Two the Hard Way, Part 2: Indecent Proposal

The Black Panther (T’Challa) has come to Luke Cage to hire him for a job. Before he can tell the Hero for Hire what this entails, an army of ninjas come smashing through the window of Luke’s apartment. They have come to capture the Panther and order him to surrender. Obviously, that’s not going to happen and he and Luke begin fighting the intruders.

Luke, the Panther, and the Dora Milaje fend off the ninjas who are all coming in increasing number. While trying to figure out where they are coming from, Luke goes outside and sees a massive dragon shaped aircraft hovering over his apartment building. In order to stop the flow of attackers, Cage leaps into the ship through a window. However, after he does this, the ship also swallowed up the Black Panther and flies off.

Soon after, the Falcon (Sam Wilson) arrives to see what the commotion was all about. When the locals tell him how the Black Panther and Luke Cage were both kidnapped, Wilson flies off after the ship. The Falcon quickly catches up to the ship but is blasted out of the sky. Temporarily knocked out, he comes to just in enough time to reactivate his wings and avoid getting splattered on the ground. By which point, the Dora Milaje have gotten into contact with W’Kabi back home in Wakanda and he has begun tracking the ship that kidnapped their king.

Later, the Black Panther and Luke Cage arrive somewhere in China, where they are taken to the man who had summoned him. The pair quickly fight their way through the ninjas to their paster. T’Challa instantly recognizes him as the leader of the Si-Fan terrorist organization, the man named Fu Manchu.[1] When the Panther makes introductions, their captor interrupts him and says he no longer goes by that name, and insists that they call him Han instead. The reason why “Han” has called for T’Challa is to offer up his daughter, Kwai Far,[2] for marriage. He hopes that such a union would make both their families a force to be reckoned with by taking control of both Asia and Africa.[3] T’Challa admits that while Kwai Far is beautiful, his heart belongs to another woman. This angers Han who strikes her daughter and calls her a whore.

That’s when someone calls out to leave his sister alone. This turns out to be Hans’ other child, Shang-Chi, the legendary Master of Kung Fu.[4] In the ensuing battle, the Si-Fan ninjas pull automatic weapons in an attempt to even the odds. However, this backfires — literally — when the Black Panther activates a device that causes the ammunition in their weapons to combust all at once.

Seeing that this is a losing battle, Han makes his escape through a secret passage. Luke Cage and the Black Panther try to follow after him. However, they have to break off their pursuit when they run into a literal dragon who sets the secret tunnel ablaze.

In the aftermath of the battle, Kwai Far apologizes for her father’s actions. Despite his goals for global domination, Kwai Far admits that she does have a genuine interest in T’Challa. Shang-Chi also says that he would have no objection with the Panther being in a romance with his sister. Luke Cage also chimes in, saying there couldn’t be any harm if he at least went on a few dates with Kwai Far just to test the waters. This gives T’Challa a lot to think about.

Recurring Characters

Black Panther, Luke Cage, Falcon, Shang-Chi, Si-Fan (Han), W’Kabi, Redwing

Continuity Notes

1. This story cuts people off when they try to identify Han as Fu Manchu. Marvel licensed the Fu Manchu character from the Sax Rohmer estate to publish their Master of Kung Fu stories in the 1970s. Marvel’s adaptation of the character first appeared in Special Marvel Edition #15. While the original Rohmer stories have long since entered the public domain, his estate still owns the trademark to the Fu Manchu name. This prevents Marvel from using the character’s name on the cover. Since it’s too much trouble to advertise the use of the character, they just started referring him by other names. Later on, in Secret Avengers #8, it is revealed that “Fu Manchu” was actually an alias, and his birth name is Zheng Zu.

2. In the original Sax Rohmer stories, Fu Manchu had a daughter named Fah Lo Sue. This character was also adapted by Marvel, first appearing in Master of Kung Fu #26. She was later renamed Zhang Bao Yu in Fearless Defenders #8 in much the same was her father was. As such, it’s unclear if Kwai Far is supposed to be Fah Lo Sue, or is another child.

3. As revealed last issue, T’Challa has been asked to find a bride to produce a heir to the Wakandan throne. He will eventually marry Storm of the X-Men in Black Panther (vol. 4) #18.

4. Here, Luke Cage apparently doesn’t recognize Shang-Chi, even though they had met in the past. Notably when they were members of the “Marvel Knights”, a team of street level heroes who worked together for a time. See Marvel Knights #12-14. Since the group disbanded shortly after Luke’s joining the group, perhaps he didn’t get to know Shang Chi well enough to recognize him on sight. In his own defense, Luke is depicted wearing sunglasses in a poorly lit castle, that’s bound to make it hard to recognize someone you barely know. Perhaps he is continuing to play dumb because he is embarrassed to admit it.

Topical References

• When itemizing all the ways the ninjas could have contacted T’Challa, Luke Cage also mentions pagers. These mobile devices were still quite common when this story was published in 2006. However, thanks to the proliferation of cell phones they have mostly become obsolete, as such their reference here should be considered topical.

• One of the bystanders that watched the fight with the Si-Fan quips “Fly, robin, fly” when the Falcon goes after the kidnappers. This is a reference to the 1975 disco hit, “Fly, Robin, Fly” by the Silver Convention.

• Luke Cage jokes that “Han” was the name given to the bad guy in the 1973 kung fu classic Enter the Dragon. This is part of a joke, as Zheng Zu states here that he undergoes a “makeover” every century or so. At the time this story was published (2006), “The Zayat Kiss” (the first Fu Manchu story) was over 100 years old, having been published in 1912. The in joke here being that 1973 was the year that Marvel first published its version of the Fu Manchu character, likely the reason why they cheekily decided to name him after a character from an iconic Bruce Lee movie that came out the same year. Making this in joke a topical reference would ultimately alter its meaning until at least 2102, assuming that there is a contemporary analogue that could be used in its place.