Shang-Chi (2021-2022) is a comic book series published by Marvel Comics, starring the titular Shang-Chi. Written by Gene Luen Yang and initially illustrated by Dike Ruan, it’s a sequel to the 2020 ''Shang-Chi'' limited series by the same creators, expanding on the Soft Reboot that began with that series.
Shang-Chi's now reunited and allied with his half-siblings Takeshi (Brother Sabre) and Esme (Sister Dagger) and, in his role as Brother Hand, he’s been appointed as the new leader of his long-dead father’s Five Weapons Society.
But his father Zheng Zu’s past still casts a long shadow across the wider Marvel Universe - he was known as an infamous villain and many heroes have previously clashed with his secret societies.
Can Shang-Chi change his family, and the Five Weapons Society as a whole, for the better? Or, if he fails, will they change him? And how many of his old allies are willing to simply wait and watch him try, trusting that he'll succeed?
The series is structured in short arcs:
- "Shang-Chi vs. The Marvel Universe" (#1-6)
- "Family of Origin" (#7-8)
- “Blood and Monsters" (#9-12)
The first issue was released on 19 May 2021. The final issue, #12, was released on 11 May 2022.
Shang-Chi was followed by a Sequel Series from the same creative team, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings.
Tropes in Shang-Chi (2021):
- An Arm and a Leg: Sister Hammer loses a hand to Chieftain Xin. And Shang-Chi, influenced by the Ten Rings, is about to take Xin's hand in revenge in the final issue, until Sister Hammer intervenes.
- Auction of Evil: The Iron Eighty-Eight auction a Cosmic Cube. The Hand, M.O.D.O.K., A.I.M., the Inner Demons and Hydra are all among the bidders, as is the Five Weapons Society.
- Big Bad: Chieftain Xin. In the first arc he’s the shadowy figure assembling an alliance of lesser villains, in the rest of the series he's openly the villain.
- Broken Pedestal:
- The trust Shang-Chi's siblings had in him is seemingly destroyed at the end of the first arc, when he hands Takeshi over to the Avengers' custody for stealing the Cosmic Cube.
- More generally, the first arc sees several other heroes lose faith in Shang-Chi, fearing that the Five Weapons Society is corrupting him. By the end of that arc, Spider-Man is the only hero who seems to have any faith left in Shang-Chi.
- Bullet Catch: Shang-Chi catches a bullet with his teeth... then spits it back at Red Dot's cybernetic eye, shattering it.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Shang-Chi and Spider-Man team-up, both recall when Shang-Chi developed the "Way of the Spider" martial art style with him during Spider-Island.
- When Shang-Chi discovers his half-sister Zheng Zhilan he clashes with Wolverine, who’s tracked her down to offer her a home in the new mutant nation of Krakoa.
- Covers Always Lie: Captain Marvel appears on the cover of the first issue (reused on the cover of Tpb), but does not appear in the first story arc.
- Cyborg: Red Dot and at least some of his minions.
- Death Faked for You: Years ago Takeshi was ordered to assassinate his half-sister Zheng Zhilan. He opted to lie to his father and fake her death instead.
- Fantastic Racism: Zheng Zu was apparently prejudiced against mutants. Esme and Takeshi have acquired some of the same views from their upbringing, but they’re trying to get past it.
- Four Is Death: Discussed when Shang-Chi, Sister Dagger, and Brother Saber visit the Baxter Building.
- Kirin: One of the alternative spellings, Qilin, is used. Shang-Chi's mother and her family are from the people known as Qilin Riders.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Shang-Chi's eyes start glowing red, echoing Takeshi's vision of doom, when he embraces the power of the full set of Ten Rings and prepares to take vengeance on Chieftain Xin. Shi-Hua and his other siblings talk him down, and his eyes return to normal.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Esme notices how much Shang-Chi seems to talk like a "dweeb" around Spider-Man.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: It's suggested that Zheng Zu used this to hide Shang-Chi's memories of his mother.
- Long-Lost Relative: In addition to Shang-Chi’s sister Shi-Hua and the three half-siblings introduced in the previous limited series, this series introduces at least three more:
- His half-sister, Zheng Zhilan, who is a mutant.
- His real mother, Jiang Li.
- His maternal grandfather, Chieftain Xin.
- Magic Music: Zheng Zhilan, the Witch of Muckross Lake, is trained in mysticism and seems to have this power. But it’s then revealed that she’s a mutant with the power to solidify music into constructs.
