Shang-Chi (2020), subtitled "Brothers & Sisters” for the collected edition, is a limited series from Marvel Comics, written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Dike Ruan and color by Sebastian Cheng. Philip Tan contributes art to the flashback sequences throughout the series.
Shang-Chi, sometimes known as the Master of Kung Fu, is a long-running Marvel character who has, at different times, been an Avenger, one of the Heroes for Hire, and one of the Agents of Atlas.
His father, the supervillain Zheng Zu, is long dead. But Zheng Zu’s organisation, the Five Weapons Society, endures, and a murderous power struggle for the role of Supreme Commander draws Shang-Chi back to his family and his father’s legacy.
Some elements of his original background have aged poorly, so this series (the first Shang-Chi solo title in many years) also acts as a Soft Reboot to accompany the character’s introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The limited series was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic (and was more popular than the creators had expected), so was swiftly followed by an ongoing series with most of the same creative team.
The first issue was released 30 September 2020.
Marvel's Infinity Comics imprint later released a Webcomic adaptation of the series, restructuring the art into a 'verticalized' scrolling format and splitting the original five issues into eight chapters. The first chapters of the adaptation were released November 12, 2021, the last on November 26, 2021.
Tropes appearing in Shang-Chi (2020):
- Aliens in Cardiff: The House of the Deadly Hammer is based in Chara Sands, a tiny (less than 2 x 4 mile) patch of desert near the small Siberian town of Novaya Chara.
- Accent Interest: Shang-Chi’s accent attracts some attention from Grandma Wang’s customers when he’s speaking Cantonese. They can’t place which part of China it’s from - mostly because his father’s household still spoke with a centuries-old Qin Dynasty accent.
- Art Shift: All of the flashback sequences to Zheng Zu’s life and Shang-Chi’s youth are illustrated by a different artist (Philip Tan).
- Bad Future: The demon guarding Zheng Yi’s tomb gives Brother Sabre a glimpse of one, along with a prophecy that Earth will burn to ashes if Shang-Chi defeats Sister Hammer and becomes the Society’s supreme commander.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the revelation that Zheng Zu murdered his younger brother Zheng Yi, a flashback shows Zheng Zu declaring that, to survive the battle against Baron Harkness, one brother must be sacrificed to boost the other’s power. Zheng Zu insists that "as the elder brother.." he chooses to lay down his own life to save Zheng Yi.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Between Shang-Chi and Sister Hammer, who are connected by his Jiangshi-infected wound and the Magitek microchip Sister Hammer uses to aggravate his infection. Although it quickly becomes more of a battle against Zheng Zu’s memory, not against each other.
- Big Bad: Sister Hammer, who's trying to seize control of the Five Weapons Society.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Takeshi, Brother Sabre, is definitely in this category. He’s an affable, larger than life warrior. And in The Stinger he’s drunk enough that his siblings have to help him back to his room.
- Bullet Catch: Shang-Chi’s able to catch a bullet between his fingers just before it hits Sister Hammer’s head, saving her life.
- Call-Back: Zheng Zu’s last appearance, in Secret Avengers, introduced the 'Eyes of the Dragon' and the concept that he’d killed his brother for immortality. This series revisits that and shows events in a different light.
- Carry a Big Stick: Shi-Hua's hammer, as usual for the head of the House of the Deadly Hammer.
- The Cavalry: Played with. When the Jiangshi are rampaging through London, Leiko Wu’s forces are barely surviving and she asks one of the troops to call in the reinforcements. He replies that his team were the reinforcements.
- Chekhov's Gun: Shang-Chi’s fondness for crystal cakes, first seen when he’s eating some with Leiko Wu.
- When Shi-Hua and Shang-Chi are apprehended by their father, which leads to Shi-Hua’s attack on him and the siblings being separated, they were searching the house for crystal cakes.
