And we have arrived. The first issue of the spin-off series Karate Kid, coming right off the heels of Kung-Fu Mania that was taking the country, and dare I say the world, by storm.

But Karate Kid #1 is very special for another reason. Paul Levitz makes his first appearance writing the beloved team that is the Legion of Super-Heroes. Levitz would go on and make quite a mark on the Legion of Super-Heroes for more than a decade. His contribution and how much he means to the series cannot be expressed in mere words, so I won’t even bother to try. But this is a momentous occasion and we’re heading into a magical period for these characters.

But I’ve spent enough time being sentimental because Val Armorr is in trouble. How much trouble? Let’s go into our deep state of concentration and find out.

My World Begins in Yesterday

Karate Kid and Nemesis Kid are in a fierce battle. Karate Kid is attempting to pierce NK’s force shield and just manages to exert enough pressure for it to crackle and finally to KBLAM! The explosion hurls the two warriors backward but it hurts Karate Kid more than Nemesis Kid who was able to to quickly switch on his super-powered ability to absorb the blast.

But KK quickly rebounds and locks onto Nemesis Kid once more, until a Time Bubble appears. Knowing that Karate Kid’s compatriots have arrived, Nemesis Kid quickly teleports away leaving Karate Kid to welcome his friends.

Sure enough, Lightning Lad, Mon-El, Saturn Girl, and Brainiac 5 explode out of the Bubble and to Karate Kid’s aid. Or so they thought, because Karate Kid tells them it was his battle and he had Nemesis Kid right where he wanted him until they arrived.

Brainy disagrees and tells him cooly that his computer brain calculated the odds of him defeating Nemesis Kid to be quite negligible. Karate Kid will have none of it and confronts Brainy to remind him that it was his mistake that caused Nemesis Kid to flee to the 20th Century in the first place. After their last battle (as recounted in issue #208, where this humble writer expressed this to be Cary Bates best story up to now) the special cell that he constructed for Nemesis Kid was flawed. And it allowed NK to transport back to the past before the cell was built and escape.

And the after image he left fooled them all for a greater part of the year. But before he can chide Brainy further, he’s hit with a lightning blast from Lightning Lad breaking up the confrontation. LL reminds KK that it was him who charged off to the 20th century after receiving the challenge from Nemesis Kid through the Legion communications systems.

But Karate Kid rebounds and delivers a swift kick to Lightning Lad reminding him who is the greatest martial artists that ever lived. Mon-El quickly interjects and as acting Team Leader he orders Karate Kid to pick Lightning Lad up and go with him back to the 30th Century in the time bubble.

Karate Kid then starts to deliver a series of blows to Mon-El, knowing full well that nothing will be able to harm him. Mon-El gives up and says if he can’t listen to reason he can stay here. They will simply go back to the 30th Century waiting for his call for help, which will surely come.

Karate Kid replies that Mon-El that couldn’t possibly understand the emotions of fear and pride, since nothing can hurt him. The team turns their back on a furious Karate Kid and enter the time bubble and take their leave. Mon-El is furious but Saturn Girl tells him he does have a point. It’s difficult to understand the fears of normal humans and it must also be difficult for Karate Kid. Lightning Lad agrees and also doubts he’ll be able to handle a mission on Earth that existed a thousand years before he was born.

And sure enough, we return to Karate Kid who is having some difficulties explaining to a couple of New York Police Officers just what he is doing there. Thinking that he’s a member of some sort of movie making team, Sgt. O’Connor asks KK to point him to the movie director. Apologizing, Karate Kid takes off with the aid of his Legionnaire flight ring, leaving a couple of bewildered cops behind.

However, he immediately experiences trouble and just manages to grab hold of the side of a building before he crashes to the ground. His Legion flight ring must have been damaged during the fight with Nemesis Kid. Seeing an open window, he enters, scaring a lady inside who asks him how he could possibly be outside the window which is three stories up. Karate Kid apologizes and throws away his flight ring but assures her it’s no gimmick.

She introduces herself as Iris Jacobs and she’s a teacher at the school he managed to intrude on. She is very inquisitive and continues to ask him questions about who he is. He says he’s a visitor and this is also a strange place to him. They arrive at the elevator and she insists on accompanying him because she’s interested in what someone like him could be looking for.

He reassures her there is nothing much to see, but a simple glass bubble containing his belongings. But as he enters the room where he had left his Time Bubble he sees that it has vanished! And there’s only one person who could’ve done something like that. Nemesis Kid!

Sure enough he sees that Nemesis Kid left something. He picks it up and discovers it to be a chronal energy detector. But why would he leave something that can be used to find him? It must be a trap.

