Hi everyone,
Today I'll be writing about the nineteenth issue of Marvel's The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. The cover showed Shang facing off against the mysterious Man-Thing. The story was called "Retreat!" The issue had a cover date of August 1974.
The tale began with Shang-Chi coming face-to-face with the Man-Thing for the first time. He had no idea just what the creature in front of him was, or if it was friend or foe. Shang was questioning the entity's role in his adventure as he thought about the chain of events that led him to their initial encounter. He remembered how he had swum a great distance along the Florida coast to escape his father's stronghold, only to be trailed by a pair of Fu Manchu's master assassins.
Dahar and Jekin were skilled, but they soon proved to be no match for Shang-Chi. Their battle was over in mere minutes. Shang walked away as the victor, but was soon attacked once more. He reflexively struck back in defense, first against a snake and then the muck monster known as the Man-Thing. Shang eventually found himself stuck in the creature's body until a stranger helped to free him. As Shang recovered, he sat and watched the man assist the creature before turning to him. The man identified himself as Lu Sun. He explained that he saw that Shang was in no danger after being freed, so he went to assist the creature.
Shang-Chi introduced himself and thanked Lu for his help. The two men walked on for a spell, leaving the Man-Thing to go his separate way. After a while, they came to a glade and rested. Lu Sun said that he watched Shang-Chi and his attackers. He remarked how his foes' injuries were slight. Shang asked how a man who had so many years of living could want the death of his son. He wondered how his father could lie to an innocent person and call that fabrication truth.
Shang thought back to a time in his youth when Fu Manchu was told by Shang that a fellow student had informed him that his father worked to rule the world instead of to benefit it. Manchu said that his son's classmate was lying. At first, Shang believed his father without question, saying that his friend Kuei Meng often told fibs and lived in dreams. Shang-Chi went on to tell Lu that Kuei never returned to his classes after that day. As a young boy, Shang never felt the need to question the words spoken by his father.
Lu Sun told his new companion that a man who wasn't at peace within himself would never be at peace with anything else. Shang-Chi initially thought that he was talking about Fu Manchu, and replied that he didn't believe that he may know peace, and that he had sworn to end his father's empire of terror. He went on to describe the terror and destruction that Manchu had wrought. Lu reminded his friend that revenge could also destroy men by blinding them to the present as they dwell on the past and future. It therefore blinded them to life.
Shang-Chi took his comrade's words to heart. He felt compelled to stand up against evil, but couldn't do it alone. Lu asked Shang if a man could destroy evil. Shang replied in the negative. Lu went on to say that a man could overcome another man, just like one army could overcome another army, but that wouldn't change the world. He said that men would always contend.
Meanwhile, in a different part of the Florida Everglades, a quartet of trucks drove down a road, with Fu Manchu riding shotgun in the lead vehicle. Their vehicles were soon ambushed by Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, Blackjack Tarr and their men. The British agents and Manchu's Si-Fan soldiers exchanged bullets for a time, before Tarr charged toward the truck that had been leading the convoy. He wrenched open the driver's side door, to find the driver slumped in his seat. Manchu had escaped Smith yet again.
At the same time, Shang and Sun continued to talk to each other. Lu Sun had just said that violence breeds violence and that no one was immune to it, right before he was struck from behind by a pair of arrows. Shang soon learned that his former opponents Dahar and Jekin were behind the attack. As he walked backwards to save himself from Jekin's sword blade, Shang-Chi soon found himself stuck in a patch of quicksand.
The sword was just about to make a killing blow, when the outstretched arm of the Man-Thing interfered. Manchu's men turned to face their new enemy, but failed to heed Sun's warning that if their bravado was based in fear, that whosoever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch. The would-be assassins learned that fateful lesson a bit too late.
After Manchu's men burned into ash, the Man-Thing departed once more and Shang-Chi was able to free himself and walk out of the quicksand. He then carried his friend Lu Sun to safety at the base of another tree. Shang asked his companion if he would go up against Fu Manchu. Sun asked him the same question before Shang-Chi headed off on his own.
This was the first and only time that the Man-Thing appeared in this comic. I felt that he was underutilized in this issue, and that there wasn't much interaction between the main characters or even an explanation for their pairing. I was more interested in the moral lessons that Lu Sun was trying to teach Shang-Chi. It would have been nice to see the two continue to travel together and learn from each other's knowledge and wisdom. Overall, this was an intriguing issue, one that left me wanting to know more about both Shang and his father.
Well, that's all for now. Next time, I'll write about the twentieth issue of Marvel's Master of Kung Fu color comic series. In that issue, Shang-Chi will continue his journey. We'll see him face new foes in a two-part story that's illustrated by penciler Paul Gulacy and written by two different bullpen storytellers. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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