- Shi-Hua, now Sister Hammer, serves crystal cakes for her reunion meal with Shang-Chi. They’re poisoned.
- Chinese Vampire: Sister Hammer is building an army of Jiangshi, using Magitek to circumvent some of the usual requirements for reanimating them.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each house of the Five Weapon Society is associated with a different color.
- Red for the Deadly Hand (and Shang-Chi just happens to be wearing a red t-shirt when we first see him in civilian life).
- Green for the Deadly Staff
- Yellow for the Deadly Hammer
- White for the Deadly Sabre
- Black for the Deadly Dagger
- Zheng Zu and Zheng Yi, as leaders of the society, both wear blue (dark blue for Zheng Zu, usually a lighter blue for Zheng Yi).
- Constructive Criticism: At the harsher end of the scale, but well meant and politely delivered. After defeating two murderous warriors from the House of the Deadly Hammer, Shang-Chi asks how long they’ve been training. When one says "since childhood", Shang-Chi tells him that although his colleague's not bad, he’s just not built for this (and suggests a career change).
- Continuity Nod: The flashbacks are full of them.
- The dragon attracted to a Tianjin Prefecture governor’s mansion in the 1700s is Fin Fang Foom, a recurring Marvel villain.
- The wizard supporting the British soldiers in the 1800s is Baron Harkness (presumably a relative of Agatha Harkness), who then calls upon Dormammu and the Mindless Ones.
- Zheng Zu's "Eyes of the Dragon" are a gift from the brothers’ “ancient friend" in Kamar-Taj, presumably the Ancient One who later trained Doctor Strange.
- When we see Shi-Hua’s childhood training at the House of the Deadly Hammer, her tutor (who plans to toughen her flesh and bones with potions) is Baba Maximoff. There’s no direct statement that she’s related to Wanda Maximoff, but it’s implied.
- Defiant to the End: Brother Staff exits with a Dying Smirk, noting that Shang-Chi, not the murderous Sister Hammer, has been chosen as their father’s new successor.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: The final issue opens with Sister Hammer’s Jiangshi rampaging through the streets of London. The 30 St Mary Axe skyscraper (better known as "The Gherkin") is very prominent in the background.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Leiko Wu is a British MI6 agent of Chinese heritage. Her Chinese is 'You No Take Candle' levels of awful, though, so Shang-Chi asks her to stick to English.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No name is given for Brother Staff before Sister Hammer kills him.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Downplayed but present with Zheng Zu. He tries to sacrifice himself to save his brother Zheng Yi, who he considers wiser and more compassionate. When Zheng Yi then reverses this with a Take Me Instead, an anguished Zheng Zu declares that he doesn’t trust himself without his brother’s guidance. And he's right.
- Expecting Someone Taller: Sister Dagger's response when she first meets Shang-Chi. With added comedy value as she's the shortest of his siblings; he's still significantly taller than she is.
- Fake Kill Scare: Played with. Flashbacks show Zheng Zu threatening to kill his young daughter Shi-Hua after she strikes him while defending Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi pleads for his sister's life, but is left believing that all this achieved was a merciful death. Zheng Zu actually separated the siblings and sent her to Russia, but it's a long time before Shang-Chi finds that out.
- Family Business: All current leaders of the Five Weapons Society are children of its Long-Lived founder, Zheng Zu.
- The Family That Slays Together: Zheng Zu’s surviving children - apart from Shang-Chi - are very much this at the start of the story. Shang-Chi is hoping to change them into something more heroic, whereas his rival Shi-Hua is fine with the villainy but wants her siblings out of the way so that she can take control of the Five Weapons Society.
- Foreshadowing: A flashback shows Shang-Chi and Shi-Hua discovering a room full of corpses being prepared for Jiangshi in their father’s house. As an adult, Shi-Hua (Sister Hammer) creates an army of Jiangshi.
