Issue(s): Hero For Hire #13
Cover Date: Sep 73
Title: "The claws of Lionfang"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Writer
Billy Graham - Penciler
Billy Graham - Inker

Review/plot:
I was all set to hate this one. I mean, the cover has a dude named Lionfang, in a witchdoctor's mask, zapping Luke Cage and sending great cats after him. Lionfang looks like a character that might appear in a really bad Black Panther story; what in the world is he doing fighting Luke Cage?

But i actually found myself intrigued by the story. The villain is really a school teacher, Alejandro Cortez, that had developed a super-science way of teaching children, by actually transferring his own brainwaves to his students. But when the city cut off his funding, he went crazy, moved to the Madison Square Garden circus, and started transferring his mind to lions and tigers and such instead, which he then used to kill the city official who made the decision. When Cage is hired by the mayor to investigate, they attack him as well.

And they can kinda talk (Cage describes it as "growling out words"), which is creepy.

Now i grant you, the guy is still pretty silly.

But as Cage thinks to himself, if Lionfang can transfer people's minds, he had potential to be a lot worse. It's like the circus obsession was his downfall.

Lionfang seemingly dies in this story (much later, Scourge will claim to have killed him or possibly another using the same name, and much much later Alejandro will actually return, in a wheelchair).

Cage is pretty shaken up by the death until he realizes that Lionfang was doing his best to kill him.

One thing that got my nerd goat up was that when the cats first attack, their claws are covered in poison, and Cage has to crawl his way to Burstein's clinic to get fixed up. There's nothing that explains how the cats were able to pierce Cage's steel-hard skin.

Phil Fox shows up while Cage is at the clinic to prolong the agony around the fact that he knows that Cage is an escaped con.

The issue is also improved by the return of Billy Graham on art, after several issues of Tuska's sketchiness. Looking at it objectively, though, i think this story wins thanks to my initial low expectations.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Suddenly I sort of wonder what would have happened if this guy showed up a few years earlier and gotten in partnership with the Ringmaster. Would have lasted longer than he did here...I mean that was when circuses were more powerful than crime lords!

I wonder if "invents mind transfer device", "gets rejected" and"goes crazy" is actually "invents mind transfer device", "using the mind transfer makes him crazy", and "crazy making mind transfer device is rejected". Makes more sense that way.

There's still more awesome circus mayhem to come; this guy just had crappy timing! Also, I have developed a mind transfer device and been rejected am and fine, so I reject that theory!

And soon the world will tremble before: RINGOR AND HIS SINISTER CIRCUS OF SNAILS!