Today, we look at how Shang-Chi's very first kill was reversed due to Marvel accidentally killing off the wrong character!
In Death is not the End, we spotlight the outlandish explanations for comic book characters (mostly super-villains) surviving seeming certain death.
Recently, I wrote about the impact that Shang-Chi's first kill had on the character, and my friend Sam pointed out that his first kill actually turned out to NOT be dead and THAT reminded me of a WHOLE other fascinating story about this situation and, well, this is that!
WHAT WAS SHANG-CHI'S FIRST KILL?
In 1973's Marvel Special Edition #15 (by Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom), we first meet Shang-Chi after he's shown off his skills on some formidable opponents and we slowly discover that it was all a test and Shang-Chi is the son of the legendary criminal mastermind, Fu Manchu. However, we also learn that Shang-Chi has been in isolation for all of his life and his father had convinced him that he is actually a legendary DO-GOODER and that Shang-Chi must his his newfound fighting prowess to eliminate one of his father's most evil enemies...
So Shang-Chi ventures out of his father's fortress for the first time and easily breaks into the home of the old man who has been such a thorn in his father's side but here's the problem. As part of making Shang-Chi the perfect weapon also meant educating him and when you educate a guy in philosophy and stuff like that, what are you going to get but a man who questions the very mission that you have sent him on, as he has already learned that killing is not the answer and that revenge is not something that you should seek out...
However, his devotion to his father was just too much and so Shang-Chi, in his very first mission in the real world, murders Dr. John Petrie (who was from Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels. He was basically the Watson role to Commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith's Sherlock Holmes. Petrie narrates the early stories)....
and in the process finds himself under the gun sights of Sir Denis Nayland Smith, the OTHER character who was adapted into the Marvel Comics from the Sax Rohmer novels, where Smith is the main rival of the villainous Fu Manchu. Here, after Shang-Chi easily disarms him, he explains to Shang-Chi just what kind of a man Fu Manchu is and luckily for the rest of the world, he is convincing enough that he turns Shang-Chi against Fu Manchu....
WHY WAS SHANG-CHI'S FIRST KILL A MISTAKE?
As I explained in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed (over thirteen years ago!), the problem is, Starlin did not INTEND for Petrie to die in the comic!
Starlin co-plotted the book and Englehart scripted it, and since Starlin was not particularly familiar with these characters, he mixed them up, and killed off Petrie when he meant to kill off another character (perhaps Nayland Smith, who was 90 years old when the story began). Englehart did not recall/know that Petrie was not who Starlin wanted to kill, so Petrie was offed, and it was this death that led to Nayland Smith explaining to Shang-Chi what a bad guy his dad is, leading to Shang-Chi going to work for Nayland Smith, and the rest, they say, is history.
HOWEVER, there is a twist - not only did Starlin kill off the wrong character, he REALLY killed off the wrong character, as apparently there was a Rohmer story (The Trail of Fu Manchu) where Fu Manchu promised that he would never kill Petrie (the novels were filled with those "honor thy enemy" things). So Sax Rohmer's widow was quite irked that Petrie was killed, and she complained to Marvel. Starlin and Englehart were gone by then, so it was the then-current writer Doug Moench's problem.
HOW WAS SHANG-CHI'S FIRST KILL REVERSED?
In Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #3 (by Moench, Paul Gulacy and Vince Colletta), Shang-Chi is shocked to discover that John Petrie is alive and captive of Fu Manchu!
Gulacy doing some HARDCORE Steranko style here, huh? In any event, it turns out that Fu Manchu replaced Petrie with a clone of some sorts and THAT is why Shang-Chi killed (it is unclear if it was a being with a working mind or if it was just sort of a lump of flesh or whatever).
It is weird how Fu Manchu doesn't even necessarily know what his deal with Petrie is....
Shang-Chi stops the bad guy who he is forced to fight to save Petrie and in the end, Smith and Petrie get a really sweet, "Aw, you're not dead!" moment...
And we learn that Petrie had accidentally discovered one of Fu Manchu's long life elixirs and that was why he was captured. Of course, according to Shang-Chi, he didn't know that Petrie wasn't Petrie, so he still committed murder...
Moench used Petrie here and there over the course of Master of Kung Fu (there was even a storyline when Fu Manchu decides to try to kill Petrie AGAIN, which sort of defeats the purpose of the retcon, right? But whatever, obviously they didn't ACTUALLY kill him), but when Moench's run ended, so, too, did Petrie's run in the book. Also, once the series ended, Marvel lost the licensing deal, so they couldn't even use Petrie if they WANTED to.
Since he is public domain now, they probably COULD bring him back, but I don't think Marvel has any plans to continue any connection to Smith or Petrie in the new comic books, so I guess he might as well be dead (heck, Marvel could even re-retcon him to having actually been killed if they want to now).
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Death is not the End, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!