Not sure what to make of this.

One of my favourite runs in comics, right up there with the Claremont/Cockrum and Claremont/Byrne run on The Uncanny X-Men, was Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's run on Master of Kung Fu. It was dark, moody, and visually arresting. It was very adult.

This...despite paying lip-service to that earlier run, is none of that. Despite Shang-Chi's age, he's coming across as a teenager or, at the very oldest, early twenties. And they've kind of given him an Aunt May...because this sort of feels like Spider-Man, but with Far East magic and history.

Having said that, I've also not read anything with Shang-Chi in it for likely 40-odd years and, knowing Marvel, they've likely rewritten and jury-rigged his history fourteen times since then. Obviously Fu Manchu is no longer his father, due to rights issues with Sax Rohmer's estate.

But mostly? This is just okay as a story, and far less than okay for a Shang-Chi story.

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