(I originally read these comics in late July 2015)
I'm a Chuck Norris fan and I'm a Steve Ditko fan and I ain't even gonna apologise. "Sorry, not sorry," as the kids say.
Based on a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon, this series sees '80s action man Chuck lead his team of Karate Kommandos through various innocuous adventures. The Kommandos are comprised of Chuck, Chuck's moustache, sumo wrestler Tabe, samurai Kimo, teenage brother and sister Reed and Pepper, and irritating kid sidekick 'Too Much.' (Yes, he is.)
The first three issues are clearly pitched at a very young age group, like all of Marvel's Star Comics line. Mary Jo Duffy provides simple plots and Steve Ditko phones it in, permitting a different inker each issue to embellish his pencils with varying success. In the first issue, ninja terrorists the Cult of the Klaw invade Too Much's classroom in order to gain possession of a government super weapon. In the second, the Kommandos protect a supercomputer, the 'Banana 7000' (erm, okay), from Klaw thieves (and Ditko provides a Betty Brant-alike to assist them - both the thieves and then the Kommandos - while making suitably melodramatic hand gestures). The third issue is a change of pace as sumo Tabe relates three apocryphal tales of how he might have first met Chuck.
Duffy and Ditko are suddenly gone come issue # 4, and Howard Mackie and Alex Saviuk open up the comic for a legit action movie scenario. The plot's a degree more complex and the art a few degrees more realistic. Maybe Chuck wasn't a Ditko fan? In which case, I'm gonna say it: fuck Chuck.
Yeah, come get me.
Yeah, come get me.
...I get the feeling this cartoon stars Chuck Norris.