- Friendly Address Privileges:
- Shang-Chi is very uncomfortable using "cult names" for his siblings Brother Sabre and Sister Dagger, so consistently calls them Takeshi and Esme once they’re willing to reveal their names (although it takes a while before Esme discloses hers). They both insist on calling him Brother Hand despite this, though.
- Leiko is the only person in the entire series to refer to him as simply "Shang" rather than Shang-Chi (and does so consistently).
- Greater-Scope Villain: Arguably Zheng Zu. He may be dead, but he’s still manipulating events and setting his children against each other from beyond the grave. And his ghost’s brief appearance in The Stinger reinforces this.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: One of the Jiangshi Shang-Chi’s fighting picks up its own severed hand and uses it as a thrown weapon. And very effectively, too.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Sister Hammer creates an undead Jiangshi army that’s fuelled and tied to her by Magitek. When she realises that they’ve infected Shang-Chi she can’t resist accelerating his conversion by connecting him as well. Which allows him to confront her in a Battle in the Center of the Mind and defeat the whole army.
- Insistent Appellation: Brother Sabre (Takeshi) and Sister Dagger (Esme) insist on referring to Shang-Chi as Brother Hand.
- Internal Reveal: The first issue’s flashback mentions that Zheng Yi died, then the third issue flashback (narrated by Takeshi, Brother Sabre) includes the revelation that Zheng Zu killed him to steal his power. Which will not be a surprise to anyone who’s read the Secret Avengers arc that first mentioned Zheng Zu's brother. And the reveal’s subverted in the next issue anyway, when Zheng Yi’s ghost explains what really happened.
- Keystone Army: Sister Hammer’s undead Jiangshi are connected to each other (and to her) via Magitek, which makes them vulnerable to this sort of attack.
- Long-Lived: Zheng Zu was already an accomplished sorcerer and leader of the Five Weapons Society by the early 1700s. His longevity spell allowed him to live until the present day - and if he hadn’t been killed, he might have had more centuries ahead of him.
- Long-Lost Relative: Shang has a bunch of siblings, as it turns out that Zheng Zu wanted a lot of heirs. Takeshi and Esme side with Shang, while Shi-Hua wants to take over the Society for herself. Shang even meets his uncle, Zheng Yi, for the first time.
- Magitek: Sister Hammer’s Jiangshi are undead boosted by technology. The normal restriction on animating them - the dead person must have an unresolved grudge for their corpse to be eligible - is solved by connecting their dead minds to a chip with a prerecorded grudge.
- Morality Chain: Zheng Yi was this for his elder brother Zheng Zu. It was only after his death that Zheng Zu slipped into outright villainy.
- Mythology Gag: There are five Houses in the Five Weapons Society: the House of the Deadly Staff, House of the Deadly Sabre, House of the Deadly Dagger, House of the Deadly Hammer, and House of the Deadly Hand. Shang-Chi is supposed to be the head of the House of the Deadly Hand and thus referred to as "Brother Hand." Shang-Chi's first comic was called The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu and he later headlined a comic called The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Played with. After the initial attempt to kill him fails, Sister Hammer hugs her brother Shang-Chi and invites him into the House of the Deadly Staff for food and reminiscence. She even serves crystal cakes, the food they were searching the house for on the day their father separated them. She’s poisoned them, of course.
- Off with His Head!: The fate of a previous Commander Sabre in 1900. Zheng Zu holds him personally responsible when Western attackers break into the House of the Deadly Sabre and defile Zheng Yi’s shrine.
- Parrying Bullets: Sister Hammer’s good enough to deflect automatic weapon fire with her spinning hammer.
- Posthumous Character: Zigzagged with Zheng Yi and Zheng Zu. They start this way, developed via flashbacks, but then Zheng Zu appears as a spirit. And then it's revealed that the spirit is actually Zheng Yi, not his brother. And then, in The Stinger, Zheng Zu’s ghost does appear, so it’s eventually averted for both of them.
