Oh god, not Dragon Man!

From a post: “I'm a 42-year-old engineer who works in a business that sort of defies categorization. Let's call it advertising, though it's advertising-technology-in-a-social-media-sort of way. I am married and have 3 kids.”

Clearly, you were hired to explain difficult concepts. I was able to find your show without any trouble. Unfortunately, you were a minor character on one of the worst shows in all the universes, Dragon Man.

Show: Dragon Man (1949-1956)

Genre: Juvenile / Live Action / Black & White

Your Character: “Akira”, nephew of the superhero Dragon Man

Actor(s): Dragon Man’s niece and nephew were portrayed by Japanese children who were replaced every season. You were played by at least six different actors.

Show Detail: Dragon Man might be considered a cross between Godzilla (who didn’t exist in this universe) and Superman (who did). Toru Tanaka, a Japanese sailor wounded in China during World War II, is revived by a timely blast of radiation. He returns to post-war Tokyo as the eponymous Dragon Man. Like Godzilla, he has fiery radioactive breath. (Alas, he was not 100 feet tall.) Like Superman, he wears a cape, has superhero strength, and can fly.

Your character, Akira, was Tanaka’s pre-adolescent nephew. Along with your little sister, Kayoko (sp?), you were regularly menaced by the villains of the week. You also made hero-worshipping comments about Dragon Man’s abilities or crime-fighting skills.

A typical episode would go like this: Akira and Kayoko are visiting a museum (or picking flowers or buying candy), when they discover a plot to rob the bank! The bad guys lock them in the vault and menace them without mercy. “First we rob bank, then we kill you!”, etc. When the menacing gets to be unbearable, Kayoko looks down at the floor and says, “Oh where is Dragon Man??” Then, the little girl (who up to this point has been fairly nonchalant) starts sobbing. Serious flood of tears. I don’t think she’s acting – I think she’s scared by what’s about to happen.

On cue, Dragon Man bursts through the door. Now, this is where the differences between Superman and Dragon Man really become obvious. Superman would let the bad guys bounce .45’s off of his chest until their fingers got tired. Then he would wrap a steel bar around the criminals and deliver them as a package to the local police. Not Dragon Man. Dragon Man killed people.

A thug on the receiving end of a Dragon Man haymaker never got back up. A lucky criminal might get both arms broken at the elbow. Or Dragon Man might wad him up like a newspaper. That is, if newspapers made the sound of breaking bones. (At this point Akira jumps up and says something like, “Dragon Man has superior strength!!”) If the other criminals don't instantly surrender (amazingly, this happens), Dragon Man calmly scoops up Akira and Kayoko and flies out the window. Then he spews radioactive fire over the entire city block, killing the innocent and guilty alike. More than one show ends with Dragon Man, Kayoko, and Akira standing in front of very realistic scenes of smoking rubble, which I am convinced were just back-projected images of wartime Nagasaki.

I'm not sure what this says about the Japanese in that universe. (Japanese people in OUR universe are very reasonable, by the way.) But if you ever travel to that particular parallel universe -- play it safe. Don't rob any banks.