Journey into Mystery #515
To Catch a Tiger by the Tail!
Shang-Chi is in Hong Kong to dismantle a heroin running operation run by the mysterious Cursed Lotus.[1] To this end, he has swam across the bay to the area of Kwun Tong in order to intercept a shipment of drugs. Aboard the vessel with Chow Yun Woo, a local man hooked on heroin that is helping out the Wild Tiger gang, Cursed Lotus’ local operatives. Shang-Chi is also focused on saving Chow Yun for the sake of his daughter, Mai-Yin Woo.
As Shang-Chi stows aboard the vessel, Chow Yun Woo goes below deck to shoot up. As he injects himself with heroin his eye catches a photo of his late wife and their daughter when she was still a baby and is flooded with feelings of shame. As he is finishing up, he is radioed to come back up topside as they have gotten a call from Deng Ling-Xiao the leader of the White Tigers who wishes to speak with him personally about the shipment. This whole time, Shang-Chi is watching from a porthole and is caught by the guards.
Meanwhile, at a remote location on mainland China, Cursed Lotus is visited by Deng, who tells her that everything is going according to plan. Their plan is to create a huge batch of their addictive drug and dump it into the water supply so that everyone in the nation gets hooked and has to buy more heroin from them. Deng is in love with Cursed Lotus and hopes that his success gives them reason to celebrate in private. Lotus, on the other hand, believes that there is nothing to celebrate until the job is done and tells him to go to Kwun Tong to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
By this time, Mai-Yin Woo wakes up aboard Shang-Chi’s boat and finds that her new friend has left. She decides to poke around and learn more about him and finds an old photograph of Shang-Chi with some old friends, and remarks how the woman in the photo is beautiful.[2] Next her eye catches a trunk and when she opens it up she is surprised to see that it contains weapons: a katana, a shuriken, a pair of tanbo, and a set of nunchakus. She tries to use the nunchakus and ends up hitting herself in the head with them. She decides to hold onto the weapon for a while and tucks it into the waistband of her shorts and goes outside. There she finds a note from Shang that reads “Feed the mind, and the heart will grow.” She then goes back to trying to catch a fish with a gourd just like he taught her, even though she still finds this ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Shang-Chi is fighting against the guards on the boat and makes short work of them. That’s when Deng himself shows up wearing a pair of bagh nakh claws and challenges the martial arts master to a duel. As the battle is about to begin, Mai-Yin grows bored and when she overhears the boarding announcement of a nearby ferry heading to Kwun Tong, she stows away on board in the hopes of finding her father and Shang-Chi and helping them.
Back aboard the drug running vessel, Shang not only has to fight off Deng, but two more of his men. These guys are armed with a kyoketsu-shoge and kunai. While he is able to defeat them, this leaves him open to attack from Deng, who rakes his claws across Shang’s face. Shang fights back, but his opponent manages to slash his calf while doing a high kick. That’s when Mai-Yin Woo arrives and calls out for him. Hearing the girl, he tells her that it is too dangerous and she needs to hide. This creates enough of a distraction for Deng to sneak up behind the hero and slash him in the back of the head. This pitches Shang overboard and he sinks into the water below. As the cold water envelops him Shang-Chi tries to fight off death as his demise will surely doom everyone in the country, including Mai-Yin and her father.
Recurring Characters
Shang-Chi, Wild Tiger, Cursed Lotus, Chow Yun Woo, Mai-Yin Woo
Continuity Notes
It’s later implied in issue #516 that Cursed Lotus is Shang-Chi’s sister Zheng Bao Yu. This is confirmed in the Shang-Chi profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #10. The reason for this vagary is explained below.
The people in Shang-Chi’s photo (other than himself) are Black Jack Tarr, Clive Reston, Leiko Wu. These were Shang-Chi’s constant companions during the Master of Kung Fu series. Black Jack was last seen in Marc Spector: Moon Knight Special Edition #1, Clive Reston in X-Men (vol. 2) #62, and Lieko in Incredible Hulk #434. They will all be seen again in Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu #1.
Topical References
In this story, Shang-Chi states that Hong Kong had just recently been restored as a Chinese territory. Hong Kong became a British colony in 1898 under 99 year lease that came to an end on July 1, 1997, a few months before this comic was originally published. References to Hong Kong being newly returned to China should be considered topical.
Shang-Chi is depicted swimming in Victoria Bay. This body of water was given that name after Hong Kong became a British colony. While it’s retained its name following the Chinese hand-over, I get the feeling that it will be renamed something else. Just going to toss this idea out there in case I’m right so I don’t have to rush to update this page.
Licensing Issues
In this story, Shang-Chi’s family members are given pseudonyms in this story. Fu Manchu is referred to as the “unnamable one” while Zheng Bao Yu is called “Cursed Lotus”. This is because these characters were from the Fu Manchu books written by author Sax Rohmer. Marvel licensed out the property from 1973 to 1983 for their Master of Kung Fu series. While Shang-Chi was an original character owned by Marvel, many of his supporting cast and foes were taken from the Fu Manchu novels written by Rhomer between 1913 to 1959.
Although many of Rhomer’s books have entered public domain (all of Rhomer’s work pre-1927 as of this writing in 2022), the Rhomer estate still has a trademark and copyright on Fu Manchu stories after this point. It’s all very complicated and I’m not a copyright lawyer, but basically whenever Marvel has mentioned these characters or featured them in a story following the end of the Rhomer license it has been used using pseudonyms, such is the case in this story.