- Mythology Gag:
- Shang-Chi defeats Red Dot's henchmen with a split kick, the same way his MCU counterpart did against the Ten Rings henchmen in the bus fight scene in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
- When Shang-Chi and Chieftain Xin fight for control over the Ten Rings, they strike the same poses Shang-Chi and Wenwu make in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings during their struggle for the Rings, even giving off the same colors with both Shang-Chis' being gold/orange and Xin/Wenwu being purple/blue.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: Played with in the first arc, Shang-Chi vs. The Marvel Universe (but sometimes justified in-universe in ways that veer closer to Plot Tailored to the Party):
- Played straight when he paralyzes The Thing's arm with a pressure point strike, although Shang-Chi and his siblings are no match for the complete Fantastic Four.
- In a fight against Iron Man, Shang-Chi’s within a Five Weapons Society base and has specialized adamantium weapons available, allowing him to even the odds and fight to a stand-off. And both of them agree that Shang-Chi’s seriously outmatched without that help. Although it’s later revealed that the whole battle is part of Iron Man’s reconnaissance plan, to establish whether the Society still has the stolen cosmic cube, so it’s questionable as to whether it would have ended the same way if that wasn't the case.
- Against Thor, he does surprisingly well after Takeshi equips him with a magical sword. Which doubles as Foreshadowing - the 'sword' is actually the reshaped Cosmic Cube, stolen from Captain America in an earlier issue, which Thor and the assembled heroes are trying to retrieve.
- Power Fist: Sister Hammer gets a hi-tech prosthetic weapon as a replacement hand which creates an energy projection shaped like a hammer that can be switched on and off at will.
- Reality Warper: The Cosmic Cube, as always. Shang-Chi realizes that Takeshi's magic sword is actually the Cube when he makes Mjolnir melt with it.
- Recycled Title: Shang-Chi is the same title used for his 2020 limited series. Prior to that, Shang-Chi's earlier solo series used titles such as Master of Kung Fu rather than just his name. This series is a very direct Sequel Series to that limited series, though - to the point where some collected editions treat them as the same story, with the limited series collected as "volume 1".
- Remember the New Guy?: Jiang Li is a Canon Immigrant from the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings film. Prior to this series, Shang-Chi's mother was originally believed to be a Caucasian American woman, but Shang-Chi immediately recognizes Jiang Li as his mother after reuniting with her. Justified in-universe via Zheng Zu apparently applying Laser-Guided Amnesia to his son Shang-Chi.
- Ret-Canon: Thanks to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, several concepts introduced in the movie were later included with the comics canon.
- The character Ying Li is now part of the comic canon as Jiang Li. Just like with her movie counterpart, Jiang Li is mortal resident of Ta Lo blessed by the realm's dieties with mystical powers who met Shang-Chi's father after he invaded Ta Lo, married him after they left Ta Lo, during which he went through a brief Heel–Face Turn before tragedy made him evil again.
- The Ten Rings become part of the comic canon, with Zheng Zu's explanation that they are one of Ta Lo's "Five Sets of Heavenly Weapons", a legend that inspired the structure of the Five Weapons Society.
- Retired Badass: Following her showdown with Shang-Chi in the Shang-Chi (2020) miniseries his sister Zheng Shi-Hua, the former Sister Hammer, has dropped into a more mundane lifestyle, working as a lumberjack in Canada.
- Running Gag:
- Esme continually calls Spider-Man "Snot-Shooter". It bothers him enough to ask for second opinions about whether or not his webbing actually does feel like snot.
- Poor Red Dot can't catch a break with the constant abuse towards his eyes. His cybernetic eye gets repeatedly damaged by Shang-Chi and Sister Dagger and to add insult to injury, Shang-Chi throws habanero salsa into his human eye right after repairing his robotic one.
- Sequel Series: A direct sequel to the Shang-Chi (2020) limited series, which had the same creative team. The collected edition's book numbering reinforces this, treating them as part of a single series.
- Stock Ness Monster: Muckie, the monster rumoured to dwell in Ireland's Lakes of Killarney (Muckie's not as well known as the Loch Ness monster, but this is an actual legend, not something invented for the series). Zheng Zhilan's been using her powers to stop it from menacing the locals.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Takeshi warns Shang-Chi to take a glass at the Iron Eighty-Eight's Auction of Evil, for the sake of politeness, but never to sip it. One of the other bidders doesn’t follow that advice and gets fatally poisoned by The Hand.
- Verbal Tic: Jiang Li chitters like the bugs she psionically connected within the Negative Zone.
- Villain Respect: Zheng Zu's spirit is impressed when Shang-Chi obtains the Ten Rings.Zheng Zu:Most-favored son, you've accomplished what I could not!
- What Happened to the Mouse?: As with the previous miniseries, despite the focus on family ties (and Chieftain Xin hunting down Zheng Zu's descendents), there's no mention of Shang-Chi's half-sisters Zheng Bao Yu and Kwai Far (who only appeared in a single Black Panther story).
