Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1-4
Originally released in 2014
Written by Mike Benson
Art by Tan Eng Huat
My reason for choosing to read this is a little odd. Last night, I was watching Friday the 13th Part 3 for the first time when I noticed that, in a scene in a convenience store, an issue of "Master of Kung Fu" (the series that Shang Chi starred in) was in the background. I wanted to read that issue, but most of the series wasn't on Marvel Unlimited - Marvel no longer had the rights to Fu Manchu, who was Shang-Chi's father. (I think they get around it in modern comics by having his father use a pseudonym) However, it still got me wanting to read a Shang-Chi comic, so I picked a more recent mini-series that starred him.
A former lover of Shang-Chi's, Leiko Wu, is murdered by Razorfist, a villain who defines "crippling overspecialization". (he had both of his hands replaced with large blades - great for fighting, but it makes picking things up, eating, or practicing proper hygiene incredibly difficult) After her funeral, Shang-Chi claims that a mind clouded by revenge and anger will become blinded by it, and yet he finds himself drawn to London, where Leiko was killed.
He discovers that Leiko was killed at the orders of a crime lord known as the White Dragon, though while searching for the White Dragon, Razorfist manages to track him down. Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, who had been tracking Razorfist, get involved to help Shang-Chi out, and in the ensuing battle, it's discovered that the White Dragon's forces are meddling with black magic. Misty and Colleen investigate the magic, while Shang says he'll keep a low profile.
Things get complicated when it turns out that White Dragon has a mysterious partner whose features are completely hidden from the audience. Between that and White Dragon having a mask that completely conceals his face, I expected that one of them would either be Shang-Chi's father or Leiko Wu (expecting that she faked her death for whatever reason). That didn't turn out to be the case.
With the help of a former enemy named Skull-Crusher, who makes wild baseless claims like saying that Leiko Wu fell madly in love with him to the point of leaving MI-6 to be with him and his gang, Shang-Chi infiltrates the White Dragon's stronghold and discovers that the Dragon's mystery partner is Shang's brother, who goes by the codename Midnight Sun. As part of a plot to gain control of China, Midnight Sun needs the heads of various gang leaders, including Skull-Crusher and White Dragon.
Dragon offers his head willingly, while Skull-Crusher isn't so open to the idea, but it turned out that there was a grain of truth to Skull-Crusher's bragging - he and Leiko were in love to the point where he used some kind of magic spell to link their lives together so that when he dies, she is reborn. She's not quite her usual self, though.
I feel like a lot of the dramatic twists and turns would be more effective if I was familiar with Shang-Chi's original comics and knew who these characters were. As it stands, I get what's going on, but it feels like some of the impact is lost on me, and the lack of legal means to read the original comics doesn't help.
Still, even on its own, I enjoyed this mini-series. It has a similar atmosphere to a Bruce Lee movie (though a particularly violent one at times), which makes sense given that Shang-Chi seems to be inspired by him. It does make me wish that those 70s comics were on Marvel Unlimited, though; I'd read good things about them in a book on Marvel history and I wanted to see what they were like.
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