed between the first and second issues of Yang were fruitful ones for those interested in martial arts entertainment. Yang's debut, dated November gets the nod as the first of a wave of martial arts comics which hit the stands in a very short time because of the interest in the television show Kung Fu.

Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom
Marvel had the rights to the show apparently but decided instead to create Shang-Chi, the son of Fu Manchu. The "Master of Kung Fu" debuted in the pages of Special Marvel Edition #16 which had a December, 1973 cover date, one month after the debut of Charlton's Yang. The adventures of Shang-Chi would become the longest-lived of the martial arts comics, if not the first.

Gil Kane
Bearing the same cover date of May 1974 as the second issue of Yang, was Marvel Premiere #15 which debuted Iron Fist, a revision of the Golden Age Amazing Man story by Bill Everett with a martial arts twist much like PAM's Thunderbolt from some years previous.

Neal Adams
A month earlier, Marvel had unleashed the magazine-sized Deadly Hands of Kung Fu onto the market.

Dick Giordano
A year later Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter would debut from DC Comics, featuring a cover from former "Action Heroes" editor Dick Giordano.

So between the first and second issues of Yang, a torrent of martial arts comics had hit the stands and more was to come. The competition was going to be ferocious. But as we'll see, Yang was up to the challenge.

More next time.

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Cincinnati Comic Expo 2011!

Sadly as of now, I'll be missing this year's Cincinnati Comic Expo. My partner-in-comics has had to pull out of our trip up to the Queen City and it's likely just as well. I'm going to have to make a trip to Louisville tomorrow with my beloved spouse, and it's a bit much to travel two days in a row, at least for my geezer bones.

This year's Expo is in a larger venue and that means that parking has become something of an issue too. There's a big festival in Cincinnati this week, Oktoberfest, and that will put pressure on the parking downtown for sure. So I'm a bit unsure how all that will shake out.

It's a decent show this year, but aside from Jim Steranko and Jose Delbo (mostly the latter for his Charlton work) there are few pros I'm absolutely eager to meet. I imagine the line for Steranko will be heroic. Also my budget for comics this month has been largely shot, so prowling for back issues was not really a big option. The few trades I'm looking for I can find elsewhere I'm sure.

So I've got a bunch of excuses, but nonetheless I'll be sorry to miss the second annual event. Hopefully they'll do a good business and there will be a third one next year.

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The Yang Reports #1

Warren Sattler
Charlton's other "superhero" debut in 1973 was Yang. Created in the same push by George Wildman which yielded E-Man, Yang was clearly a story inspired by the television show Kung Fu starring David Carradine, which itself was both spark and result of a wave of interest in martial arts at the time.

Neal Adams
Wildman got Charlton veteran writer Joe Gill to supply the scripts and he tapped artist Warren Sattler for the art chores. The latter was an odd move since Charlton had working for them at the time Sanho Kim, an artist ideally suited for this project. (But there's more to that story later.) Sattler's warm and comfortable sytle is a good fit nonetheless.

Yang Volume 1 Number 1 is dated November, 1973 and was published by Charlton Publications. The editor is George Wildman and the cover is by Warren Sattler. The writer is Joe Gill and the interior artwork is also by Sattler. Here's a link to see what else was on the stand when Yang premiered.

Part 1 "The Slave" begins in China in 1890 at the estate of the Mandarin Chung Yuan and his son Chung Hui. A warlord named Chao Ku orders the death of Chung Yuan and Chung Hui is too late to stop the murder. But he does use his considerable martial arts skills to waylay the murderers and following the mandates of his father's final word's puts aside his studies to become "Yang" for his people, a source of good in the lives of his people. He seeks out Chao Ku aboard his junk and comes under attack by Chao Ku's men and Captain Keegan, an American who is working with Chao Ku in his slave industry. Yang vows to meet his father's murderer again but as he leaves the junk he meets Yin Li, Chao Ku's daughter who feigns weakness and then kisses our hero, but she uses a drugged ring which cause Yang to fall to sleep at her feet. Yang is taken a prisoner by Keegan who takes him aboard his clipper ship headed for America. Yang meets the other prisoners and vows to help them. Close to San Francisco, Yang gets topside on the ship and makes a break for escape and dives headlong into the frigid waters.

Part 2 "Yang Meets Yin" begins with Yang swimming in the cold waters off Alcatraz Island, and Captain Keegan assumes weighted with chains the proud Chinese hero must be dead. Yang though comes out of the water at the docks in San Francisco and finds a sympathetic Chinese blacksmith to help remove his chains. He then seeks out Captain Keegan again and finds the evil sailor meeting with Chao Ku and Yin Li, the both of them having come to America too. Yang is captured though and taken before the trio where he then battles for freedom. He escapes with the seeming help of Yin Li, who professes to want to leave the influence of her evil father, but another kiss from the lovely girl and a sting of the ring, and Yang is once again flat out on the floor at her deceitful feet. This time Yang is transported into the interior of the America aboard a train, destined to work on the railroads as slave labor. After a few days of work, he is able to lead a revolt against his masters and after a furious battle that sees the destruction of a train, Yang escapes his captors once again and runs into the broad sprawling landscape that is the American West.

Last Page Original Artwork by Warren Sattler

"The Wisdom of Wu" is a one-page text story which relates how villages in China are suffering from many woes. The people of those villages seek out a legendary wise man named "Wu" who they hope will give them an answer to their troubles. Many seek him out and they all descend on his remote location together. He has the people write down their troubles and then switch them and read those troubles to him. The people discover their troubles all sound the same and Wu tells them that they suffer only what man suffers all the time through the ages, and they must take prudent steps to protect themselves and those they love. That is the wisdom of Wu.

