To celebrate the premiere of the new animated feature Batman: Soul of the Dragon (which can be discussed here), I figured it would be a good time to look back on some of the main characters' previous animated appearances. If everything goes according to plan, you might see more threads like this over the next few weeks, but no promises. This thread will focus on Bronze Tiger, one of the top martial arts fighters in the DC Universe.
Admittedly, there's not much to cover here, as the character had only a few appearances in animated projects over the years, but I think there is still enough for a decent sized retrospective. While these articles may not be as detailed or well-written as some of my previous retrospectives (due to various reasons, including but not limited to time constraints), I hope you will still enjoy reading through them. And keep in mind these are just my opinions. Feel free to share your own thoughts, comments or even point out any possible errors in my write-ups below! Most of the images in this thread appear courtesy of The World's Finest and updates will be posted every Tuesday, if all goes well. I have to admit I am a bit behind on all this, I haven't finished writing the second article at the time I am posting this, so there might be a longer break between updates, but I wanted to have something ready for the movie's Digital release.
Bronze Tiger (real name: Benjamin Turner) made his debut in a novel written by Dennis O"Neil and Jim Berry, before making his proper debut in comics in 1975, in the pages of Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter #1 thanks to the team of O'Neil, Berry and Leopoldo Duranona. As a child Ben killed a burglar who attacked his parents (imagine that, Bruce and Barry!), and ever since then tired to control his inner rage. He found studying martial arts could help him and as such years later he finds himself learning from O-Sensei, a master of the martial arts. There he also meets fellow recruit Richard Dragon and the two would later team-up on various missions as part of a secret organization. Eventually Ben would also get mixed-up with the League of Assassins (after his fiance is murdered by one of its members). Ben is also brain-washed and as such joins the League and takes on the persona of the Bronze Tiger. He is eventually retrieved by the Suicide Squad, and joins this team as well. Throughout the years he has also been a part of the Justice League Task Force, making him more of an anti-hero than a villain. Despite not having any super-human powers, his mastery of the martial arts makes him a formidable fighter feared by many.
His first animated appearance was on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, an animated series starring Batman (obviously), based on the comic book series the Brave and the Bold. Produced by James Tucker and Michael Jelenic, this was basically a team-up show, with Batman appearing in every episode alongside various other characters from the DC Universe. It premiered in fall 2008 on the Cartoon Network, and lasted for 65 episodes, and it also received a DTV movie a couple of years ago, in a pretty surprising turn of events. Mostly depicting adventures either adapted or inspired by some of the weirdest comic book stories from the Silver Age of comics, The Brave and the Bold still managed to be a pretty awesome show overall, though the quality of the episodes varies from time to time. I initially didn't really care for the show but I got to admit it did grow on me along the way and all in all I find it very enjoyable. I think it's pretty amazing how many characters they managed to feature throughout the show's run, and pretty much every character that showed up proved to be very entertaining. It was also my introduction to many of the more obscure characters of the DC Universe, some of which I never even heard of before.
Bronze Tiger made his debut during the show's first season, in the episode titled "Return of the Fearsome Fangs!" which premiered in 2009. Here he was voiced by Gary Sturgis and was presented as an old acquaintance of Batman's. Years earlier both Ben Turner and Bruce Wayne trained in the martial arts under the guidance of Master Wong Fei. They both excelled in their studies as did their class-mates and rivals, Fox, Vulture and Shark - a pretty unique take on the somewhat obscure and kind of lackluster team of villains, the Terrible Trio. Ben was a gifted fighter but also a very proud one, who was usually annoyed by Wong Fei's lessons and refused to bow in front of his Master. Eventually, he left the Temple believing he has learned all he needed. In present times, Ben became the protector of a small village in China. As the Bronze Tiger, he enjoyed fighting and defeating all challengers, until Batman shows up asking for his help in protecting Wong Fei's Temple.
The Terrible Trio had murdered their old Master after allying themselves with a Shadow Clan of Ninjas, wishing to obtain a mystical totem from the Temple. Wong Fei's spirit managed to contact Batman and explain the situation to him, and advised him not to bother in reaching out to Bronze Tiger. As one would expect, to make things more interesting and get the story to move along nicely, Batman did seek out Ben's help. But before agreeing to team up, Batman and Bronze Tiger engage in a brief fight, as is often the case in this kind of stories. Batman is seemingly out-matched, but then reveals to Tiger a lesson he missed out on learning after leaving the Temple - "When out-matched, cheat!". I imagine this isn't limited to martial arts, and would work well in just about any other field.
Batman and Bronze Tiger fight the Terrible Trio and their army of shadow ninjas, and have a chance of protecting the mystic Totem but Tiger is more interested in fighting his old rival Fox, and due to his stubbornness the villains manage to get their hands on the Totem. As a result are transformed into creatures based on the masks they were wearing - becoming Fox, Vulture and Shark mutants and obviously getting power boosts at the same time. Fox beats up Tiger a little more but doesn't kill him, letting him live knowing he could have saved the world - and his village - but failed to do so.