Karate Kid spins around and asks Iris if there’s an air-car that can take him to where Nemesis Kid is surely located. She doesn’t know what an air-car is but she does have a bus token he can use.

Later, Karate Kid finds himself in a bus and hopes it’s going in the right direction. As he takes in the surrounding environment he almost misses an individual carrying a 30th Century blaster. Doing a double take, Karate Kid explodes his way out of the bus to confront the man who shoots the blaster at him.

Karate Kid easily dodges the blast and delivers and kicks the blaster out of his hands, grabs his arms and forces him to the ground, knocking him out. He picks up the weapon and sees the words Futuretech inc. branded on the weapon. So this is what Nemesis Kid has been up to for the past year in the 20th Century He’s manufacturing futuristic weapons. Karate Kid later arrives at Futuretech’s headquarters hoping for a confrontation.

Sure enough checking the chronal energy reader, he gives the locked doors a swift Karate chop before deciding on a mighty kick that blasts the solid quartz doors into oblivion.

Entering, Karate Kid sees a band of goons in front of him, all brandishing weapons, ready to fight him at the same time. The first two attack and Karate Kid makes quick work of them. The rest join in and he demonstrates how he has mastered all forms and styles of martial arts. And why he is named Val Armorr, the Karate Kid!

With the goons nothing more than a pile of unconscious villains, he walks to the elevator and forces the doors open. Knowing that Nemesis Kid probably has more traps in store for him, he decides to go up the elevator shaft himself to give an element of surprise. However he is quickly confronted with an array of laser beams that start zigging and zagging their way across the shaft. Seeing a pattern, Karate Kid times his jump well and manages to dodge the beams. He doesn’t come out totally unscathed as one brushes his toes but his strict discipline allows him to control and ignore the pain.

He continues and sees that there are no more traps so he must be close to his quarry. He kicks his way to the next room and sees that it is empty. Not impressed, he decides to go straight up, and delivers a mighty punch to the ceiling.

Crawling out of his newly made hole, he finds Nemesis Kid standing before him with computer terminals all around him. NK tells him he is saddened that his carefully laid traps didn’t destroy him, but at least he can attend to Karate Kid’s death personally.

Nemesis Kid uses his power to turn his body to steel and hurls a terminal at Karate Kid who manages to dodge. He lifts the floor panel right from under NK, tripping him as well as destroying his computer terminals in the process. Karate Kid wastes no time and quickly tackles him.

But Nemesis Kid is quick. He catches Karate Kid in mid-air and then manages to throw him out of the window. But Karate Kid contorts his body in mid-air and sends his twisting toes slamming into the concrete wall, uses the wall as support, and then flips himself back into the room.

Nemesis Kid is shocked, he thought his Legionnaire Flight Ring was destroyed. But Karate Kid reminds him that Legionnaires don’t have to rely on their toys and can show more determination than that. He tries to tackle Nemesis Kid again but NK manages to wiggle away, and then switches his power to nuclear power and starts blasting his own headquarters. Karate Kid dodges each blast, using his speed and mobility to get closer, until he delivers a mighty kick right to Nemesis Kid’s jaw.

He picks up an unconscious Nemesis Kid and finds his time bubble. He places Nemesis Kid inside and is about to enter himself when he hesitates. Karate Kid realizes that he really enjoyed this mission and that he has been missing this feeling for a long time. And there’s more of this time to explore and maybe this is where he belongs.

He takes out a piece of paper and places a note on Nemesis Kid for his fellow Legionnaires to find when he sends Nemesis Kid back to the 30th century without him.

“Staying in the 20th Century till I find myself. And as my fellow 20th Century-types are quoted as saying–don’t call me, I’ll call you! -KK”

Creative Team

What makes Karate Kid quite exciting is that we basically have a second Legion of Super-Heroes book. When I analyze this first issue I do have to weigh it and determine whether or not it is worthy enough to be included in the incredibly rich lore of the LSH. Additionally, the reason this book exists, I would argue, is because martial arts films were now incredibly popular, especially among the age range that this book caters to. So how does it add up as a martial arts book?

I’m very happy to say that Karate Kid #1 fulfills both of these requirements.

Levitz drops us in the middle of a battle taking place and he brings us on Karate Kid’s journey, allowing us to catch up as we go. I’m personally a fan of this type of storytelling and Levitz gives us a taste of things to come.

