Playing around with bing image search, which kicks google image search in the nads and steals its lunch money, I ran across another one of those wonderful comics blogs that posts scans of comics pages long engraved in my id. The blog has a bunch of posts about the old Marvel Master of Kung Fu comic, including this one: Shang Chi, Master Of Kung Fu F.A.Q.
It doesn’t really explain Shang Chi (the “get this, bro” pitch is “the son of Fu Manchu, but Bruce Lee, but James Bond!“), but it highlights how writer Doug Moench tried to add characterization by giving Shang Chi and his supporting cast (MoKF had a terrific supporting cast, mostly a bunch of aging British spies…) all sorts of enthusiasms. Like, Shang Chi and his super-spy girlfriend Leiko Wu go to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind and argue about Star Wars; they enjoy listening to Fleetwood Mac (heck, this is the comic that got me to listen to my parents’ tape casette of Rumors), Black Jack Tarr likes Frank Bloody Frazetta (and who can blame him?)
In retrospect, it feels false, because it’s so clear that the characters are just into whatever the writer was into at the time. But at the time I read this, it felt quite innovative. You saw stuff like that later in Chris Claremont’s X-Men and elsewhere, current culture referenced in the comic, but with Shang Chi, it felt like he really lingered on those moments, those interests – perhaps because Moench wrote a very introspective character, who seemed to spend pages just chilling and thinking about life and stuff, like what do those Fleetwood Mac lyrics all mean, before the inevitable assassins would show up to have their faces kicked.