With the villains wreaking havoc in Hong Kong, Batman and Bronze Tiger once again try to stop them but the latter seemingly admits he is no match for them. Ben realizes his pride and stubbornness have gotten him into all kinds of trouble and agrees to bow down in front of Fox, if he promises to spare his village. It's not too surprising to see this is all a ruse, an excuse to get close enough to his opponent and kick the Totem from his hands. It's also a nice moment seeing Ben so self-aware, and using the "cheating" lesson he just learned. With the Totem in their possession now, Batman and Tiger also transform into Bat and Tiger creatures respectively, and are now strong enough to win the fight. Their designs look nice, for some reason Bronze Tiger's transformed form reminded me of Rath from the Ben 10 franchise but that could be only because they are both humanoid tigers. Batman's form was reminiscent of Man-Bat, I guess there are only so many ways you could draw a bat-creature. Here the story gets a bit too silly, but it does still have some sort of charm or something, and is pretty entertaining. While Batman is taking care of the shadow ninjas, Bronze Tiger fights Fox in a pretty awesome scene, where he manages to break both his opponent's arms and legs. It was satisfying seeing him settle this score with his long-time rival.
In the end, Bronze Tiger decides to stay at the Temple to keep protecting it, and plans on re-opening its school as well. Batman declares their Master would be honored by all this (but I guess we'll never really know the truth). All seems settled, apart from one minor thing - Batman still owes him a rematch. Sadly we don't get to see this fight, but it is a fun way to end the story. Overall it was an entertaining adventure with a pretty good story-line and some cool and exciting action scenes. The episode played around with some martial arts movie tropes, which is always nice to see. The fight choreography was also well done, which should be the case for all animated martial arts shows. Bronze Tiger was handled pretty well and they did manage to fit in his basic back-story into the episode. I also liked how for a change, the Terrible Trio, or at least Fox had more of a rivalry with him, instead of them being Batman rogues.
Bronze Tiger only had a few other, minor appearances on the show usually being part of an ensemble cast (for example, during Starro the Conqueror's invasion arc). With everything else going on in those episodes, there's really not much to talk about in regards to him. I think I covered his most notable appearance well enough and it's cool the show had at least one episode to spotlight Ben Turner. While the series managed to feature a lot of characters, not all of them received this same treatment. All things considered, I liked Bronze Tiger's portrayal on the show. Seeing him in action was cool, but then there was some character development in there as well, which made things more enjoyable. His design was good, nothing about it really stands out to me, but I did like how his debut episode had three different designs for the character. It would have been nice seeing him have another, larger role on the show. I suppose one could say there wasn't really much more they could do with Ben after this adventure, in regards to his character arc, but even so having him team-up with Batman again for a teaser would have been pretty cool.
Next: Hell to Pay!
Admittedly, there's not much to cover here, as the character had only a few appearances in animated projects over the years, but I think there is still enough for a decent sized retrospective. While these articles may not be as detailed or well-written as some of my previous retrospectives (due to various reasons, including but not limited to time constraints), I hope you will still enjoy reading through them. And keep in mind these are just my opinions. Feel free to share your own thoughts, comments or even point out any possible errors in my write-ups below! Most of the images in this thread appear courtesy of The World's Finest and updates will be posted every Tuesday, if all goes well. I have to admit I am a bit behind on all this, I haven't finished writing the second article at the time I am posting this, so there might be a longer break between updates, but I wanted to have something ready for the movie's Digital release.
Bronze Tiger (real name: Benjamin Turner) made his debut in a novel written by Dennis O"Neil and Jim Berry, before making his proper debut in comics in 1975, in the pages of Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter #1 thanks to the team of O'Neil, Berry and Leopoldo Duranona. As a child Ben killed a burglar who attacked his parents (imagine that, Bruce and Barry!), and ever since then tired to control his inner rage. He found studying martial arts could help him and as such years later he finds himself learning from O-Sensei, a master of the martial arts. There he also meets fellow recruit Richard Dragon and the two would later team-up on various missions as part of a secret organization. Eventually Ben would also get mixed-up with the League of Assassins (after his fiance is murdered by one of its members). Ben is also brain-washed and as such joins the League and takes on the persona of the Bronze Tiger. He is eventually retrieved by the Suicide Squad, and joins this team as well. Throughout the years he has also been a part of the Justice League Task Force, making him more of an anti-hero than a villain. Despite not having any super-human powers, his mastery of the martial arts makes him a formidable fighter feared by many.
His first animated appearance was on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, an animated series starring Batman (obviously), based on the comic book series the Brave and the Bold. Produced by James Tucker and Michael Jelenic, this was basically a team-up show, with Batman appearing in every episode alongside various other characters from the DC Universe. It premiered in fall 2008 on the Cartoon Network, and lasted for 65 episodes, and it also received a DTV movie a couple of years ago, in a pretty surprising turn of events. Mostly depicting adventures either adapted or inspired by some of the weirdest comic book stories from the Silver Age of comics, The Brave and the Bold still managed to be a pretty awesome show overall, though the quality of the episodes varies from time to time. I initially didn't really care for the show but I got to admit it did grow on me along the way and all in all I find it very enjoyable. I think it's pretty amazing how many characters they managed to feature throughout the show's run, and pretty much every character that showed up proved to be very entertaining. It was also my introduction to many of the more obscure characters of the DC Universe, some of which I never even heard of before.

