Shang-Chi: How Marvel Edited a Comic to Hide a Kung Fu Character’s Appearance

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COMIC LEGEND:

Marvel edited a mustache on to a character in an issue of Shang-Chi’s comic book to disguise that it was meant to be Caine from the Kung Fu TV series.

STATUS:

True

In case you did not know (and CBR’s Kristen Callaghan just recently wrote about it), the original inspiration for Shang-Chi was the popular 1970s TV series, Kung Fu, which starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk searching the American West at the end of the 19th century looking for his half-brother.

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The creators of Shang-Chi, Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, were immediate fans of the series, so their decision to do a comic book based on the series (which turned into a brand-new character inspired by the show instead) came before Kung Fu even became THAT popular.

In any event, after losing out on the chance to adapt the show directly, Englehart and Starlin instead created Shang-Chi for Marvel in the pages of Special Marvel Edition, which soon saw its title changed so that instead of it being an anthology series, it would be a Shang-Chi solo series. However, Shang-Chi’s creators were not long for the character. Shang-Chi was introduced in Special Marvel Edition #15 and it became Master of Kung Fu with #17, which was Starlin’s final issue on the series and then Englehart left after #19. Before Englehart left, though, he wanted one last tie-in to the Kung Fu TV series…

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Starlin’s initial replacement on the series as artist was Paul Gulacy (inked by Al Milgrom). Gulacy later returned to the series for a famous run on the book with writer Doug Moench. Here, though, he drew Englehart’s final two issues.

In #19, Shang-Chi runs afoul of the monstrous Man-Thing, who can burn anyone who experiences fear while touching him. He is saved by a mysterious stranger…

The stranger then introduces himself as Lo Sun…

But because we have eyes, we all know that he is obviously based visually on Carradine’s Caine…

This allowed Englehart to have his new creation have a heart to heart with the character that inspired him…

However, Marvel felt that it was TOO obvious of a likeness, especially since Kung Fu was a show about, you know, kung fu, so after Gulacy finished the issue, Marvel had someone draw a mustache on to Lo Sun throughout the issue. Moench later recalled to Jon B. Cooke in TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Artist #7, while noting that no one had ever bothered them during their time together on the series (when they had cameos and facial likenesses of a number of major characters), “There had been an earlier problem when Paul drew David Carradine and they actually had to go over Paul’s artwork and put a mustache on the David Carradine character, but for some reason, when we were doing it, it all slipped by and there was never any problem. “

I believe when the issue was reprinted in England in the pages of The Avengers #36, the original artwork was published, but I don’t have a copy of the issue to confirm.

Thanks to Doug Moench and Jon B. Cooke for the information!

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OK, that’s it for this installment!

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