IRON FIST AND SHANG-CHI – TOGETHER (1974-1976)

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog presents some of the 1970s crossover stories between Marvel’s Iron Fist and Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu.

THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU SPECIAL Vol 1 #1 (June 1974)

Title: The Master Plan of Fu Manchu

Villain: Fu Manchu

NOTE: This was back when Marvel Comics had licensed the rights to do comic book stories about Sax Rohmer’s iconic villain Fu Manchu and his pursuer Sir Denis Nayland-Smith. Marvel combined their Fu Manchu stories with the 1970s Kung Fu craze by having Shang-Chi the Master of Kung Fu be the son of Fu Manchu. He turned against his evil father.

          Years later, when Marvel no longer had the rights to use the Fu Manchu character they retconned things so that Shang-Chi’s father was really Iron Man’s archenemy the Mandarin.

Synopsis: Storywise, this tale features three separate sections as Iron Fist, the Sons of the Tiger and Shang-Chi the Master of Kung Fu go up against Fu Manchu in three separate stages of his “master plan.” 

Iron Fist is the hero of the opening chapter. He is walking the late-night streets of New York City when a cry for help prompts him to investigate an alleyway he was passing. He discovers a dying Chinese representative from the U.N. He escaped when Fu Manchu had his men abduct him and five other such Chinese representatives. The man dies from the wounds he suffered in his escape after telling Danny to save the others.

Three of Fu Manchu’s men arrive. They were chasing the now dead Chinese rep and try to kill Iron Fist because of what he now knows. Daniel easily defeats and knocks out two of the three but kept their leader, called Seo Kai-Chen, He Who Strikes Like the Lightning, conscious after destroying his weapon (a bludgeon).

Seo Kai-Chen turns and flees, so Iron Fist follows him, hoping the man will lead him to the five remaining captive U.N. representatives from China. Daniel follows the man so stealthily that the villain doesn’t even realize he is being trailed. In New York’s Chinatown Seo runs past a blind beggar and ducks inside a warehouse.

Iron Fist follows him inside and is attacked by Kai-Chen and eleven other operatives of Fu Manchu, including the group’s Sumo leader, Tsu Gamo, The Mountain Which Steals Breath. NOTE: Yes, Sumo wrestlers are Japanese, not Chinese, but in the original Fu Manchu novels and most of the subsequent media his forces included agents from all the Far East nations.

Our hero defeats them all, and then approaches the massive steel door behind which are the five bound Chinese reps. He uses the power of the Iron Fist to shatter the door, only to see one of Fu Manchu’s helicopters flying off with the five captives. Danny finds a taunting note left by Fu Manchu, who, as any fan of Sax Rohmer would have guessed, was disguised as the blind beggar.

Part Two featured the Sons of the Tiger (a white guy, a black guy and an Asian guy), who fail to stop another squadron of Fu Manchu’s men, disguised as Red Chinese operatives, from raiding the U.N. building and abducting six members of the United States delegation.

Part Three featured Shang-Chi the Master of Kung Fu. Within days the U.S. and Red China are on the brink of nuclear war with each country blaming the other for abducting the other’s U.N. personnel.

Fu Manchu plans for the two powers to wipe out each other in a war, then he and his Si-Fan operatives will conquer what is left of the world. Shang-Chi thwarts his estranged father’s latest plan and retrieves the abductees, but naturally Fu Manchu escapes.

Comment: This was a nice special edition from Marvel highlighting some of their hottest martial arts heroes in one story. 

MASTER OF KUNG FU ANNUAL Vol 1 #1 (April 1976)

Title: The Fortress of Sahra Sharn

Villain: Quan-St’ar

Synopsis: Iron Fist and Shang-Chi meet in London, where they walk the streets and discuss each other’s origin stories. They wind up getting attacked on Lambeth Bridge by over two dozen martial artists of all races and all wielding assorted bladed weapons. After a lengthy battle they defeat all of their attackers, only to see them all vanish, teleported back to where they came from.

A costumed black sorceror calling himself Quan-St’ar appears before them, saying he is a resident of K’un-Lun, the mystical city where Iron Fist was raised, and that the men our heroes just fought were trying to kill them before he could seek their aid to prevent the destruction of that enchanted city. Iron Fist and Shang-Chi immediately suspect him of being in league with the warriors they just defeated, but he persuades them otherwise.  

Quan-St’ar claims that his mystical abilities permit him to enter and leave K’un-Lun any time he chooses and not just during the one day every ten years in which it materializes on Earth. He tells our heroes that K’un-Lun is about to be invaded by Sahra-Sharn, its opposite city within the same dimension.

Just as K’un-Lun embodies noble aspirations and is sought out by Earth people who share its ideals and desire to live there, so is Sahra-Sharn sought out by malevolent Earth people who desire to live in the depraved and vile city. Quan-St’Ar wants Iron Fist to help him strike at Sahra-Sharn first and thwart the invasion before it is launched.