What makes the book also stand out is that we’re staying true to the character. Shooter created him and as we saw in a backstory in Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #210, The Lair of the Black Dragon, Karate Kid can be a bit of a loner and Levitz stays true to this. By the end of this first issue, when he leaves his fellow Legionnaires a note stating that he needs to find himself, it’s completely believable. In fact, if you think of all the individual Legionnaires, as they have been developed thus far, Karate Kid is probably the only one that would want to go it alone. And this is important because Levitz uses a rationale for the reason this book exists and shows that he cares about these characters and doesn’t talk down to the audience.

I will admit that I’m not too familiar with Ric Estrada’s work (that I know of), but I’m really thrilled to get a good introduction here. With a book about Karate Kid you do expect a lot of kicking, punching, and a variety of martial arts techniques, form, and moves and he delivers it here. It does not disappoint as a stand-alone martial arts book and can easily stand up to all the ones that were making an appearance at this time.

Joe Staton is always a joy and his early work is so nice to re-experience. It was really interesting to see how he contributes and compliments Estrada’s layouts (details below), and this team of artists proves that everyone involved at the time wanted to make this spin-off series a success.

So I’m all in. I’m very curious on how they will weave the two books together (if at all) and whether or not Karate Kid will continue to make an appearance in the main series. But with Levitz, Estrada and Staton on this book, it’s an incredible time to be a fan of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Letter’s Page

This being the first issue we do not have a letter’s page but we do have a page titled The Story Behind The Story, giving us some juicy tidbits on the history behind this book. And it’s written by Paul Levitz.

First, Levitz attributes the book to Jim Shooter, who at the age of 13, sent in his first script to Adventure Comics’ editor Mort Weisinger that appeared in print shortly after Shooter’s birthday. This story was “One Of Us Is a Traitor” and it appeared in Adventure Comics #346. This introduced four new Legionnaires: Ferro Lad, Princess Projectra, and you guessed it, Karate Kid and Nemesis Kid.

He goes on to talk about comic book writers at the time and how Shooter broke the mold of the industry being dominated by mainly older writers. If it wasn’t for Shooter then perhaps the ability of younger writers being able to dominate the industry at the time wouldn’t have occurred. Also, he recalls reading this issue in May of 1966 that inspired himself to become a writer.

It’s a really nice tribute to Shooter, who, as we know, is currently the main writer on the main series we are covering.

In addition, he thanks Murray Boltinoff who brought the series back to prominence after Mort Weisinger let it slide in sales before his retirement. This was an interesting dig at Weisinger, who some say was controversial in his own right in particular how he treated artists and writers under his domain.

Interestingly, Levitz directly credits the colorist, Carl Gafford, who initially suggested that Karate Kid should get his own series, citing the popularity of the Legion of Super-Heroes combined with the growing popularity of marital arts films. Carmine Infantino had the last word and told them to set it in the 20th Century and here we are.

Ric Estrada was chosen because he proved his work on Kung Fu Fighter and experience with depictions of the necessary movements of martial artists. And I suppose they wanted to give an up and coming unknown artist by the name of Joe Staton a shot. I love finding well known artists’ origin stories.

We then see an example of Ric Estrada’s layouts and then Joe Staton’s finishes. Unfortunately my personal copy has more or less a grade of ‘fine’ so taking a picture and posting it here wouldn’t do it justice, but it is interesting to see the process at this point in time.

Finally, we end on a call for letters for this new book as well as plug in for the current ongoing series called, Superboy AND the Legion of Super-Heroes! Now, people would simply gaze over this but as I’m covering this series we know that it’s actually Superboy STARRING the Legion of Super-Heroes at this point. Levitz made the same mistake when the book first came out way back in issue #197, which we also covered. So to me this is just further proof that the series was meant to be called this way all also, and definitely internally. If this is trivial to you it doesn’t matter because at least I find this interesting!

Super-Karate Hour

Since we are using the Legion Medallion of Merit for the main series, I decided to think of another naming for the moment/award that happens in each issue. And I’ve settled on the Super-Karate Hour that reflects our beloved Karate Kid who employs ‘Super-Karate’ and a neat little phrase that was used in the 70’s.

It was very difficult to find that one moment in this first issue because Levitz, Estrada and Staton just filled this one with action packed moments. But after much meditation, our Super-Karate Hour goes to that crazy moment when Karate Kid is catapulted out of the window by Nemesis Kid. He calmly soars through the air, twists his body, plants his feet on the side of the building and flips his way back into the room to take down Nemesis Kid once and for all. I think this should be the official entry in every dictionary/encyclopedia answering the question what is the opposite of defenestration.

And there we have it folks, our first issue of Karate Kid and the first spin-off series in the bag. May your journey be soft and your mind clear as we battle our way through this crazy thing called life. And as always…

Long Live the Legion!