Shang-Chi And The Ten Rings #5 - Marvel Comics

SHANG-CHI AND THE TEN RINGS No. 5, January 2023

Rather energetically explaining the tragic origin of the ten rings, Gene Luen Yang’s storyline for “Game Of Rings” surely must have ‘hooked’ this comic’s audience with its exhilarating mixture of pulse-pounding pugilism, and unhappy flashback to a time when the Jade Emperor despairingly ordered the death of the god-hero Nezha. Indeed, there’s barely a dull moment to be found inside the American author’s twenty-page long plot, as Shang-Chi battles both a maggot-infested demonic Leiko Wu and treacherous Shen Kuei for ownership of the legendary Ten Rings; “What happened to partnering until we’re the last two left!?!”

Foremost of these fights are the Master of Kung Fu’s titanic tussles with his former lover. Now an unwilling host of a spawn of the Desolation Wyrm, the possessed MI-6 agent provides a suitably dangerous opponent for Commander Hand to face, especially when he’s equally occupied keeping the Cat from inadvertently plunging to defeat through a ground-based portal, and this palpable threat to the Chi-Meister’s success genuinely helps raise the tension between the combatants as they rapidly exchange seismically-powered blows.

Equally as engaging as this book’s all-out action though, has to be the emotional drain experienced as Shang-Chi desperately tries to reach inside Leiko Wu’s head and help her battle the fiendish monster controlling her. The woman’s eventual exorcism of the grisly mind grub arguably adds an extra element to her previously somewhat unsympathetic character, whilst some genuine sadness is generated in the character's final scene when she willingly departs “maybe the only one I trust at all” with a tearful kiss and admits that the British Intelligence Service were entirely wrong to have stolen the “set of ten mystical iron rings” from the head of the Five Weapons Society in the first place.

Impressively adding plenty of jaw-breaking “HWOK” and sense-shattering “SHINGGG” to this publication’s proceedings are Marcus To’s layouts, which somehow manage to cram an awful lot of punches, kicks and throws onto each individual sheet. In fact, the sheer sense of speed created by the artist’s clever use of small panels depicting all the intense drama, really helps sell the breath-taking pace of the furious fisticuffs on show - whether it be Red Cannon cold-bloodedly falling upon an otherwise distracted Yokozuna Tak, or the leader of the Red Dot Collective savagely blowing a hole straight through an astonished Ghost Maker with his formidably-sized hand-cannon.

The regular cover art of "SHANG-CHI AND THE TEN RINGS" #5 by Dike Ruan & Matthew Wilson