a fist’s outline inked upon the drawing of a face capital letters exploding in an onomatopoeia as ben-day dots of red ink burst from the nose by 1974 marvel comics had noted a trend for kung fu in popular culture as evidenced by the films of bruce lee and the shaw brothers so marvel acquired intellectual property to capitalise on this fad licensing characters from sax rohmer’s novels about chinese supervillain fu manchu the result was the hands of shang-chi master of kung fu shang-chi is son of fu manchu reared as the perfect kung fu killer he somehow develops a conscience and uses his skills to dismantle his father’s crime empire in east london’s limehouse chinatown there are elements of racial stereotyping in how shang-chi is portrayed his martial arts expertise and penchant for aphoristic wisdom but the comic is still an effective antidote to rohmer’s racist tales since shang-chi and many other chinese characters are unambiguously sympathetic this comic was cancelled in 1983 rohmer’s estate later refused to renew the license now the comics can’t be reprinted and fu manchu can’t appear in new stories shang-chi was an original creation and still guest stars in other comics enjoying science fiction adventures alongside various superheroes alien technology recently gave him the power to duplicate himself and form an army of identical kung fu masters what should shang-chi do with his newfound ability

• keep himself company on pilgrimage
• help the downtrodden of the east end