Shang-Chi #2 - Marvel Comics

SHANG-CHI No. 2, December 2020

Penned by Gene Luen Yang to be “a comic where a kid like me would be okay picking it up”, Issue Two of “Shang-Chi” certainly must have entertained many of its 29,000 readers with its mixture of treacherous family intrigue and miraculous martial arts. Indeed, the very notion of the Master of Kung Fu fighting off a laboratory filled full of Chinese hopping zombies probably had many a perusing bibliophile snatching this particular publication straight off of the spinner racks in October 2020. 

Disappointingly however, much of this twenty-page periodical’s impact is arguably lost though following the titular character being unceremoniously killed by his perfidious sister mid-way through the book, and then later inexplicably resurrected from the dead by his already long-deceased father, Zheng Zu. True, Jim Starlin’s co-creation has always maintained an air of mysticism with many of his adventures, but the notion that the former MI-6 operative would somehow magically return from beyond the grave having fallen prey to a lethal batch of poisonous Crystal Cakes is debatably contrived at best.

Similarly as disheartening is the Michael L. Printz Award-winner’s decision to seemingly drop Leiko Wu from this comic’s cast no sooner than Shang-Chi’s lover has actually appeared, courtesy of her aeroplane’s autopilot taking the enraged agent straight back to her headquarters. Considering that the Secret Avenger is expecting to face an entire army at the London-based House of the Deadly Staff, it makes little sense for him to ‘go it alone’, except to prevent someone with a less emotional head from pointing out to Brother Hand that accepting a bowl of food from your homicidal sister is probably a literal recipe for disaster; “Let’s see how your conquered self holds up against real temptation.”

Fortunately, one thing this magazine doesn’t suffer with is a lack of eye-candy for its audience, with both Dike Ruan and Philip Tan’s layouts providing plenty of sense-shattering sequences throughout. The aforementioned short-lived battle between the Master of Kung Fu and a horde of vampiric Jiangshi is probably worth the cover price of this comic alone. Yet Tan's flashback scene of an enraged Zheng Zu burning the brains out of his infant offspring for having dared strike him from behind is just as impactive; “You’re no daughter of mine” You’re a daughter of dirt! Return to your father, Dirt Girl!”

The regular cover art of "SHANG-CHI" #2 by Philip Tan & Jay David Ramos