Bronze Tiger made his debut during the show's first season, in the episode titled "Return of the Fearsome Fangs!" which premiered in 2009. Here he was voiced by Gary Sturgis and was presented as an old acquaintance of Batman's. Years earlier both Ben Turner and Bruce Wayne trained in the martial arts under the guidance of Master Wong Fei. They both excelled in their studies as did their class-mates and rivals, Fox, Vulture and Shark - a pretty unique take on the somewhat obscure and kind of lackluster team of villains, the Terrible Trio. Ben was a gifted fighter but also a very proud one, who was usually annoyed by Wong Fei's lessons and refused to bow in front of his Master. Eventually, he left the Temple believing he has learned all he needed. In present times, Ben became the protector of a small village in China. As the Bronze Tiger, he enjoyed fighting and defeating all challengers, until Batman shows up asking for his help in protecting Wong Fei's Temple.
The Terrible Trio had murdered their old Master after allying themselves with a Shadow Clan of Ninjas, wishing to obtain a mystical totem from the Temple. Wong Fei's spirit managed to contact Batman and explain the situation to him, and advised him not to bother in reaching out to Bronze Tiger. As one would expect, to make things more interesting and get the story to move along nicely, Batman did seek out Ben's help. But before agreeing to team up, Batman and Bronze Tiger engage in a brief fight, as is often the case in this kind of stories. Batman is seemingly out-matched, but then reveals to Tiger a lesson he missed out on learning after leaving the Temple - "When out-matched, cheat!". I imagine this isn't limited to martial arts, and would work well in just about any other field.
Batman and Bronze Tiger fight the Terrible Trio and their army of shadow ninjas, and have a chance of protecting the mystic Totem but Tiger is more interested in fighting his old rival Fox, and due to his stubbornness the villains manage to get their hands on the Totem. As a result are transformed into creatures based on the masks they were wearing - becoming Fox, Vulture and Shark mutants and obviously getting power boosts at the same time. Fox beats up Tiger a little more but doesn't kill him, letting him live knowing he could have saved the world - and his village - but failed to do so.
With the villains wreaking havoc in Hong Kong, Batman and Bronze Tiger once again try to stop them but the latter seemingly admits he is no match for them. Ben realizes his pride and stubbornness have gotten him into all kinds of trouble and agrees to bow down in front of Fox, if he promises to spare his village. It's not too surprising to see this is all a ruse, an excuse to get close enough to his opponent and kick the Totem from his hands. It's also a nice moment seeing Ben so self-aware, and using the "cheating" lesson he just learned. With the Totem in their possession now, Batman and Tiger also transform into Bat and Tiger creatures respectively, and are now strong enough to win the fight. Their designs look nice, for some reason Bronze Tiger's transformed form reminded me of Rath from the Ben 10 franchise but that could be only because they are both humanoid tigers. Batman's form was reminiscent of Man-Bat, I guess there are only so many ways you could draw a bat-creature. Here the story gets a bit too silly, but it does still have some sort of charm or something, and is pretty entertaining. While Batman is taking care of the shadow ninjas, Bronze Tiger fights Fox in a pretty awesome scene, where he manages to break both his opponent's arms and legs. It was satisfying seeing him settle this score with his long-time rival.
In the end, Bronze Tiger decides to stay at the Temple to keep protecting it, and plans on re-opening its school as well. Batman declares their Master would be honored by all this (but I guess we'll never really know the truth). All seems settled, apart from one minor thing - Batman still owes him a rematch. Sadly we don't get to see this fight, but it is a fun way to end the story. Overall it was an entertaining adventure with a pretty good story-line and some cool and exciting action scenes. The episode played around with some martial arts movie tropes, which is always nice to see. The fight choreography was also well done, which should be the case for all animated martial arts shows. Bronze Tiger was handled pretty well and they did manage to fit in his basic back-story into the episode. I also liked how for a change, the Terrible Trio, or at least Fox had more of a rivalry with him, instead of them being Batman rogues.

Bronze Tiger only had a few other, minor appearances on the show usually being part of an ensemble cast (for example, during Starro the Conqueror's invasion arc). With everything else going on in those episodes, there's really not much to talk about in regards to him. I think I covered his most notable appearance well enough and it's cool the show had at least one episode to spotlight Ben Turner. While the series managed to feature a lot of characters, not all of them received this same treatment. All things considered, I liked Bronze Tiger's portrayal on the show. Seeing him in action was cool, but then there was some character development in there as well, which made things more enjoyable. His design was good, nothing about it really stands out to me, but I did like how his debut episode had three different designs for the character. It would have been nice seeing him have another, larger role on the show. I suppose one could say there wasn't really much more they could do with Ben after this adventure, in regards to his character arc, but even so having him team-up with Batman again for a teaser would have been pretty cool.
Next: Hell to Pay!