KARATE KID #4 (1976)
by David Michelinie & Ric Estrada
cover by Mike Grell
Just in case you thought The Revenger wasn’t lame enough as a villain: Master Hand.
We begin 1,000 years in the future, where the Legion is fighting a super-robot that is immune to superpowers, so Karate Kid has to be the one to defeat it.
What SHOULD happen: Karate Kid realizing he’s still useful to the team and deciding to stay in the 30th century.
What REALLY happens: Karate Kid is a f#cking moron.
Talk about forced conflict!!! We are at issue four now and there is NO REAL REASON for Karate Kid to stay in the past!!!
Once he’s back in the 20th century, he learns about a terrorist attack in a way that literally made me burst out laughing.
Basically “Oh yeah, bunch of terrorist took over the school, whatever, want to buy a hot dog?”.
And now, ladies and gentlemen… the living embodiment of failing everything when designing a villain… behold the lameness of Master Hand:
Yes.
That is an orange-skinned Japanese man with stereotypical moustaches, wearing a samurai armor, with one hand replaced by a katana and another with a prosthetic hook.
And is motivation is that he wants all “western trade and influence” to leave Japan in a month.
Because he’s holding one teacher hostage. ONE.
So, uhm, yeah. In addition to having a lame and blatantly racist design, Master Hand is kind of an idiot.
Fortunately for him, EVERYBODY is an idiot in this series!
While Karate Kid wastes time fighting cops, we learn the full origin of Master Hand… which is probably even more jaw-dropping that you imagined.
Let’s start with the fact that he was born without hands… not exactly the best representation you could give to people with birth defects, but okay, different times.
But he’s also a samurai?
I’m no expert on the matter, but a quick check tells me that the samurai were outlawed in the 1870s. There was a social class composed of former samurai… but even that was abolished in 1947.
Now, I could excuse this by saying that Master Hand is just a descendant of samurai and he got into his head that if he had hands he could’ve been one… but I’ve already given this comic WAY more thought than the actual writer.
Continuing our trend of Karate Kid ignoring the fact that he has no powers: he hitches a ride on a helicopter and just jumps on top of the building.
No wonder Michelinie will end up writing a lot of Spider-Man: he was already writing Karate Kid as if he WAS Spider-Man!
And of course it wouldn’t be an issue of Karate Kid if he didn’t waste some time fighting some stereotypical henchmen.
And speaking of stereotypes: OF COURSE the comic with a fight between the Asian villain and the half-Asian hero hinges on talking about honor.
I would say that the actual fight is very disappointing… if I had any faith in this series, because this boring stuff is exactly what I expected.
Karate Kid even stops Master Hand from committing suicide after his defeat.
And so, because this comic actively hates me, we end with New York City deputizing Karate Kid as a police officer.
How desperate is the police if they deputize the first superhero they meet?
Historical significance: 0/10
Master Hand will prove surprisingly popular, becoming a recurrent villain of… you didn’t fall for it, right? DESERVEDLY forgotten.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
