Key points
- Moench/Gulacy's Shang-Chi series began in August 1974, setting off a globe-trotting adventure in search of Fu Manchu.
- Moench and Gulacy replaced Englehart and Starlin, who had left the series early.
- The art in older comics was insensitive, miscoloring Asian characters, reflecting stereotypes and racial insensitivity, but the stories were still well-crafted in that context.
In each Look Back, we look back at a comic book issue from 10/25/50/75 years ago (plus a wildcard each month with a fifth week). This time, we head back to August 1974 to see the debut of Shang-Chi’s most iconic creative team, Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy.
One of the frustrating things about the current boom in movies and TV shows based on movies is the issue of creator credit. I don't mean the already meager credit that's given to the creators who actually created the characters, because that, in and of itself, is, well, you know, I just used the word “meager” to describe it, so you know where I stand. But no, what I mean is the EVEN SMALLER compensation that's given to the creators who “only” come up with the stories that are actually the backbone of the characters in the movies.
As poorly treated as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were undoubtedly when it came to their creation of Captain America, the big companies do at least appear to have some sort of agreement in place so that current creators can benefit from the use of one of their creations in films, but there really isn't a specific agreement when they “just” take your stories, as The Hollywood Reporter noted:
While it’s relatively simple to determine who gets paid for a character, insiders familiar with Marvel and DC contracts note that things get a little muddy when it comes to movie adaptations of storylines. There’s no concrete policy at either company.
For this reason, the creators who suffer the most in the minds of fans are those creators who made great series of titles, but didn't create them, especially when their series are well-regarded, but not famous enough to, say, make our fan-voted Top 100 Comic Book Series of All Time (voting for the 2024 list opens soon!). And that's a shame, because we SHOULD celebrate these series more, and that's what I'm doing today by highlighting how August 1974 saw the launch of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's Shang-Chi series in Kung Fu Master.
How did Moench and Gulacy become Masters of Kung Fu?
Shang-Chi was created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, but neither creator ended up getting involved with the series once it became a regular feature film (graduating from Marvel Special Edition in its own series, Kung Fu Masterwhich has just resumed numbering from Marvel Special Edition). Starlin recalled (as I noted in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed) that his problem arose when he actually READ one of the old Fu Manchu novels for the first time (Marvel editor Roy Thomas had arranged for Englehart and Starlin to write Fu Manchu into the series as Shang-Chi's father), and realized how disgusting they were, “Over the next week, while I was working on issue two [of Shang-Chi]I read it. I was horrified by these… dangerous detective stories. They are not politically correct at all. Anyone who is not white is a bad guy in these things. Frankly, I was horrified. That's why I abandoned Shang-Chi after only three issues and went back completely to Captain Marvel. I was a little embarrassed about it. We started out with good intentions, and by the time I was halfway through the second issue I was like, 'I want to get out of here.' That's why I only did a few issues of it.”
So with Kung Fu Master #18, a young Marvel artist, Paul Gulacy, has taken over as art director of the series…
Englehart left the series after issue #19, but issue #20 was initially written by Gerry Conway, who replaced Englehart…
but Conway himself gave up on the issue halfway through, and so Doug Moench came along to complete it, making this the first time he and Gulacy worked together on the series…
The two then also had a story in Giant-Sized Kung Fu Master #1, with Fu Manchu subjecting Shang-Chi to a series of assassinations to “celebrate” his birthday…
However, A. that was just one of a few different Shang-Chi stories in that issue, including ones drawn by P. Craig Russell and Ron Wilson, and B. Wilson then drew the next issue of the main series…
So it was only with issue #22 that the real Moench/Gulacy run began in earnest!
What was their first issue of Shang-Chi about?
Now, one thing you obviously have to keep in mind is that the old Marvel comics were pretty disgusting in the way they colored Asian people. Shang-Chi had “golden” skin, while Fun Manchu had pale white skin. It wasn't fair (I've written about Marvel's lame defense for doing this back then, and how long it took them to finally color Shang-Chi as a normal Asian dude). I only noticed this before these pages, because, well, come on, it's kind of hard to read these old Moench/Gulacy stories and not be a little put off by the representation of Asian people in these comics.
The issue opens with Shang-Chi going to a Chinese restaurant, and Moench cleverly gets him a little surprised by the American interpretation of “Chinese” food, but it's soon obvious he's fallen into a trap. Gulacy showed off his mastery of the fight scene…
Check out the particularly impressive fight sequence Shang-Chi has with his original waiter in the restaurant…
Okay, so Sir Denis Nayland Smith (Fu Manchu's rival in the original novels) and his assistant, “Black” Jack Tarr (be warned, again, in 1974, it was considered acceptable for a friend of Shang-Chi to affectionately call him “Chinaman”) arrive, and say that Fu Manchu is up to something big, and they want Shang-Chi's help. He's not interested, but changes his mind when he sees that Smith and Tarr have been captured. He follows them onto a ship, and Shang-Chi hides, as Fu Manchu apparently plans to destroy Smith and Tarr AND a mountain in an explosion…
At the end of the issue, once Smith and Tarr are rescued, they discover that the plan they had just foiled was to destroy Mount Rushmore!
This issue actually starts off with a LONG story that runs for the next few years as Shang-Chi, Tarr, and Smith travel the world hunting down Fu Manchu, finding action and adventure everywhere. It's a really well-told action adventure, just sadly, you know, with the “Chinese” stuff and the uncool coloring. So I can totally understand why people don't want to read these old comics, but Moench and Gulacy were a really cool team.
If you have suggestions for September (or later months) of comics from 2014, 1999, 1974, and 1949 to feature, email me at brianc@cbr.com! Here's a guide, though, for book cover dates, so you can suggest books that actually came out in the correct month. In general, the traditional time period between a comic's cover date and release date for most of comics history has been two months (sometimes three months, but not during the periods we're talking about here). So comics will have a cover date that's two months before their actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Of course, it's easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was book coverage on the Internet at the time.