Like everyone else in the world, I went through a very enthusiastic Bruce Lee phase. Mine was in college. I kept his movies on repeat in my living room. My roommates could walk in at any time and see something new on tv. In retrospect, it was the most coordinated thing I managed in college. A close second was the time I got really into Dance Dance Revolution and had two metal pads for 24/7 action.
I nabbed most of this six-issue Bruce Lee series a year or two ago in a cheap comic grab-bag, and searched for months to find the final couple of books in the series. After months of waiting and searching, the final product was not worth the wait.
I was expecting a semi-true biography of Lee told via the comics medium. What I got instead was some very 1970s-ish grindhouse/exploitation type stories featuring Bruce Lee as a character. He battles a very Chuck Norrisy gym owner who sells drugs out of his dojo. He takes on the Crips. He fights a Mexican cartel. He humbles a movie star that looks suspiciously like Jean Claude Van Damme. He rides jet skis to thwart crimes. He romances many ladies. If the comic had a Black Dynamite tone, I might’ve enjoyed it more. However, as is, I don’t think that I was the target audience.
My favorite part of the comic is the ads. There are a lot of Mortal Kombat ads, both for the videogame and for the comic itself. Malibu came out with several Mortal Kombat comics in the 90s, and some of them are previewed in Bruce Lee. I actually enjoyed the Mortal Kombat pages more than this book. However, these two panels are worth a look:
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