Newsarama announced a few days back that Tamora Pierce, an author known for breaking the gender barrier in sword & sorcery fantasy, will relaunch ’70s martial arts hero White Tiger in an upcoming limited series.
The White Tiger is another obscure character near and dear to the Fortress Keeper’s heart. Although firmly rooted in the kung-fu fad of the era, the Tiger had a distinctive look that stood out among the scores of Bruce Lee clones littering comics at the time.
Pierce’s series will focus on a female White Tiger who apparently inherited the mantle during Brian Bendis’ run on Daredevil. Happily, however, Pierce does not seem to share that author’s predilection for talking heads.
On the Newsarama site, she is quoted as stating: “You don’t talk about how a person learns to be a superhero. You have to show her learning how to do it. Most of the time, the price of that learning involves a lot of bruises on somebody.”
Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men aside, Marvel’s core titles have been a pretentious mess for the past few years. However, their treatment of slightly more obscure characters - such as She-Hulk, The Defenders, Madrox and The Runaways - has been stellar.
Given that White Tiger probably won’t be required to cross over into a long, drawn-out “Crisis in Civil Liberties” mega-series, Pierce’s stories should be worth checking out.
