Shang Chi Eats Lunch

 

cover art by John Buscema

I guess that if you are a master martial artist dedicated to fighting evil and your arch-nemesis is Fu Manchu, then you aren't going to get many quiet moments to eat. 

Writer Dough Moench and artist Paul Gulacy show us this in Master of Kung Fu #22 (November 1974). Shang Chi stops at a Chinese restaurant for a meal, but events soon become hard on his digestion.

Though, to be fair, he does get a chance to finish the meal before a guy with a sword tries to bisect him.

 

I love Gulacy's fight choreography, so this issue--in many ways one long fight scene--is a ton of fun. Shang spends several pages taking down the swordsman. But then a bunch of other guys jump in to continue the fight.

Shang finishes them off and then decides he needs to visit his father and give him a good talking to. But after knocking out a guard and sneaking into his dad's HQ, he discovers that Sir Nayland Smith and Blackjack Tarr have been captured.

The two prisoners are taken aboard an aircraft. Shang sneaks aboard, hiding in the craft's cargo hold and taking note that this hold is packed with explosives.

The craft eventually lands in a mountainous area, where the prisoners and the explosives are carried into a cave. This leads to yet another fun fight scene, as Shang battles to save Smith & Tarr AND stop the explosives from going off.

He does so, of course, though Fu Manchu gets away. But then, getting away when his plans go awry is kind of Fu's main thing.

But what was Fu's plan this time? It's only after the violence dies down that the good guys realize where they are and what Fu Manchu had been planning on blowing up. The explosives had been planted under Mount Rushmore.

It's not the best Shocking Reveal™  ever, but it's a pretty good one.

Master of Kung Fu would often involve multi-issue tales with lots of sometimes complex plot twists. That's one of the things I loved about the title. But sometimes there would just be an issue with a simple plot design to give Shang Chi an opportunity to kick a lot of butt. And I loved that about the title as well. 

We haven't visited the comic book version of the Looney Tunes universe in quite a while, so next week, we'll watch Bugs Bunny help Yosemite Sam buy a used car. What could possibly go wrong?