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Today, we look at the first time that Shang-Chi crossed the line and killed someone.
In “When We First Met”, we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, “Avengers Assemble!” or the first appearance of Batman’s giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man’s face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Reader Jim wrote in to ask when was the first time that Shang-Chi, whose whole deal for many years was that he would go out of his way to NOT kill people, actually had to kill somebody.
This is a tricky one, Jim, as the first time Shang-Chi took a life was actually in his very first appearance! in 1973’s Marvel Special Edition #15 (by Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom), we first meet Shang-Chi after he’s shown off his skills on some formidable opponents and we slowly discover that it was all a test and Shang-Chi is the son of the legendary criminal mastermind, Fu Manchu. However, we also learn that Shang-Chi has been in isolation for all of his life and his father had convinced him that he is actually a legendary DO-GOODER and that Shang-Chi must his his newfound fighting prowess to eliminate one of his father’s most evil enemies…
So Shang-Chi ventures out of his father’s fortress for the first time and easily breaks into the home of the old man who has been such a thorn in his father’s side but here’s the problem. As part of making Shang-Chi the perfect weapon also meant educating him and when you educate a guy in philosophy and stuff like that, what are you going to get but a man who questions the very mission that you have sent him on, as he has already learned that killing is not the answer and that revenge is not something that you should seek out…
However, his devotion to his father was just too much and so Shang-Chi, in his very first mission in the real world, murders an innocent hero….
and in the process finds himself under the gun sights of Sir Denis Nayland Smith, the OTHER character who was adapted into the Marvel Comics from the Sax Rohmer novels, where Smith is the main rival of the villainous Fu Manchu. Here, after Shang-Chi easily disarms him, he explains to Shang-Chi just what kind of a man Fu Manchu is and luckily for the rest of the world, he is convincing enough that he turns Shang-Chi against Fu Manchu….
Shang-Chi then teams up with Smith and the British MI-6 to take on his father and to try to bring down his evil criminal empire, and that takes up the next decade or so of Shang-Chi’s adventures, with writer Doug Moench taking over the writing duties on the series soon after Shang-Chi debuted. Moench lasted on the book until he left Marvel in 1983, with Master of Kung Fu #122 (the book took over the numbering from Marvel Special Edition).
In Master of Kung Fu #118 (by Moench and Gene Day), Fu Manchu is dying and needs the blood of his son, Shang-Chi, to survive. In the end, the blood is there, but Shang-Chi decides to keep his father from it, choosing that it is time for his father to die, something that Shang-Chi sure does not take lightly….
However, he eventually relents and allows his father to lick the blood up from the ground, but not before the building above them starts to collapse, and so Shang-Chi seemingly sees his father get crushed to death without doing anything to save him…
In the final issues of the series, guest writer Alan Zelenetz had people all consider Shang-Chi to have KILLED his father and eventually Shang-Chi seems to have accepted that he basically did, as well. That, though, seems like it is purely just guilt and not any actual responsibility for Manchu’s death.
Shang-Chi then retires, but comes out of retirement and begins to help his friends again, at which point the love of his life, Leiko, is kidnapped and at the cliffhanger of Marvel Comics Presents #7 (by Moench, Tom Grindberg and Dave Cockrum), the villain who kidnapped Leiko (and who had already chopped off her hand) says that she is now dead and so Shang-Chi decides that he must kill this man and proceeds to do so in Marvel Comics Presents #8 until he realizes that Leiko is still alive and thus, he keeps from killing the villain….
This then brings us to 2007’s Heroes for Hire #15 (by Zeb Wells, Alvin Lee, Leonard Kirk, Ale Garza, James Cordeiro and Terry Pallot), where Shang-Chi had joined Misty Knight and Colleen Wing’s new version of the Heroes for Hire and one of the team members, Humbug, has bonded with an alien during the World War Hulk storyline and has become an outright monster and thus, Shang-Chi decides that he has to kill him and he does so…
It is an awfully sad ending to that series to see the heroes all in such a rough spot, with Shang-Chi violating the code that he had lived with ever since that first killing that he did. This one could be argued that it was a mercy, of sorts, but it is clear that it was not intended as a mercy, but rather as revenge for what Humbug did in his monster form, specifically what he did to Shang-Chi’s love interest in the series, the new female Tarantula. It was a dark ending for Shang-Chi, and honestly, I don’t know if many writers have picked up on it in the years since.
Thanks again to Jim for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion for/question about a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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