Hi everyone,
Today's topic is the forty-fourth issue of Marvel's The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. The cover showed Shang leaping into action, with a picture of Fu Manchu behind him. The cover blurb promised a conflict between father and son. This is misleading, as I'll explain in this article. The story was called "Prelude: Golden Daggers (A Death Run)." The issue had a cover date of September 1976.
The tale began at the private estate of Sir Herbert Griswold in Switzerland, right after the battle in the previous issue. A pair of Griswold's men were moving the villain known as Shock-Wave to the boathouse. Inside the complex, Shang and Leiko Wu were talking with Ducharme, Fu Manchu's lover, who was revealed as the double agent.
Ducharme explained the necessity of leading both roles. She started by going back some forty years, adding that Manchu had provided her with the elixir vitae that extended life. Back before her involvement with either side, she was in love with a man named Pan Chen. One day, Chen informed her that he was a member of the Si-Fan cult of assassins. He was about to embark on a mission on behalf of Manchu to slay Doctor Petrie and Sir Dennis Nayland Smith.
Needless to say, the mission was a failure. Chen was the only one in his group to survive the ordeal. Several days later, Ducharme received a message from Chen, asking her to join him. He knew that he would face the ultimate penalty from his master and was planning to leave the country and head for the United States. Unfortunately, the couple didn't get very far.
Fu Manchu intercepted them. He placed Chen in a pit filled with poisonous spiders. Manchu forced Ducharmed to watch her lover die a slow, painful death. She later escaped Manchu's residence, mainly because the warlord had no desire to keep her. She eventually made her way to Smith and begged him for his assistance.
Smith informed Ducharme that her life could be preserved only if Manchu wished to do so. To gain his trust, she was given confidential information by Smith that would make it seem like she was betraying him. Ducharme then returned to Manchu to share what she'd learned and was welcomed into the fold. She had a terrible existence and shared the atrocities she'd learned from Manchu with Smith over the years.
Wu added that Shang's father had finally discovered who Ducharme was truly loyal to and wanted her death. He'd sent the Golden Dagger sect after her. Their cover was Oriental Expediters, who had a rendezvous with Shock-Wave. The current objective was to protect Ducharme from harm by Manchu's men.
Back at MI-6 headquarters in London, Clive Reston was examining Larner's progress on examining the fragments of bombs that had been used in the assassination attempts of several of their agents. Larner advised Reston to book a flight to Lausanne, Switzerland, noting that the pieces he'd inspected were the work of a man named Tarrant who operated out of Lausanne.
Meanwhile, at Griswold's Switzerland estate, he informed Shang, Wu, and Ducharme that he'd just received communication from Smith. Leiko and Shang-Chi were to depart immediately for Zurich, where they'd meet their contact who would take them to Lausanne. Ducharme would stay with him. When asked who the contact was, Griswold replied that it was a colleague of his named Clive Reston.
While Wu's lip twitched at the news, it was revealed that Doctor Petrie was listening in on their conversation. Moments later, Smith approached Petrie and asked him to join him on the journey to the hospital to visit Black Jack Tarr (who was injured after a bomb went off in his office). As the trio stood in Tarr's room talking about who the suspect was, neither Tarr nor Smith knew that the person responsible was in the room with them.
In Zurich, Reston met with Wu and Shang. He provided a motorcycle for Leiko, and he and Shang drove to their destination together. It wasn't long before their vehicles were attacked. Reston and Shang were surprised by a gun-toting driver who soon drove off the road during their battle. At the same time, more masked men were waiting to ambush Wu. She fought them off until the blast from a rocket launcher knocked her off her motorcycle, and she lay unconscious atop a pile of rocks.
Shang-Chi and Reston made their way to a house on a hill in Lausanne. They made their way inside and soon realized that it was a trap. More masked gunmen approached them, and another battle ensued.
In London, Smith and Petrie entered another hospital room, this time at Whitechapel. Here lay Smith's nephew Lancaster Sneed, the villain known as Shock-Wave. Sneed revealed that his accomplice was Petrie. Angered by this, Petrie pulled out a handgun from his jacket and fired at Smith. He then placed the pistol in Sneed's right hand and cried out to the interns that Sneed had grabbed his weapon and shot his comrade.
At the house in Lausanne, Reston and Shang continued fighting off masked gunmen until a familiar voice made them pause. It belonged to Shang-Chi's half-sister, Fah Lo Suee, who was flanked by a pair of men armed with golden daggers. She told her brother that she'd been warned of the upcoming conflict between her and their father, and expressed concern that Shang had not heeded her warnings. Suee then stated that his spirit must now reach the early end of its growth and thus die.
While this issue didn't feature the return of Fu Manchu directly, and only included him in flashback scenes, it was a good prelude for the issues leading up to the climactic milestone fiftieth issue. I was surprised by Petrie's betrayal and the fact that Ducharme was the mysterious double agent. Paul Gulacy's art just continued to impress, and I felt that it got better with every issue that he drew in this series.
Well, that's all for now. Next up is the forty-fifth issue of Master of Kung Fu. The conflicts from this over carry over, and we'll learn a bit more about Fah Lo Suee's plans, meet Tarrant, and finally see the actual return of Fu Manchu. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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