Trivia / Shang-Chi

• Creator Backlash: Not to Shang-Chi himself, but an aspect of his backstory. Before Marvel Studios started filming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Jim Starlin stated that the movie should simply remove the aspect of him being the son of Fu Manchu, as he found it embarrassing. He said that he added the Fu Manchu bit without knowing what that entailed and on reading some of the original Fu Manchu books later, regretted it immediately.
• Executive Meddling: Shang-Chi's white American mother was a But Not Too Foreign request from Editor-In—Chief Roy Thomas. After being introduced in the first story she only made one more appearance, many years later (after the creative team had changed) and never even got a name. Shang-Chi's biracial heritage was occasionally referenced in Hong Kong stories, though.
• Exiled from Continuity: At least until 2022, Marvel retained permission to reprint the older Shang-Chi stories that use Fu Manchu and other supporting cast from Sax Rohmer’s tales, but can no longer use these characters (or refer to them) in new stories. As there are a number of racist and other questionable elements to the Rohmer stories, this fits well with the character’s reinvention (although the associated Soft Reboot does create some Continuity Snarl around previous events and how much remains in canon now that Fu Manchu is replaced by Zheng Zu).
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Many of Shang-Chi's own comics are available as trade paperbacks and/or digital comics (although some of his guest appearances elsewhere aren't), but there are a few that are now entirely out of print.
  • As of August 2022, the original Master of Kung Fu series is out of print and withdrawn from Marvel's digital comics platforms (pre-purchased digital comics still remain).
  • The only way to read the Crossing Lines storyline from the Marvel Comics Presents anthology is to seek out the original comics.
  • The 2002 Marvel MAX Master of Kung Fu revival is not available as a digital comic and is long out of print as a reprint collection.
• What Could Have Been: Former Marvel Productions President and CEO Margaret Loesch has stated that in the 1980s, Stan Lee tried to get a Shang-Chi movie or television series made, with Brandon Lee as Shang-Chi.