Master of Kung Fu: Bleeding Black #1

History

The one-shot grew directly out of the 1988 Marvel Comics Presents arc, in which Moench reunited Shang-Chi with most of his original supporting cast. The Bleeding Black story is structured in discrete eight-page chapters — the standard installment length for Marvel Comics Presents — and multiple sources have noted that the material was very likely originally planned for serialization in that anthology before being reformatted into a square-bound special. The book was edited by Terry Kavanagh with Kelly Corvese as assistant editor and Tom DeFalco as editor-in-chief; art duties fell to brothers Dan Day and David Day, who shared penciling, inking, and coloring responsibilities. David and Dan Day are brothers of Gene Day, the beloved artist who had defined the look of the late Bronze Age Master of Kung Fu run before his death in 1982.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Zhou Man She, the second character to use the Zaran identity — a martial-arts mercenary and self-proclaimed successor to Maximillian Zaran who trained under him before striking out on his own.
• Written by Doug Moench, penciled and inked by David Day and Dan Day, with lettering by Joe Rosen; cover date February 1990, release date December 1990 (per Grand Comics Database and Complete Marvel Reading Order).
• The story is a direct continuation of the Shang-Chi serial from Marvel Comics Presents #1–8 (1988), in which Shang-Chi was poisoned; the one-shot resolves that storyline as he races to locate his father's elixir vitae — the serum of eternal life — to cure himself.
• Fu Manchu (Zheng Zu) appears only in flashback; by this point Marvel had already lost the licensing rights to the Sax Rohmer character, so the villain is not referred to by name in the story itself.
• The issue features Shang-Chi's full core supporting cast — Black Jack Tarr, Clive Reston, and Leiko Wu — and notably depicts Leiko Wu using a prosthetic hand following the amputation of her left hand in an earlier story.
• The story is broken into six titled chapters, each approximately eight pages, running continuously for roughly 80 pages in a square-bound format with a wraparound cover.
• Reprinted in its entirety in the Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu Omnibus Vol. 4 (Marvel, October 2017), which also collects Master of Kung Fu #102–125 and the Marvel Comics Presents #1–8 serial.
• The issue includes an editorial feature on the inside front cover providing background on the primary characters: Black Jack Tarr, Leiko Wu, Clive Reston, and Shang-Chi, functioning as an on-ramp for new readers.

Cast · 7 characters

Full credits