To read this issue in its original format, check out this link.

Note the flipped image gets Sattler's name right.
The debut issue of Yang has been reprinted in 1985 when briefly the series was restarted with issue #15 (skipping issue #14 inexplicably) with reprints of old issues.

The first thing a reader has to understand is that despite many claims to the contrary, Yang is not a superhero book. Admittedly it has a kinship to early "Action Hero" books like Thunderbolt and Judomaster, but the mileau of the American West gives this comic a fresh feel that sets apart from traditional superheroics. Yang is just a man who seeks to accomplish noble things, and there's no reason to think that this series is anything other than a Western, a genre Charlton was wonderful at creating.

Warren Sattler creates some very appealing artwork here, his storytelling is impeccable. I could pick a bit at his character designs, especially his rendition of Yin Li, which always seemed oddly modern to me, but overall his comics have an inviting feel to them. Joe Gill's script is an excellent example why this workhorse of a writer is so well regarded in the field today. He wrote a ton of material, and while obviously some of it was solid trash, he could in situations like this make the most of the task he was given.


One irony to my eye at least, is that the infamous wanted poster from the television show Kung Fu which inspired Yang, looks remarkably like Yang as rendered by Sattler.


The whole Taoist Yin-Yang philosophical angle which underpins the story is clever enough. Yang representing the good side of man and Yin Li representing the darker side, two people bonded by emotion but held apart by upbringing and motivation forms a neat tension to follow through the series. I don't pretend to understand how accurate these representations are, but they work for the story purposes here.

Yang will prove to be a reasonably successful series for Charlton eventually, even generating a spin-off later in its run. That series too will be dealt with in these reports.

More to come, though at the time quite a wait was required. Yang would return and he'd bring a bunch of friends with him.

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Enter The Dragon!

There's simply no denying out great this movie is. Bruce Lee's final full film showcases his amazing talents like no other movie. He dominates a rich cast, and for once is in a story which almost actually makes some sense. I finally got to see this flick in a widescreen format and that added a lot to the experience.


Now it seems like a no-brainer for a major studio to make a movie with Bruce Lee today. They'd all claim to recognize his talent, but back then no one wanted to touch the actor. His charisma evident from his brief tenure as Kato on The Green Hornet should've rocketed him to a bigger role, but it didn't. He was rejected here in the homeland and left to return to Hong Kong to find some measure of success and fame.


Teamed with John Saxon and Jim Kelly, Bruce Lee is the clear first among equals who battle the rogue priest Mister Han, the uber criminal who uses a tournament of martial arts champions to find talent for his criminal enterprises. It's a great general notion, successfully isolates our hand-to-hand experts on an island without guns and allows them to kick ass throughout the remainder of the film.


Saxon as the cool gambler running from the mob is excellent, and even better is Kelly as the hip black man escaping the officially sanctioned racism of his homeland. Lee though is the main focus of course, and with very few words he dominates every scene he's in, and offers up action sequences which have defined the form ever since.


The battle in the caves is arguably the finest fight sequence in all of film, a ballet of violence that weaves seamlessly though an exotic setting. Lee's fighting showing him to be resilient and clever as he constantly turns the weapons of his opponents back on them, demonstrating his greater proficiency at every turn.


The later battle in the mirrored room is peculiar and bizarre, like several scenes in this movie such as the final battle for Kelly's "Williams" when he falls among the opium-intoxicated women. The movie is not satisfied to show just fights, which it does do, it places those battles in specific contexts which add meaning to the outcomes. This is finally what elevates this movie above many others in the genre, the care with which specific aspects the story are presented.


If they had just wanted to put Bruce Lee in a bunch of fights, they could've done that, but they wanted to share a more compelling story and that makes Enter the Dragon a movie which can be watched and appreciated on multiple levels many times.

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Letter Carriers On The Edge!

I'll have to confess that I'm staggered to hear actual discussion in the news media about allowing the United States Postal Service to disappear. It's the kind of fringe claptrap I've long associated with shortsighted over-the-top libertarian "thinking".

The United States without the Postal Service would become some sort of bizarre quasi-third world environment with vast numbers of its populace able to communicate only in limited ways, and at greater expense.

I know that the traditional working model of the Post Office needs to re-tooled for the needs of a different country, but to even discuss allowing it to cease to exist is utter foolishness.

The suggestion is that the Post Office should be making money. Why? I know it exists in a weird inbetween-worlds situation where it neither gets direct money from the government nor is allowed to act like a true-blue business and shed non-profitable aspects of its operations, but change that situation, do not talk of getting rid of it. Fund it differently, perhaps limit the operation to only serve individual citizens and not supplement industries.

I've heard nitwits scoff about the fact that letters to the far reaches of the country cost the same as letters to more traveled zones, and suggest that more money is needed to serve those outlying regions, money supplied by those in the those hard-to-get-to regions. But that's the beauty of the Postal Service, the real wonder is that all Americans can get in contact for the same rate regardless of location. It's part of the bond of citizenship.

It's a beautiful thing, like the great public libraries and should be celebrated and supported. This is not one of those either-or situations. We can have private industry move packages and mail and pay for the privelege, and we can have a public system supported for the population at large which requires it. We don't have to expect the latter to make money, but merely run efficiently. The test of the Post Office is not whether it makes a profit, but whether it performs its function of uniting the people of the country it serves.

To talk about closing down the Postal Service is looney and suggests that we are no longer a nation which respects all of its citizens, especially those who happen to exist on the outskirts, both geographically and economically. But then I dread that may be what is actually happening.

Stan Lee & Dan DeCarlo
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