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Today, learn about how close we came to seeing a Shang-Chi comic book series done by Milestone Media!
In Nothing Was Delivered, we look at announced comic book projects that never came about. We’ll try to find out WHY they didn’t come out. I’m sure you all know tons of examples of comic book projects like these, so feel free to write me at brianc@cbr.com to tell me some for future columns.
Starting in the mid 1990s, Marvel started to try an approach where it would farm out books to other studios. The most famous example was Heroes Reborn, where Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Studios and Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios took over four of Marvel’s most prominent superhero titles (Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Captain America and The Avengers) in a brand-new continuity. While that didn’t necessarily work out all that well (although the sales obviously skyrocketed in the short term), Marvel then tried the same approach with Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti’s Event Comics, giving them four Marvel titles that Event would produce, only this time still set in Marvel continuity. Dubbed Marvel Knights, this line of comic books did so well that Marvel eventually just put Joe Quesada in charge of the entire Marvel comic book line.
However, before either of those things occurred, Marvel was close to a deal with Milestone Media where that company would do the same, with a group of four titles, with Dwayne McDuffie coming up with the pitches, including a new take on Shang-Chi!
A new Heroes For Hire series would be the main book in the line (and sort of drive the whole line)…
While two of the other books would be a series starring Photon (Monica Rambeau) tied in with the Powerline from Marvel’s Epic Shadowline comics in a book called Power Men (McDuffie had previously written two Monica Rambeau one-shots).
Finally, there would be a book starring Psi-Hawk from the New Universe series, Psi-Force (McDuffie was ALL over Marvel’s various lines of comics).
McDuffie later noted, “Taking advantage of a window in our then-exclusive contract with DC Comics, in 1995 we developed with Mark Gruenwald and Tom DeFalco a “mini-universe” of interlocking titles set in the Marvel Universe. Milestone was to package the books and Marvel to publish (not unlike the deals Event and Chaos comics later did). We were all very excited about what we came up with together. Unfortunately, Tom DeFalco left, Mark Gruenwald passed away, Marvel went bankrupt and the deal evaporated. We were never able to get it going again with the new regime. These would have been great.” He also noted that Denys Cowan did great character re-designs for the pitch.
In any event, here is McDuffie’s pitch for the Shang-Chi comic book, called Deadly Hands. It opened with, “There are fifteen of them and they attack as one but Shang Chi has faced more and better men countless times before. Each uses a different style, but Shang Chi responds in kind, meeting each assailant on his own ground. Fist for fist; weapon for weapon. In less than a minute, fourteen men have fallen, buying the fifteenth enough time to draw a Czech M52 – a sleek 7.62mm automatic pistol with a muzzle velocity of 1600 feet per second.
Shang Chi is faster. Before the deadly 7.62mm slug grazes him, he has drawn his own Makarov and put four neat holes into his opponent.
The Master of Kung Fu has changed his ways…”
It then continued:
Just as the Hong Kong filmmaker, John Woo, breathed new life into action cinema, we plan to blaze a new trail for Marvel’s reigning martial-arts master. DEADLY HANDS will tailor Hong Kong gangster action to the Marvel Universe, in a style reminiscent of Koike and Ikegami’s CRYING FREEMAN. This unique mix is designed to strike the eye of new generation of readers the way Jack Kirby struck us. That is to say, “Damn!”
Since his retirement from “games of deceit and death,” Shang Chi has been leading the quiet, contemplative life of a fisherman, continuing the “rising and advancement of the spirit” that he is named for. But his spiritual journey is far from ended. He feels a vague dissatisfaction in himself. When a group of deadly assassins tracks him down to try and kill him, he defends himself as only the world’s greatest martial artist can.
The quickly-defeated assassins prove to be victims of his late father, an evil crime lord. Shang Chi’s father ruined their lives; it’s now up to him to go out into the world again and make amends. It becomes clear to the hero that the lack of balance he feels in his center comes from his unwillingness to accept that violence is sometimes necessary. Shang Chi takes upon himself the impossible task of systematically shutting down his father’s Si Fan organization. Only then can he really retire.
As the series progresses, each issue takes him to exotic locales in both the East and West – wherever there is organized crime. New villains meet him at every turn, and every issue will contain a splashy, exciting, set-piece action sequence. As he grudgingly begins to accept the next stage in his spiritual development, Shang Chi will add the use of firearms to his other finely-honed martial skills.
DEADLY HANDS will play like an entirely new series, but occasionally will draw on the wealth of characters and situations from Shang Chi’s established past in the Marvel Universe. A year into the series, he will discover that his “late” father still lives, adding new complications to his task. Their confrontation will give readers their first-ever glimpse of the true face of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Boy, that sure would have been awesome!
Thanks to the late, great Dwayne McDuffie for sharing this awesome piece of information!
I wrote about this a few years back as a Comic Book Legends Revealed, but it works for this feature, as well, so here we are.
If anyone has a suggestion for another interesting comic book series/story that never got published, let me know at brianc@cbr.com!
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