Go Your Own Way
With Gulacy’s departure, Master of Kung Fu appeared to have entered its death spiral. Perhaps appropriately for a set of stories predicated around the (temporary) disbanding of the group that had worked so well in the fight against Fu Manchu, the series all but fell apart. It would take nearly two years to emerge from the muddle in which it found itself. Part of the problem was Moench’s collaborator. Jim Craig had signed on as the book’s new penciler, which immediately shifted the comic towards a more static look. Even setting aside questions of Craig’s artistry, he was simply too slow to maintain the book’s monthly pace. Between his first issue (51) and his last (66, co-credited with his replacement, Mike Zeck), Master of Kung Fu published one reprint and five fill-in issues, which meant that Moench and Craig’s first extended storyline, the four-part “Saga of War-Yore,” began with issue 51 and ended with issue 58.
The series picked up when Zeck signed on as regular penciler, but it would not find Its footing until issue 71. Before that, the most memorable development was Shang-Chi’s sudden appreciation for the music of Fleetwood Mac, whose lyrics would intermittently hover in the background to establish the mood. The “War-Yore” storyline was also unremarkable, except that its eponymous antagonist’s dissociative identity disorder inadvertently reflected the fractured sensibility that marred Master of Kung Fu for nearly two years.
At the time, it probably looked as though Moench was lost without Gulacy. But a retrospective assessment of Moench’s years on Master of Kung Fu reveals that the problem was more structural than that. Gulacy’s departure was a great loss, but he was not unreplacable. To the contrary, the transition to Zeck and eventually to Day shows that Moench could produce outstanding work with a variety of artists. What he needed was a talented and reliable partner. Gulacy, for all his brilliance, was but the first of three.
Before taking over as regular penciler, Zeck effectively tried out for the book in four of the fill-in issues that appeared during Craig’s brief run (55, 59-60, 64). Issue 64 was one of the rare stories not penned by Moench (Scott Edelman wrote the script), while issue 55 was a middling showcase for Zeck’s skills (Jim Mooney’s inks were a poor fit with Zeck’s penciling). But the two-part “Phoenix Gambit” was the high point of the fifteen-issue interregnum, already demonstrating the possibilities of Moench and Zeck’s collaboration while also advancing the series’ exploration of Shang-Chi’s inner life.
Artistically, “The Phoenix Gambit” is daring in a manner that is not immediately obvious. Yes, the second page of issue 59 cleverly assembles a six-panel grid in the shape of the African continent, surrounded on all sides by Shang-Chi’s voluminous narrative captions. And Zeck’s characteristically large and open panels give the characters more breathing space than they’ve seen in nearly a year. But the last page of the first half, in revealing that the entire story is part of a perverse chess game between Dr. Doom and a robot called the Prime Mover, alerts the long-time reader that Moench and Zeck are treading on ground previously tilled by Jim Steranko. In issue 167 of Strange Tales (April 1968), Nick Fury was caught in a similar chess match, one of many high points in a widely acclaimed series. [1] Presumably at Moench’s behest, Zeck was revisiting Steranko in a book whose best years showcased the work of Gulacy, a man whose debt to Steranko was undeniable. Yet Zeck does not attempt to ape either Steranko or Gulacy; he immediately makes the story his own, with layouts and pencils that rival his best work as the series’ regular artist.
“The Phoenix Gambit” unfolds in a deliberately confusing manner, consistent with the fevered state of our narrator, Shang-Chi. It intermittently features Shang-Chi’s vivid dreams about global cataclysm: the entire world is covered in ice. His first dream (in the beginning of issue 59) is set in Africa, where he meets a mysterious woman who asserts that the animals dying of the cold show “wisdom.” In the second, featuring Smith and Black Jack, London is almost completely frozen over, The third, in the beginning of issue 60, is much briefer, and appears to be set in China, where Fu Manchu predicts his homeland’s ascension.
The “real” action is in London, where Shang-Chi had collapsed on the street before his first dream began. He remembers that when Reston had patted his shoulder earlier, he felt a sharp pain: his friend must have drugged him. Soon he and Leiko are attacked by their former (and supposedly deceased) foe Razor Fist, who turns out to be a robot. After Shang-Chi's second dream (about Black Jack and Smith in a frozen London), the couple are attacked by the robotic duplicate of yet another enemy, Pavane, and by what appears to be an actual robot (one of Mordillo’s mechanical assassins from an earlier story). But the robot is really Reston in a robot suit, brainwashed by Dr. Doom.
