Comics vs Movies: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Does Marvel Studios’ Master of Kung Fu, Shang-Chi, stay true to his comic book roots, or does the film make him and his world unique unto his own?

If you’ve already seen Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – as it seems most of you have according to the box office – you may have thought to yourself, “That was more like a martial-arts action flick than a comic book movie.” Then after being reassured by your more comic book literate friends that, yes, Shang-Chi is, in fact, a Marvel superhero, you might then by thinking, “Is he like that in the comics?” You might also be wondering if anything else in the movie also came from the comics, like that guy with the sword for a hand, or those crazy rings Shang-Chi’s dad has, or “Oh my gosh! Is that a dragon?!”

This is where your humble writer comes in. We’ll look at certain characters, places, and things from the movie and explain how similar – or different – they are in the original comics. (I also don’t need to tell you that there will be major SPOILERS from here on out). This is not meant to critique the movie, but to inform you, and to compare and contrast both mediums. Because we’ll just say right up front: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings deviated a lot from the comics. And the changes start with the titular character himself.

Shang-Chi

There are three aspects in which Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s version of the “Master of Kung Fu” which perfectly line-up with the comics. Shang-Chi’s father did train him to become an assassin since he was a small boy. He did renounce his father’s ways after his first mission. And he is one of the best, if not the best, martial artist on planet Earth. Other than these, everything about Shang-Chi has been completely changed.

For starters, Shang-Chi’s father in the comics is English pulp writer Sax Romer’s notorious criminal mastermind, Doctor Fu Manchu. This isn’t widely acknowledged in modern comics, but not just because Fu Manchu is regarded as an offensive “Yellow Peril” stereotype. Rather, it’s because Marvel lost the rights to use Fu Manchu as a character in 1980s, along with every other character featured in Romer’s novels. Hence, in order to get around potential copyright issues, it was retconned in the comics that Fu Manchu’s “real name” was actually Zheng Zu.

Another big difference is that Shang-Chi’s mother didn’t come from Ta-Lo; nor was she even of Chinese descent. Instead, Shang-Chi’s mother was a white New Yorker, specifically chosen by Fu Manchu to bear his child and successor. Nor did Shang-Chi kill the man who murdered his mother as shown in the film. Rather, Shang-Chi was duped into killing Fu Manchu’s long-time nemesis, Dr. Petit.

It was after he learned the truth from Dr. Petit’s friend, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, that Shang-Chi ends up working for MI-6. Later, he would team-up with Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing as one of the Heroes for Hire, and would even help train Spider-Man when the wall-crawler temporarily lost his spider-sense. And while he would also become an Avenger, he definitely didn’t moonlight as a valet parker in San Francisco. He moonlighted as a baker. And no, he doesn’t have a best friend named Katy Chen. That character was solely invented for the film (though don’t be surprised if Marvel adapts her for the comics later on).

Comic book Shang-Chi also doesn’t have a sister named Xialing, but a sister named Zheng Shi-Hua, an assassin who goes by the name “Sister Hammer.” He also has a few half-siblings and an adoptive brother named M’Nai. And, because this is comics, M’Nai was snatched from the timeline at the moment he died by Immortus (the possible future version of Kang the Conqueror), had his mind transplanted into a genetically-engineered body created by Kree scientists, and became a super-assassin known as the Midnight Sun.

In short, the Shang-Chi we see in the movie is a very, very different character than what we got from nearly fifty years worth of comics.