Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Degraded Hands of the Illustrious and Superlative Fu Chang... International Detective's Enemies!

Sorry for the late post, my lovelies!  But it'll be worth it because today we take a look at...


And since this is Pep Comics, you know we're going to get a paragraph's worth of origin:


Did you get all that?  If so, can you explain it to me?

It seems like they probably could have milked a whole story out of that paragraph, but Pep Comics apparently doesn't believe in origin issues.

Apparently, there were two kinds of Asians back in the Golden Age:


Near-Caucasian, and Neon Yellow.  I guess that's how you could tell a good Asian from an evil Asian, because it seems that they were color-coded, at least in the world of Fu Chang... International Detective.

It kind of surprised me that they got away with this story.  Apparently, tapping in to the magic of the chess pieces involved idol-worship:


My parents would have blown a gasket.  And just to make sure we're clear, let's call the idol a graven image:


Yeah, there you go.  Wow.  Try getting away with that these days.  There would be some Fundamentalist watchdog group all over that.  I'm probably inviting a boycott just re-presenting it.

Anyway, the first case of Fu Chang... International Detective was pretty standard stuff other than the ability to bring chess pieces to life and have them run around and do little errands for him.  And, of course, we have to end with the hero being completely subservient to the damsel in distress:


I don't know if anything became of the Illustrious and Superlative Fu Chang... International Detective and Tay Ming, but Jay Garrick never licked Joan's boots like that back in the 40's and they're still married to this day.  Watch and learn, my friends.

See you tomorrow!



3 comments:

MarvelX42 said...

Did the chess pieces stay tiny? Did they remain whatever material they were made of or did they turn to flesh and blood?

Adam Barnett said...

I don't know about material, but the chess piece (only one was used in this story) did remain the same size. After all, a chess piece that comes to life at the behest of a dead relative getting larger would be silly ;-)

MarvelX42 said...

Of course.