- The Prophecy: The demon guarding Zheng Yi’s tomb claims that Zheng Zu knew of a prophecy that the Earth would burn to ashes if Shang-Chi becomes the Society’s supreme commander, and suggests that he’s trying to arrange this as posthumous revenge.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Downplayed, but flashbacks show that Shi-Hua was sent to Siberia (location of The House of the Deadly Hammer) after attacking Zheng Zu to protect Shang-Chi.
- Remember the New Guy?: None of Zheng Zu's other children have appeared before, most notably Shi-Hua, who in flashbacks is shown to have a friendship with Shang-Chi throughout childhood.
- Retronym: The Shang-Chi (2021) ongoing series wasn’t originally planned when the 2020 book launched, and initially had the same creative team, so trade paperbacks now present both as part of a single series. The 2020 series is collected as "Volume 1: Brothers & Sisters" and the start of the 2021 series is labelled as Volume 2.
- Sacrificial Revival Spell: Zheng Zu cast this to save Zheng Yi, at the cost of his own life. His reasoning was that one of them needed to live, and that Zheng Yi was the better man and the wiser, kinder leader for the Five Weapons Society. But it’s immediately followed by Zheng Yi reversing it with a Take Me Instead, leaving Zheng Zu as the survivor despite his wishes.
- Sibling Murder: Sister Hammer kills her half-brother Brother Staff - and tries to kill Shang-Chi and her other siblings as well.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Zheng Zu and Zheng Yi. Zu was more pragmatic and ruthless, while Yi was more kindhearted and good. They balanced each other out as the leaders of the Five Weapons Society. However, after Yi died, Zu became more and more twisted and changed the Society to something more sinister.
- Spirit Advisor: After the Jiangshi wounds Shang-Chi, he has visions of his father’s spirit (actually his uncle Zheng Yi), which starts to play this role.
- The Stinger: There’s a one-page epilogue in the final issue. In the original comic it was presented in true stinger style, after "The End." and the letters page. Shang-Chi hears a spirit’s voice calling him... and this time it really is his father's ghost, not his benevolent uncle Zheng Yi. And his father thinks him a fitting successor, well suited to the throne, because he knows Shang-Chi is destined to become just like him...
- Taking You with Me: The demon in Zheng Yi’s tomb suggests that Zheng Zu’s playing a long game of this, manipulating events after his death to ensure that Earth burns to ashes. Then again, demons lie.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Sister Hammer reunites with Shang-Chi over a meal, but poisons the food.
- They Call Him "Sword": The heads of the Five Weapons Society.
- Brother Hand, otherwise known as Shang-Chi himself
- Sister Hammer, Shang-Chi’s sister Shi-Hua, the Big Bad of the story.
- Sister Dagger, Shang-Chi’s half-sister Esme
- Brother Sabre, Shang-Chi’s half-brother Takeshi
- Brother Staff, who dies before we learn much about him.
- Unknown Relative: Shang-Chi knew Zheng Zu had several other children, but his sister Shi-Hua is the only sibling in this story that he already knew about; his half-brother Takeshi, half-sister Esme, and deceased half brother 'Brother Staff' are all new to him.
- Villains Never Lie: Averted (with a touch of Exact Words) by Zheng Zu. The 1900 flashback shows him bolstering his Card-Carrying Villain credentials by angrily revealing that he murdered his own brother Zheng Yi to steal his power. He’d actually planned to die to ensure his brother lived, but Zheng Yi thwarted him and reversed the ritual with an unexpected Take Me Instead.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Brother Staff is killed early in the first issue, before we even see Shang-Chi.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Historical flashbacks show Zheng Zu in this territory after his brother’s death. He’s still defending his nation, but heading down a darker path that leads to his eventual role as a supervillain.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Implied by The Stinger, with Zheng Zu’s ghost telling Shang-Chi that he’s well suited to the throne because he’s going to become just like his father. Shang-Chi is not happy about this.
