Good afternoon,
Today's topic is the sixty-seventh issue of Marvel Comics' The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. The Paul Gulacy-drawn cover showed Shang in what could be considered a Bruce Lee pose. The story was called "Dark Encounters." The issue had a cover date of August 1978.
The tale began with Shang-Chi and Juliette fending off invaders from another boat. The intruders worked for Juliette's former boss, Kogar. Shang fought the intruders and finally tossed a grenade at their boat, causing several of them to abandon ship. Afterward, Juliette insisted that they resume their course and return to her safe house, confident that it would be the last place their enemy would look for them.
Meanwhile, at the Hong Kong MI-6 office, Clive Reston and Melissa Greville asked the associate they met with who the fake police were who tried to arrest them. The agent assumed that the posers were agents of Communist China, and admitted that he'd given Leiko Wu information to locate Kogar's secret base, a destination that his two guests now wanted to go to.
Speaking of Leiko, she'd just entered the pirate's lair. It was an impressive base of operations. Now all she had to do was figure out how and where to find the information she needed.
In the storeroom of Juliette's safe house, Pavane and Shen Kuei were going through the one crate they'd found. It contained twenty bricks of hashish. Each brick had a microdot fastened to it. There were thousands of microdots left to collect. They brought the crate to the boat that their colleague Skullcrusher had secured before Kuei left to communicate with his contact.
Minutes later, Juliette and Shang-Chi returned to the safe house. She decided to leave the crates onboard, thinking they'd be safest there. She asked Shang to dock the boat while she went inside to get them something to eat.
By then, Kogar and the rest of his crew had returned to their base. Among them was Black Jack Tarr, who was going by the name Black Jack Blue after having earned the warrior's trust. However, Kogar didn't yet trust him with everything just yet. He ordered Blue to stay behind while he and another crewman went inside his personal chambers with the crate they'd retrieved (that Shang-Chi had tossed from Juliette's boat last issue). This was a good opportunity for Tarr to scope out his surroundings.
At the same time, Wu was fighting several of Kogar's guards as she made her way toward the main building. In London, her former employer, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, and his friend Doctor Petrie were wondering how Tarr was doing. Smith was confident that Tarr's mission was proceeding as planned.
Tarr was standing by a window, where he could listen in to Kogar's conversation. He ordered one of his workers to place one of the microdots on a projector. If Tarr had looked up, he would have seen Wu descending the stairs across from him.
Shortly thereafter, Reston and Greville arrived at the secret hideout. They opted to climb the mountain in search of a cave entrance, instead of looking for the waterfall entrance that Wu had already discovered. Meanwhile, as Tarr continued spying, he learned that the microdots contained plans for a destructive neutron bomb.
Back at the safehouse. Shang-Chi and Juliette shared an intimate moment together. He later informed her that he had to go find Kogar alone. Little did he know that he was about to be reunited with his former MI-6 colleagues. Wu reunited with Tarr and Greville moments after seeing Tarr lurking around.
Shang entered the fray just as chaos was erupting around the base. Some of the fighting knocked out an internal generator, but a backup was soon up and running. By that time, Shang-Chi had been captured by a pair of Kogar's soldiers. In front of Kogar and Tarr, Shang stated that he'd grown weary of Juliette and now wished to join his cause for mutual benefit.
This was another action-packed issue! I was surprised how willing Greville (who we first got to know after she'd been shot during an attack in London) was to join in. I thought she would be more passive. The Juliette love triangle still had yet to be resolved as well. Kogar was an interesting villain. He wasn't the type of guy who would usually work for another crime boss.
Well, that's all for now. This storyline continues in the sixty-eighth issue of Master of Kung Fu. In that issue's recap, I'll talk about why Shang made the statement that he did at the end of this issue. We'll also see where Shen Kuei's loyalty lies. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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