Iron Fist admits to having been told of Sahra-Sharn’s existence by Yu-Ti, the August Personage of Jade, years earlier and volunteers to accompany Quan-St’ar by himself. Shang-Chi nobly insists on coming along as well and the sorcerer teleports the three of them to the city of malevolence. He tells our heroes to wait for him at a tavern called the Den of Last Despair and ask for a man called Shai-Tahn. Meanwhile he will assemble his co-conspirators within the evil city.

The Den of Last Despair turns out to be a trap, triggered when Iron Fist and Shang-Chi ask for Shai-Tahn, which turns out to be the signal for all the male and female martial artists in the tavern to attack them. Aided by a woman warrior named Cybelle our heroes defeat everyone in the saloon, only to have Shai-Tahn show up with an army of additional men. He demands that Iron Fist and Shang-Chi submit to arrest but they refuse until Shai-Tahn threatens to have Cybelle killed in front of them.

The duo are imprisoned in a cell made of stones which are mystically immune to the power of the Iron Fist no matter how many times Danny unleashes it on them. After five days with no food our heroes are weakened and starving.

Quan-St’ar visits them to mock them that he is actually the ruler of Sahra-Sharn and lured them into this trap. He wanted the wielder of the Iron Fist out of the way when he leads Sahra-Sharn in an invasion of K’un-Lun. Snaring Shang-Chi was just a bonus. The villain shows them that Cybelle was secretly working for him, too, and that she will become his queen. He then leaves them to rage about the situation.

That night, Cybelle (at right) throws a rope to our heroes enabling them to climb out of the cell and escape. She meets them in a nearby forest where she gives them food and drink. While they eat she explains that she is part of a rival gang within Sahra-Sharn who wants to overthrow Quan-St’ar and call off his pointless invasion of K’un-Lun.

Cybelle also reveals that Quan-St’ar was born in K’un-Lun and was one of the sorcerers known as the Dragon Riders. They were performing for Yu-Ti the August Personage of Jade as was their duty, when Quan-St’ar lost control of the dragon he was riding – Shou-Lao itself.

That dragon tried to kill Yu-Ti but Quan-St’ar fought it and sliced its heart from its body, leaving the dragon-shaped scar on its chest. Because Shou-Lao was one of the sacred dragons the sorcerer then preserved its heart outside its body in a brazier. Yu-Ti banished the dragon and its detached heart to a cave outside K’un-Lun, where for centuries it defeated everyone who tried to defeat it to gain the power of the Iron Fist.

While Cybelle and her fellow gang members battle Quan-St’ar’s troops, Iron Fist and Shang-Chi fight their way past his legion of guards up to his tower chamber where he keeps his Globe of Eternity, which fuels his power.

Quan-St’ar teleports into the room and the battle is on. The power of the Iron Fist in both of Danny’s hands is able to block and parry the mystic energy beams which the villain fires at him, while Shang-Chi sneaks to the Globe and shatters it.

The unholy forces in the globe rend Quan-St’ar to pieces as they flee their captivity. Cybelle names herself the new boss of bosses in vile Sahra-Sharn and has her new court sorcerer teleport Iron Fist and Shang-Chi back to London. Our heroes exchange compliments and go their separate ways.

DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #29 (October 1976)

Title: To Slay The Savior

Villains: The Cadre of Salvation

Comment: This story, like the previous one, is set during Iron Fist’s temporary stay in England in 1976.

Synopsis: Iron Fist is lured into a long-hidden network of tunnels underneath London by what he believes to be men working for his archenemy Master Khan. Unknown to him, Shang-Chi has been lured into those same tunnels by a note supposedly from his father Fu Manchu.

In their separate journeys through the tunnels our heroes survive several battles against martial arts attackers until they both reach a long-abandoned former headquarters of Fu Manchu. The site is now the base of a covert group calling itself the Cadre of Salvation.

That group is led by Blevins (no first name given), a former agent of Sir Denis Nayland-Smith in his long crusade against Fu Manchu. Blevins believes that the western world has grown soft toward the menace of Communist China and Asian adversaries like Fu Manchu, the Mandarin, the Yellow Claw, etc.

Since Iron Fist and Shang-Chi lived up to their reputations by fighting their way to this central chamber, Blevins tries to recruit them for his Cadre and its vigilante mission of “saving” the western world from Far East villainy. Both heroes refuse, so Blevins has his hostage dragged out and suspended from their ankles.

That hostage is Winston Neville (despite a female hostage being shown on the cover), another former agent of Nayland-Smith’s. Blevins insists that Iron Fist and Shang-Chi must fight each other to the death or he’ll not only slit Neville’s throat but blow up the Parliament Building.

Our heroes try fake-fighting at first but Blevins isn’t fooled and insists he’ll kill Neville immediately if they don’t fight for real. Iron Fist and Shang-Chi intensify their fighting while wordlessly pondering a solution to the mess.

Soon the pair get in synch and, while pretending to be fighting furiously, they maneuver each other to a spot where Danny can unleash the power of the Iron Fist against the terrace from which Blevins and his troops have been watching their battle.

That terrace collapses, letting our heroes free Winston Neville, take out Blevins and mop up the soldiers of his Cadre of Salvation. The Parliament Building does not blow up and Sir Denis is saddened at having to arrest his old ally Blevins. 

DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #31 (December 1976)

Title: Dark Waters of Death

Villains: Stryke and the Corporation

Synopsis: Shortly after their London clash with the Cadre of Salvation, Iron Fist and Shang-Chi fly to New York, where Danny Rand plans to entertain Shang for a few days. The pair drop by Knightwing Restorations’ office where they find Misty Knight working late.

She is there consulting with Nathaniel Alexander Byrd aka Marvel Comics’ 1970s blaxploitation character Blackbyrd, a Private Investigator. (“Hush your mouth!” and all the rest of that stuff.)

Byrd explains to Misty, Danny and Shang-Chi how the Sons of the Tiger split up over a woman (no, not Yoko Ono) and their three mystical Tiger Amulets are now being worn by one man – the Puerto Rican youth named Hector Ayala. The amulets transformed Hector into the kung fu superhero called the White Tiger, who has the strength of three men and extraordinary martial arts abilities provided by those amulets.

The P.I. further explains that the White Tiger and his foe-turned-ally Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart) are, as he speaks, raiding El Tigre, a seemingly legitimate merchant vessel secretly used for smuggling drugs. The organization responsible for using El Tigre AND for killing Jack of Hearts’ father for his Zero Fluid invention is the Corporation. (A lesser version of Hydra and A.I.M. in Marvel Comics.)

Blackbyrd arranges for police backup through old friends who are still on the force and flies himself, Iron Fist and Shang-Chi to El Tigre in a helicopter. The battle has been raging for awhile, so Danny and Shang join in, fighting the Corporation’s soldiers and their mercenary supervillain called Stryke.

That villain is a kung fu fighter in electrified blue armor and armed with electrified nun-chucks, making me wish they had just brought back Iron Fist’s foe Triple-Iron instead, since all that was his schtick before Stryke came along.

Iron Fist and Shang-Chi have each taken a turn fighting Stryke while simultaneously fighting the Corporation’s armed soldiers, but now Jack of Hearts tells them that Stryke is HIS, since Stryke helped the man who murdered his father. (This was in previous issues of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, since Marvel for some reason tried using Jack of Hearts as a kung fu hero at first instead of a sci-fi hero.)

Jack uses his Zero Fluid-induced powers to kill Stryke. Next, Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, White Tiger and Jack of Hearts go below deck to get the Corporation bigwigs, only to find they took their own lives already. White Tiger’s older brother Filippo Ayala is now revealed to be the real brains behind the drug-dealing end of this outfit.

He and the Corporation were seeking an alliance with Fu Manchu but he scornfully refused, prompting the suicide of the Corporation bigwigs. It’s a comic book, just go with it. After all, the only reason they had to drag Fu Manchu into this story was just to tie in villains linked to all the main stars of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu – Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, White Tiger and Jack of Hearts.

Surrounded by superheroes and with the cops plus the Harbor Patrol arriving on the scene, Filippo blows up himself and the ship after giving his brother Hector a chance to flee, and the other heroes hastily join him. They all watch El Tigre explode, taking Filippo and the fortune in drugs with it.

NOTE: The Corporation would return many times in the future to tangle with various Marvel Comics superheroes.

BONUS: Here’s Iron Fist teamed up with the Thing from the Fantastic Four in an overlooked Marvel Two in One story.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Vol 1 #25 (March 1977)

Title: A Tale of Two Countries

Villains: General Chonga and his troops

Synopsis: Kaiwann, a fictional Asian Pacific Island off the coast of Manchuria, is home to two separate nations, just like the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola is home to both Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Those two nations – whose names we are never told – have been at war for centuries, but recently a political marriage has been arranged between the young and beautiful Queen Sen of one country and the elderly Gracious One, ruler of the other country. General Chonga, wanting Queen Sen for himself, launched a coup and abducted the queen.

Prince Dragon, the handsome young prince who had been betrothed to Queen Sen until the political marriage was decided upon, recruits martial arts superhero Iron Fist and the famed fighter the Thing to rescue Queen Sen from Chonga and his army.

The heroes – accompanied by Prince Dragon’s blind warrior S’Kari (below left) – defeat Chonga’s forces in and around the Temple at the Ridge of Four Hells (volcanoes) on Kaiwann.

The princess is rescued, the coup put down and, despite their love for one another, Queen Sen and Prince Dragon still let her political marriage to the elderly Gracious One go through in order to bring peace to the island after centuries of warfare.

NOTE: Believe it or not, Marvel has never used Kaiwann in any story ever again as of this writing. If anything, you’d think they’d have used Prince Dragon’s martial arts superhero, the blind swordsman S’Kari, as a character in some of their Kung Fu publications in the 1970s.

Considering how Japan’s fictional Zatoichi the blind swordsman has appeared in literally hundreds of stories since the 1960s I’m betting S’Kari, with his “other-senses” of some kind, could have become as popular as Iron Fist or Shang-Chi.  

FOR IRON FIST’S FIRST SEVERAL ADVENTURES CLICK HERE.

FOR SHANG-CHI’S INITIAL TWELVE ADVENTURES CLICK HERE.

FOR IRON FIST AND POWER MAN FORMING THEIR PARTNERSHIP CLICK HERE.