Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Karate Kid's 70s series

I have finally, FINALLY finished the retrospective on the 70s Karate Kid and holy crap, what a sprocking disaster that was.
My headcanon now says that this series must be the reason why Keith Giffen hates Karate Kid. Because as a fan of the actual Karate Kid, this series is just unbearable.

Here it is:
https://comicsarcheology.com/index.php/legion-of-super-heroes-retrospective/karate-kid/

KK is out of character to the point of near complete character assassination. The stories are either utterly bonkers or incredibly boring.
Honestly I can see where it could have worked: make up a convincing excuse for why Karate Kid is in the past, push the "fish out of water" angle, make him fight a couple of interesting villains, put him on a personal journey... it shouldn't be that hard!
Instead the reason he's there makes no sense, the fact that he's from the future is barely used, his villains are some of the worst I've ever seen, and he doesn't grow as a character at all... he's constantly whining, he's randomly aggressive, and most damning of all nearly all fights are incredibly disappointing.

The only positive is that some issues are a riot in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. To the point I gave #2 and #11 the rare "Silver Age-ness" score of infinity out of ten.

No wonder it's barely mentioned at all in the regular series! At least we will always have the scene of Karate Kid stopping AND REVERSING a freaking earthquake with a single kick.

But other than that... while there are other pieces of Legion history that get a more negative reaction from me, from a quality standpoint there is no doubt for me that these are simply THE. WORST. comic books connected to the Legion to ever be published.

What do you guys think?

What do you think of the Karate Kid series? single choice
	Never heard of it / never read it
	It's not THAT bad
	You just made me remember it and now I need therapy
	THE. WORST.
	It's my favorite Legion story (you must be Mordru / Time Trapper)
	I am Keith Giffen and your headcanon it totally correct
Votes accepted starting: 11/10/21 02:21 AM
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I read it on comixology at some point to try and get a handle on Iris Jacobs because I use her in my fanfic and....it is not good at all lol

I can see why one would want to write her: she was pretty much dead weight in the beginning, since they don't commit to the idea of a love triangle and she comes off like a stalker, but her transformation into Diamondeth had some potential to do at the very least some "am I a woman or a monster" type stories.
But it comes too late for them to do anything with it, not to mention they gave her the name "Diamondeth" which is even more 90s than 90s codenames... in the 70s.

For Spider-Man fans, Iris Jacobs is "What if Mary Jane and Debra Whitman were the same person and she acted like 60s Lois Lane".

I've only read about 3 issues of this.

Any thoughts about them?

I have fond memories of the issue where he meets and battles Superboy.

I'm pretty sure there's another one I owned as a kid, but I can't think what it is.

And I know the first issue from the Archives, but it just seemed like a bit of a mess.

You're lucky, that's one of the few I would call passable. The whole point of the story is a little forced... I mean I get Karate Kid not realizing that this is a Superboy from before they met, but once the rest of the Legion show up with the costumes of the Hamilton era it should've been obvious to a time traveler... but it's the first time in the series where Karate Kid manages to do something legitimately cool for a couple of panels.


I still can't believe Levitz wrote that one (or that Michelinie wrote the worst ones).

lol this is so true though

I have the complete series (unfortunately) and did a review thread of it here on LW a few years ago. I'd share a link, but I'm not sure where our search feature has disappeared to.

HWW's Karate Kid series review

Better than the Timber Wolf series, IMO.
One wonders how they might write it today. Maybe send him back to the Golden Age with all the complications of World War II for a half-Japanese person in America.

Thanks for sharing the link, Cramey.

I think it would be an interesting premise if Val experienced what Japanese Americans experienced during WWII.

This leads me to wonder: If a Legion-related character were to land in the present day, in the midst of the pandemic, the most obvious choice would be Infectious Lass!

"Hello 21st century sentients, my name is Infectious Lass and I come from a planet where everyone is super-contagious with every possible disease. I'm going to help you with... wait, why are you running away from me?"

Well, Drura was a bit slow on the uptake.

I've read the series, it was pretty ridiculous at the beginning, but not so terrible after the writers started leaning properly into his 30th-century connections and time travel. It's not the worst solo series starring a Legionnaire, the Timber Wolf mini-series gets that distinction.

Of course, then Drura would just somehow have the exact microbe needed to kill the coronavirus...

Just wait until she sics the Venturan ringworm on it...

Honestly, the worst part for me was the weird love triangle they tried to force in. Val was in the past to prove he?s worthy of marrying Jeckie. And then he catches feelings for a random girl? Iris acting like a jealous child whenever Projectra is mentioned just grated on me.

Her entire character grated on me, really.

I have tried to read the series through a couple of times but I get so bored and underwhelmed that I just stop. Maybe I will have to have another go, knowing that it's nothing great but hearing that there is some (minor) improvement as it goes on.

Yeah, I find it hard to believe that it's worse the the Timber Wolf series.

He never had or showed any feelings for Iris. She was falling for him, but he was only ever in love with Projectra.

That makes Iris an even weirder character: she basically volunteers to be a human guinea pig to impress a guy who has never shown interest in her and who she knows has a girlfriend.
She doesn't even know the experiment is going to give her super-powers but thinks that's going to make Karate Kid choose her instead of the superhero princess that he loves.
Come to think of it, if they pushed the angle "she's a superhero stalker" then Iris could've been interesting.

I haven't read that one. The consensus seems to be that it's much worse than the Karate Kid one so I suspect there isn't even the "so bad it's good" redeeming factor, isn't it ?

I just realized: is Karate Kid the first biracial superhero ever? Not counting fictional races (otherwise it'd probably be Namor) and not counting retcons?