The Coolest Part Of Bruce Lee’s Legacy That Everyone Forgets About

Bruce Lee famously played Kato on The Green Hornet, and this adds one interesting element to his legacy that has not received much attention.

The legacy of Bruce Lee has one curiously overlooked footnote. Long after his unexpected passing in 1973, Bruce Lee stands as one of the biggest martial arts icons of all time. Lee was a martial arts innovator in real life thanks to his eclectic fighting philosophy known as Jeet Kune Do, and he also starred in such acclaimed martial arts classics as Enter the Dragon, The Way of the Dragon, and Fist of Fury.

Bruce Lee also made a foray into the superhero genre with the late 1960s television series The Green Hornet. Lee played the Green Hornet sidekick Kato, and can easily lay claim to being the real star of the show. Though The Green Hornet only ran for one season, Lee’s involvement has made it a timeless cult classic. Somewhat unexpectedly, The Green Hornet also officially made Bruce Lee’s Kato a DC superhero by way of DC’s film and TV multiverse.

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The Green Hornet Crossed Over With Batman

The Adam West-led 1960s Batman TV series made a number of crossovers with The Green Hornet. This began with the Green Hornet and Kato peering out of a window as West’s Batman and Burt Ward’s Robin climbed the side of a building in the episode “The Spell of Tut.” Later, the Green Hornet and Kato returned in the two-part Batman story comprising episodes “A Piece of the Action” and “Batman’s Satisfaction,” which even saw Bruce Lee as Kato fighting Robin.

The Green Hornet and Kato’s appearances on Batman arose as an opportunity to bring the two shows’ audiences together, rather than because the Green Hornet and Kato had any prior history in DC lore. While this makes the Green Hornet-Batman crossovers somewhat odd compared to the kinds of team-ups seen in modern superhero movies and TV shows, it did have the effect of tying Bruce Lee’s onscreen legacy into that of Batman and Robin. Once the idea of DC as a multiverse took off a few decades later, that legacy would expand even more.

Bruce Lee Is Officially Part of DC’s Multiverse

The idea of all DC movies and TV shows co-existing in a multiverse was first introduced in the Arrowverse Crisis On Infinite Earths story. Among the many DC shows and movies to be showcased in the special’s multiverse-based madness was the Adam West Batman universe, appropriately designated as Earth-66, with Burt Ward even making an appearance in the intro to the mini-series. Though neither the Green Hornet nor Kato were actually mentioned in Crisis On Infinite Earths, the crossover officially enshrined Bruce Lee’s Kato in the pantheon of the DC multiverse.

Admittedly, The Green Hornet being canonized within DC’s multiverse is effectively by osmosis due to the show’s Batman crossovers. Even so, Crisis On Infinite Earths has subtly made the enduring impact of The Green Hornet, all five Bruce Lee movies, and Lee’s legacy as a whole that much more profound. Bruce Lee will forever be remembered as a wise philosopher and one of the greatest martial artists to ever live, while also standing alongside the greatest titans of DC’s multiverse through his portrayal of Kato.

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