Bruce Lee (1995)

Bruce Lee (1995)

Author: Mike Baron  |  Illustrator: Val Mayerik  |  Page Count: 144

Bruce meets opposition when he opens a Jeet Kune Do martial arts school in America. The muscle-bound antagonists display their prowess in a dick-waving contest that Bruce doesn't lower himself to meet, except when he can teach them a lesson by kicking their steroid-pumped ass with his lightning-fast fists. Afterwards things get serious with murders, shootouts and a ton of other stupid shit happening almost daily.

Eventually the lure of stardom calls to him, and so he must balance a hobnobbing actor's lifestyle with that of a martial arts teacher. But he'll do it because he's a god-dammed real life superhero. At least, that's what the book would like us to believe. At one point he even turns into his Enter the Dragon ninja self, complete with a rope, in his off-screen life! It's plain ridiculous.

The dialogue isn't much better most of the time. It tries to spice things up by dropping in some of Bruce's own philosophy at opportune moments, which was an admirable idea but makes him seem like even more of an arrogant douche than the people he's supposed to be teaching by example.

If you're a Bruce Lee super-fan and derive some pleasure from owning anything even remotely associated with the star then maybe you ought to pick it up, and best of luck to you. If, on the other hand, you like a good story as accompaniment to your show of support then you'd be better off going elsewhere to find it. There's a lot more entertaining Lee stuff out there.

The book collects together all six issues of the 1994 Bruce Lee comic miniseries.