Having finished off the jungle girls, the black-and-white venue from which my last post hailed puts me in mind of this two-part adventure of Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, aka "The Daughters of the Dragon," from issues #32-33 of the DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU magazine. In this story the two ladies basically do an ENTER THE DRAGON riff as they invade the island-fortress of evil drug-kingpin Emil Vachon and start kicking butt.
The writer of this two-parter was Chris Claremont. Though he didn't create either member of this salt-and-pepper (hmm-- curry & pepper?) duo, Claremont improved the characterizations of the two females while they served as support-cast in the Claremont/Byrne IRON FIST feature, and so it's fitting that he presides over their first solo flight in their own feature.
Claremont is so often vilified in the fan community for the soap operatics of his X-MEN writing that many fans forget that (a) it was impossible not to write soap-operatically at Marvel when Claremont broke in in the 1970s, and that even Frank Miller did so before forging a different methodology, and (b) Claremont, unlike contemporaries like Gerry Conway and Len Wein, could write pure, balls-to-the-wall action/suspense with a skilled hand. This adventure is one of the best examples of that Claremont-talent.
Though late artist Marshall Rogers wasn't MOST known for his skill at drawing sexy fighting women, he adapts his design-oriented style to the chopsocky subject matter with no small elan. His Colleen is perhaps a trifle baby-faced, but still looks dynamic slicing a man in half with her sword, and his Misty projects a sturdy Foxy Brown toughness.
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