Summary

• Comic Book legends can take inspiration from obscure characters, like how Iron Fist's dragon tattoo pays homage to Bulls Eye's branding.
• Roy Thomas and Gil Kane brought Iron Fist to life by blending elements from Amazing-Man and Bulls Eye, showcasing the essence of comic creation.
• The legacy of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's short-lived Bulls Eye character lives on through its influence on iconic superheroes like Iron Fist.

Welcome to the 923rd installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the second legend of this all-Iron Fist installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn which obscure Western superhero was an inspiration for a significant part of Iron Fist's iconic design.

Something I've always been annoyed at is when people will hear about a new comic book, and say something derisive, like, "Oh, so it's Comic Book X mixed with Comic Book Y," as if that's somehow a putdown. You know, "Oh, that's not interesting, since it is just two established concepts mixed together." That annoys me because, well, THAT'S HOW WRITING WORKS. Comic Book X mixed with Comic Book Y is, in and of itself, a completely independent concept. It is not Comic Book X. It is not Comic Book Y. It is this NEW THING that is a mixture of two different concepts. It might not be good on its own merits, but to try to dismiss it because it's based on something existing is just so foolish to me. Imagine being the dude (and you know there was a dude) who was all, "Pshaw, this is just Seven Samurai in a galaxy far, far away. Pass."

I bring this up to note that one of the interesting things to me, though, is when one of the ingredients behind an iconic comic book characters is NOT that well-known, to the point of being truly obscure. That's the case of this legend, where Roy Thomas found inspiration in a fascinating place for a major design element of the famous Marvel superhero, Iron Fist. That place? A short-lived Jack Kirby and Joe Simon Western superhero named Bulls Eye.

Who was the Jack Kirby and Joe Simon Western superhero, Bulls Eye?

Launched in 1954, Bulls Eye (they call him Bullseye inside the comic book itself, so I don't know what to call him) was a Jack Kirby and Joe Simon production, with the first issue being a case of Kirby penciling the first chapter (and then the splash pages of the other two chapters) and John Prentice inking Kirby's pages, and then penciling and inking the rest of the comic book by himself...

The comic book introduced the origin of Bulls Eye/Bullseye, whose family was slaughtered in a raid, with only his grandfather, Deadeye, and the infant who became Bulls Eye escaping...

Deadeye then trains his grandson to become the world's greatest marksman...

It's interesting to note that Kirby didn't create Hawkeye for Marvel, as he sure seems to be along the same lines, right?

Well, anyway, the tribe that wiped out Bulls Eye and Deadeye's family returns, and this time, they kill Deadeye, and after Bulls Eye shows off his shooting skills, they decide not to kil him, but to instead brand him, so that he can be killed later, when he is an adult. So he is branded with a target for later. This, naturally, messes with the kid's head a bit, and he lives a pretty reckless life as a teenager...

However, by the time he reaches adulthood, he settles down, and becomes a hero...

It's really a very well done comic book series, but sadly, it was short-lived, and only ran seven issues. However, it was a good enough series that it was remembered by Roy Thomas twenty years later!

How did Bulls Eye help inspire a major element of Iron Fist?

As I noted in part one of this installment, when Roy Thomas came up with the idea for a martial arts superhero, he turned to the great Gil Kane to create the character with him. Once Thomas told him the premise of the comic, Kane asked if they could create the hero as a riff on an old Bill Everett superhero that Kane admired called Amazing-Man (Everett had only recently passed away at the time). Thomas agreed, and so Iron Fist's origin was based on a riff on Amazing-Man's origin (which, of course, was a riff on the book and movie, Lost Horizon).

Now, as you may or may not know, Roy Thomas is one of the best comic book historians around, and his love for comics of the past is practically unparalleled, and so when Kane wanted to turn to Amazing-Man for an influence, Thomas also had an idea of turning to an older work for an inspiration. So when he and Kane worked on the design of Iron Fist together, Thomas told Kane that he wanted the character to have a tattoo on his chest, just like Bulls Eye, and so Iron Fist's dragon chest tattoo was born, as seen in February 1974's Marvel Premiere #15 (by Thomas, Kane and inker Dick Giordano)...

It is pretty awesome that comic book creators as iconic as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were so great that even their LESSER known characters (who are downright obscure, really) have had major influences on comic book history, like inspiring a major design element for a notable superhero like Iron Fist.

Check out a TV Legends Revealed!

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Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.