With today’s sketch, I wanted to revisit a couple of subjects I’ve written about recently– mainly my affection for both the LEGION OF SUPERHEROES characters and the artwork of the great Joe Staton. I’ll say up front that KARATE KID was never one of my favorite LEGION characters, but when Joe began working on the KARATE KID ongoing series that DC published in the mid-to-late 1970’s, I certainly bought it. Joe’s work on the book– like all his work– was wonderful. My memories are a bit fuzzy on the details of the title– but I loved Joe’s work on it, as well as the work of Ric Estrada. I seem to remember them trading off or working together or a combination of the two on the book… maybe one of you remembers better than I can. KARATE KID might not have been the most brilliantly written or high-profile comic during that time– but it was fun for a LEGION fan, and the artwork was terrific. I think it spun off of LEGION because of the ever-growing craze for karate and kung fu in the States that was happening at that time. I remember going to a local movie theatre every Saturday for a while to see the new kung fu films they were showing that had been recently imported (which were actually usually years old, but were new to our shores). I had a mania for that kind of thing back then– and the KARATE KID comic fed that appetite.

In trying to find information on Joe’s KARATE KID work online (unsuccessfully)– I came upon a listing for his work with Paul Kupperberg on a DOOM PATROL relaunch they worked on back in 1977. I’ll have to do a sketch and post on that some time soon…. it was something I really enjoyed at the time.

Love me some Joe Staton…..!

OK… that’s it for today.

This is entry 291…. the countdown to 300 begins…!

Mike