Comic Corner: Master of Kung Fu

[David Flin]

Comment on this article here.

 

[Alex Richards]

Fu Manchu is one of those odd examples of a character who managed to attain phenomenal breakout success until he very suddenly wasn't wanted anymore.

 

[David Flin]

Indeed. The letters columns (even back in the 1980s) did look at the appropriateness of using a character epitomising the Yellow Peril element, against the need to be equitable. If Shang Chi is the central hero, if Leiko Wu is a crucial "good guy", then what does it say if there are no Chinese villains?

 

[Alex Richards]

Indeed. The letters columns (even back in the 1980s) did look at the appropriateness of using a character epitomising the Yellow Peril element, against the need to be equitable. If Shang Chi is the central hero, if Leiko Wu is a crucial "good guy", then what does it say if there are no Chinese villains?

And of course the eventual squaring of that quite reasonable question- creating villains who remained Chinese and even embodied some characteristics of Fu Manchu (the schemer, the manipulator etc.) while radically reworking other elements.

Of course the copywrite issues were a factor as awell.

 

[Hendryk]

Typically for the era, nobody bothered to check that Leiko is a Japanese and not a Chinese name (in Chinese it would be Lingzi, though I am not aware of it being used as a first name).

For example, Black Jack Tarr, an older agent (and that would be older when being written in the 1970s) constantly and continually refers to Shang Chi as “Chinaman”.

Now, although that's a century earlier, Mark Twain did use the term without ill intent, such as when he wrote: "They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist."

 

[Charles EP M.]

Reston, Tarr, and Shang Chi made some fun supporting roles in Paul Cornell's Wisdom miniseries - the first two (Reston now MI6's C and a KCBE) suspecting that Pete Wisdom's MI-13 is going to fall apart like every other capes-and-creatures agency in Britain has in previous comics, so they're trying to cut him out of what MI6 knows; and Shang Chi as a far more noble character who helps Wisdom in one issue by fighting the Welsh Dragon in single combat and is then disgusted to realise Wisdom was setting them up.

 

[Beata Beatrix]

I am always fascinated by the extent to which Shang-Chi Got Over when he is, uh. From these origins. And yet he was kind of good? If nothing else, Mike Zeck was very good at art!

Extremely excited for the Captain Britain article, huge fan of that run and that character.