Today, see how Shang-Chi briefly gained a giant dragon tattoo for seemingly no reason.

In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively contradicting an earlier story (so the more passive definition of retcons as being anything that is retroactively added to continuity, even if there is no specific conflict with a past story). Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Many years ago, soon after I first started writing about comics, I posted a few personal theories about comics. If you search "Cronin Theory of Comics" on Google, you'll find a bunch of them. Anyhow, one of them was "Avoid the Big Event," which meant that, unless you plan on leaving your comic book series after the event is done, you should avoid having your comic book run lead up to a big event, because when that event is over, it is very difficult to regain the momentum that your run had in the lead up to that event. In the case of Master of Kung Fu, it was even worse than that, as when longtime writer Doug Moench finally (seemingly) killed of Shang-Chi's father, Fu Manchu, in Master of Kung Fu #118, there really didn't seem to be a particular reason to still have a comic book series. Moench perhaps could have come up with a brand-new direction, but then he quit Marvel soon after that and a guest writer had to bring the series to a close, with Shang Chi retiring from a life of adventure to become a fisherman. It was basically the "Dexter Becomes a Lumberjack" ending of its day (while Power Man and Iron Fist's finale a couple of years later was the How I Met Your Mother ending of its day).

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Moench then returned to Marvel five years later to bring Shang-Chi back in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents. Moench then wrote a follow-up one-shot, as well, but then Shang-Chi went back to comic book limbo until 1992's Captain America #412 (by Mark Gruenwald, Rik Levins and Danny Bulanadi), which went sort of old school with Shang-Chi's outfit, but with the major change of no longer drawing Shang-Chi as having golden colored skin, a really creepy idea that fans of the 1970s would write into Marvel to complain about, and if your racial ideas are too sketchy for the people of, like, 1978, you KNOW you've likely gone too far.

Shang-Chi spent ANOTHER five years mostly in comic book limbo, outside of guest appearance in the 1994 Daredevil Annual, a very short Marvel Comics Presents story and a cameo at the funeral of Nick Fury in Incredible Hulk #434. That brings us to X-Men #62.

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1997's X-Men #62 (plotted by Scott Lobdell and scripted by Ben Raab) was the debut of Carlos Pacheco as the new artist on X-Men (with Art Thibert as his inker), taking over from Andy Kubert after Kubert had been on the book for roughly five years. The story brought the X-Men to Hong Kong, where they met Shang-Chi, who now has a giant dragon tattoo on his arm for no given reason...

As it turned out, the old X-Men foe, Sebastian Shaw, was in Hong Kong trying to find the elixir that Shang-Chi's father had used to keep himself alive for much longer than a normal lifespan (As I wrote last week, Shang-Chi had found and then destroyed the last of it after he used it to cure himself from a fatal case of poisoning).

Shaw believed that the elixir could serve as a cure for the deadly Legacy Virus and so the X-Men were willing to go along with him to see if that was the truth...

However, they soon came into conflict with Wilson Fisk, who had moved to Hong Kong and set up shop there and he also wanted the elixir...

The elixir was discovered, but the X-Men were stuck in a deadly stalemate against Fisk for the elixir, as Fisk had taken Canonnball hostage and so the X-Men were to give him the elixir in exchange for Cannonball's life, but instead, Storm decides to destroy the elixir and the story ends with Shang-Chi (and a nice close-up of his new, giant dragon tattoo) being all, "I'm sure the X-Men will figure something out"...

The whole story was sort of a set-up for a Shang-Chi feature in Journey Into Mystery (this was during the period where the Fantastic Four and the Avengers were believed to be dead and a number of them got new #1s in an alternate universe. Thor, though, did not get a new comic book series, but while the other books were all canceled, Thor just reverted to its original title, Journey Into Mystery, and became an anthology book), as Ben Raab, Kevin Hagan and Vince Russell launched a three-part story starring Shang-Chi and his giant dragon tattoo...

Around this time, Shang-Chi then guest-starred in an issue of Peter Milligan and Mike Deodato's Elektra run, and now the tattoo was sort of half-applied. It was really kind of barely there, really...

Then John Ostrander had Shang-Chi guest star in the two-part finale of Heroes for Hire, a fun book by Ostrander, Pasqual Ferry and Jaime Mendoza and now Shang-Chi had no tattoo and Ostrander actually had Shang-Chi explain that the tattoo was a temporary one that he had adopted...

That was a nice job by Ostrander to explain away the tattoo.

That was just a guest spot, though, it wasn't until 2000 that Shang-Chi got another regular gig, and this time it was part of a team of street-level heroes in a book called Marvel Knights by Chuck Dixon, Eduardo Barreto and Klaus Janson, with the covers originally by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti and the Ostrander retcon of the dragon tattoo was confirmed as being true...

Generally speaking, I don't think you should give characters who have never had a tattoo for over two decades giant arm dragon tattoos unless there is a specific reason for it, and that wasn't the case here. I imagine Pacheco just thought it looked cool, but I have no specific idea of what the reason was for Shang-Chi's new look.

Thanks to my pal Brian F. for pointing out that this was really a case of Abandoned Love and not If I Pass This Way Again, as I originally had it listed as.

If anyone has a suggestion for a future edition of Abandoned Love, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!

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