Ze Capitaine America fillaire seems odd indeed, but 'oo could reezist an appearance by ze unique Batroc zee lepair? 

Zut alors! I jumped right into zees one!

Master of Kung Fu #23



"River of Death!"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Al Milgrom
inks: Klaus Janson
letters: John Costanza
colors: Linda Lessmann
editor: Roy Thomas

grade: A-


The first Doug Moench Shang-Chi story I've really enjoyed. Whereas the previous stories felt like filler, designed to meet a deadline while Moench gave more attention to the other projects he'd recently taken on for Marvel, this one genuinely feels different. Beyond being Moench's first multi-part story, it gives real attention to characterization in a meaningful way, with the bond between Shang-Chi and Sir Dennis and Blackjack Tarr really solidifying into something firmer than an alliance of mutual interest. Tarr puts aside his own inherent racism towards Asians in order to defend Shang-Chi from someone who is even more racist than he, and Shang-Chi saves Sir Dennis' life, not out of some sense of obligation nor for the sake of the mission, but simply because he doesn't want him to die. It's nice to finally see some growth in the relationships at the core of this series.

As is typical for Moench in this era, the story is largely built around a series of visual concepts -- a riverboat in a South American jungle, and Shang-Chi fighting an alligator. This is now the second underwater predator Moench has had Shang-Chi take on, incidentally (see Master of Kung Fu #21 for the first). But it's a fun concept that really pays off. Additionally, Al Milgrom and Klaus Janson do a bang-up job on the art this time around. Really knock-your-socks-off quality. I'm surprised to not be disappointed by the absence of Gulacy here.


Minor Details:

- The Si Fan are way more incompetent here than previously depicted. They attack Shang-Chi clumsily and without any kind of plan, and one begs Shang-Chi not to hit him, gladly spilling the beans about Fu Manchu's plans.



plot synopsis in one sentence:

Sir Dennis, Blackjack Tarr, and Shang-Chi go on a mission to South America to stop Fu Manchu from meeting up with a high ranking Nazi officer in hiding who presumably has plans for a dangerous secret weapon to trade him, Sir Dennis hires an agent to take them down the river, the agent proves to be disturbingly racist, they engage the Si Fan, they learn Fu Manchu was never really there, the racist agent reveals himself to be the Nazi officer in disguise, he ditches our heroes and plans to trick Fu Manchu, but Fu Manchu has been monitoring the whole thing remotely.

To be continued...

Funny how we both paused at the same place. It really was becoming tedious reading there for a while. Supposedly though, the very next issue, Giant-Size #2, is where Moench really begins to come alive.

This is something that continues to come up over the course of the series. While Shang and Denis clearly like and respect each other, there's always a bit of tension between them. Sir Denis is motivated by traditional values of duty, patriotism, etc., while Shang follows his own idiosyncratic moral code. Their agendas mostly overlap, but Denis will sometimes feel the need to bend the truth, withhold information, or recontextualize a mission (e.g., framing it as something that will save innocent lives, rather than being just about spies and politics) in order to get Shang on board. You get the feeling that deep down, Denis wishes Shang would just be a good little soldier and do what he's told. And Shang must sometimes be thinking "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"...

Master of Kung Fu #24



Writer: Doug Moench
Pencils: Al Milgrom; Jim Starlin; Alan Weiss; Walt Simonson
Inks: Sal Trapani
Colors: Petra Goldberg
Letters: Dave Hunt
Editor: Roy Thomas

grade: B


Inevitably, my grades of these stories are subjective, but I had a particularly hard time being fair in my grading of this issue. Last issue was a tremendous step forward for Moench's writing on this series. It was at least five times more entertaining than the stories that had come before it. But Giant Size #2, which was released immediately after, is yet another significant leap in the quality of the series and, itself, was at least five times more entertaining than the story that began last issue and is now continued here.

At this point, Al Milgrom was supposed to be the new artist on the regular series, and the letter column says as much, but the fact that the penciling chores for this issue were passed around to no less than four artists suggests that something went awry. Of course, Gulacy just proved he's the perfect partner to Moench in GS #2, so it only makes sense to bring him in as a permanent replacement next issue. It's interesting, by the way, that Starlin was one of the pencilers who assisted on this issue, as Shang-Chi began with Starlin and Englehart. Clearly, this is not the kind of book Starlin was looking to do at this point in his career, though.

Regarding the story itself, it makes some interesting decisions. It would seem that Moench was trying to further complicate the relationships among the central protagonists. Shang Chi ends up saving his father's life, which has the potential to complicate their otherwise purely antagonistic relationship down the road, as well as muddy the growing bond he's experienced with Sir Dennis and Blackjack Tarr as of last issue. But none of that really gets addressed here; it just opens the door for later complexity and growth.

Then there's Fu Manchu's whole involvement with this story. In past issues, Moench kept Fu Manchu too far in the shadows; that enigmatic planner who would show up in a hovering helicopter at the end, only to escape to plot another day. Moench has now moved so far from that frustrating paradigm as to have Fu Manchu function as more of a protagonist in this story than Shang-Chi, depicted right there in the trenches, leading his men with cool brilliance. It's a fun idea, and yet it just doesn't make any sense. How can someone leading a worldwide criminal empire make the decision to lead his men into a dangerous trap? He wouldn't survive very long by continually doing that and, in fact, he only survives here because of Shang-Chi's involvement.



Important Details:

- Shang Chi saves Fu Manchu's life, deciding that he probably deserved to die, but not by the hands of an Arian supremacist who only wanted him dead because he was Asian.



Minor Details:

- This is the second time we see Shang Chi do some brilliant on the fly engineering. Once before he disabled a submarine torpedo on a moment's notice. Now he can quickly dismantle an atom bomb? Was this part of his Si Fan training that's just never been mentioned before?

- One interesting note in the letter column. A fan writes in, spending multiple paragraphs praising Moench, and also briefly compliments Gulacy. Normally, you'd expect the editor to thank the reader and agree with his praise, but, in this case, Thomas(?) completely ignores anything that was said about Moench and tells the reader he hopes he'll enjoy the art of Al Milgrom as much as he enjoyed that of Gulacy. I know Moench was the low guy on the totem pole in the bullpen and that his work on Master of Kung Fu up to this point hadn't been amazing, but he was churning out an absurd quantity of work for Marvel at the time, even the soapbox praised his work on Planet of the Apes last month, and he had some exciting plans for Shang Chi next, so it seems a little odd to snub Moench like this here.




plot synopsis in one sentence:

Shang Chi is left for dead and pursues Fu Manchu on his own, Baron Bucher has set a trap for Fu Manchu, Fu Manchu knows this but willingly walks into it with his Si Fan, outfoxing Bucher's men by having half of his men come up from behind while the other half willingly walked into certain death, Bucher still manages to capture Fu Manchu, and Shang Chi saves him with Sir Dennis and Blackjack arriving just in time to similarly save Shang Chi' Bucher than goes to activate the secret weapon he has lured Fu Manchu with (an atom bomb; no surprise) only to learn that Shang Chi had disabled it.

Regarding that letters page's diss of Moench, it wouldn't have been Roy Thomas writing those answers (he was waaaaaaay too busy for that stuff apart from his own titles) but an assistant editor or other "armadillo." From what I gather, some of these guys used the letter columns to undermine the work of those creators they hoped to steal assignments from. (That was why Shooter ordered that letters page answers be signed when he took over as EIC.) On the other hand, it might well have been Doug himself answering the mail, in which case it would be understandable that he wouldn't chime in on praise for his own work.

Cei-U!
I summon the alternatives!