Deploys martial arts as a lens to analyze performance, power, and identity within the evolving fusion of Black and Asian American cultures in history and media.

Black Dragon recounts the experience of a single Marine rifle company—2-F-23, or “Fox” Company—and its drive through the central Pacific in World War II. Author Steven D. McCloud, through painstaking research of battlefield reports and extensive interviews with surviving members of Fox Company, has reanimated the grueling, day-by-day slog through the Pacific theater through the eyes of the US Marines who endured it. This is the story of American teenagers who left home, many for the first time, trained together, and formed a team that held strong until, at last, those who survived tried to leave it all behind as they dispersed, returned home, and sought to build their lives. Decades later, Fox Company re-formed through correspondence and reunions and also welcomed McCloud into their midst by telling him their stories. McCloud took notes, chased down company reports and other documents to fill in the gaps, and carefully reconstructed their journey. As one member of Fox Company recalled after returning to Iwo Jima half a century later, “I think the pilgrimage to Iwo has helped me conquer my black dragons—those bloody and stinking nightmares that made nightly uninvited visits for fifty-six years. My dreams were in color, predominantly bloody red. Those remaining are in black and white and shades of gray, not so violent and stinking. These I can live with.” Readers who reveled in Stephen Ambrose’s masterful oral history of E Company in the European theater will find similar heroism and heartbreak in the pages of Black Dragon.

This illustrated book treats the history of the piano from its invention in 1700 to the present in terms of its technology. Looking at the technologies of design, materials, and manufacture, and focusing its description on specific existing pianos, it describes the changes in pianos from the earlist days to contemporary instruments.

When the millennia-old sorceress Hagala claws her way back to the world that cast her out, she vows that this time she won't return alone. She unleashes monstrous dragons and seeks to summon an abominable deity. For this, she requires the Key. Consumed by the bitterness of unrequited love and centuries of exile, she feels utterly hollow. Thus, she vows to wreak vengeance upon the world and the treacherous souls who turned their backs on her. Upon learning of Hagala's return and her formidable power, a conclave of powerful figures realizes they must unite to thwart her apocalyptic designs. They must seize the Key before she does. Yet, the gods weave their own sinister plots, placing the fate of the world in the hands of unsuspecting mortals enmeshed in this colossal struggle. Four orphans, bound by a deep and grim kinship, return to their childhood home, unaware of the dark confrontation that awaits them. There, their destinies begin to unravel through alliances and enmities, potent sorcery, ancient dragons, and forbidden loves. They are forced to make harrowing choices between love and dominion. Can victory in a knightly tournament stave off a cataclysmic destruction of the kingdom? Or is an even greater sacrifice demanded?

When Saba Watanabe, a once-powerful witch, is attacked by white dragons in human form, she is forced to turn to Malcolm, a black dragon who once made her his love slave, and together they must search for a mysterious book, filled with profound secrets, that is the key to their survival. Original

Blinded by grief and rage, Conan the king has let matters of state fall by the wayside as he mourns the apparent death of his son and heir, Conn. The barbarian king's erratic behavior and the void of leadership is troubling, but where some see a kingdom on the brink of chaos, others see an opportunity to seize the moment and pull the reins of power from the preoccupied monarch's hands. Dead hands, that is! Collects Conan the King #21-#25. * Featuring early work of superstar artist Marc Silvestri.

The Sergeant at Arms heads the MC's accountability system, administers the bylaws, ensures the fairness of trials, fines and sanctions, establishes safe environments for the full patched brothers, provides physical security for the President and is the War Chief of the MC!