While Shang-Chi dreams at the beginning of the next issue, Reston flies them to Dr. Doom’s homeland of Latveria, where they are immediately attacked by a robot duplicate of Fu Manchu’s homunculus, Shaka Khan. Khan kills Reston, who then proves to be yet another robot. Subsequently Shang-Chi defeats another robot (Shockwave), and then Shadow Stalker. Doom appears, informing Shang-Chi that Shadow Stalker was real, and Shang=Chi killed him. That proves to be a lie, and a fist fight with Dr. Doom resales that Doom himself is a robot (no surprise for longtime readers, since this is the end of half the stories Doom appears in). But then the Prime Mover robot turns out to be Reston in a costume. Reston is crazed, flinging himself and Shang-Chi out the castle window, only for Shang-Chi to discover that they never really left England. They fall into the Thames, end up in a hospital, and, in the final scene, a nurse (who looks exactly like a woman Shang-Chi saw in his first dream) delivers them a box filled with animatronic chess figures of all of Shang-Chi’s foes, including a laughing Dr. Doom. The last line of the story: “The nurse was a robot.”
“The Phoenix Gambit” is the second MOKF story (after the Shockwave story in issue 42) to use Shang-Chi’s altered state as an excuse to distort both the narration and the story structure. In this case, Shang-Chi’s narrative voice, though confused, is still more calm and analytical than one would expect from either the events of the plot or Shang-Chi’s own spoken dialogue. The slight detachment characteristic of Shang-Chi’s narrative captions now underscores the absurdity that fills both his dreams and his real-life battles, mirroring the contrast between Shang-Chi’s physical state and the dreams it provokes. His first words affirm that he is afflicted with a fever, though they are characterized by the usual narrative calm. But in his dreams, where the world has been swallowed up by ice, he is given to emotional declarations and angry shouting.
“The Phoenix Gambit” is almost literally running hot and cold, a good match for the story’s interpersonal concerns. Ever since he met Smith and his agents, Shang-Chi has been torn not only by his discomfort with Smith’s missions, but by his complex relationships with his supporting cast. His second dream, the one in a frozen London, reenacts the comic’s character dynamics so melodramatically as to resemble self-parody. Smith and Black Jack sound like British caricatures. In just one page Smith says, “Bloody frigid on the old Britis isles these days, eh Black Jack?”, and refers to the “ruddy North Pole,” white someone (probably Black Jack) exclaims “By Jove—a ruddy pyramid!”
Shang-Chi’s caption tells us that Smith is acting “too calm,” but Shang-Chi himself is shouting at the top of his voice. The accusations he hurls at Smith are familiar, but in this case, completely inappropriate:
“You!! You are rot blame for all of this, Smith! The animals are dying! You took me away from my father—my home—tried to become my new father—
“—to make this London my new home!
“But you are false, Smith—a false father of deceit and death—and London is a place of destruction and decay!"
Shang-Chi’s longstanding objections to Smith are now a feverish mockery of his actual convictions, but they also make explicit the dynamic that has underlain their relationship from the beginning: Shang-Chi desperately needs a replacement for his evil father, but he finds himself replicating the same adversarial dynamic with his new father figure. This particular dream ends with the appearance of a flaming angelic figure calling himself Amar-Tu, who announces the onset of the “third age of new life” and the advent of “love.” Suddenly, the three men are overwhelmed with mutual affection. Smith and Shang-Chi hug, with Shang-Chi sayings “Smith, I…I…” and Smith responding, “Easy, Lad—I know…I feel it, too..” Whereupon the three men are enfolded in Amar-Tu’s loving embrace and burned to a crisp.
Shang-Chi wakes from the dream and engages in another series of fights, joining Reston on a flight to Latveria. But something of the dream’s sentimentality stays with him. When Reston is apparently killed as soon as they land, Shang-Chi thinks: “Reston—the one man who has been closer to a friend…than any one I have ever known!” It’s a surprising declaration, since their interaction from the very beginning have been characterized more by hostility and rivalry than any kind of easy-going affection. They are connected primarily by Leiko, Reston’s ex and Shang-Chi’s current lover. Indeed, the only way Shang-Chi snaps Reston out of a homicidal hypnotic trance at the story’s end is to distract him by shouting Leiko’s name.
One could chalk this up to Girardian memetic desire (the bond between two men built on their alleged rivalry over a woman), but, aside from the flare-ups of jealousy, there is little evidence that Shang-Chi and Reston spend much time thinking about each other. Leiko’s absence from most of the story, on the other hand, might be a sign of the primacy of the two men’s relationship, but I believe another dynamic is at work here.
Leiko’s role in the story is minor, because at this point, her relationship with Shang-Chi is always being explored on the surface of the text (this two-part fill-in takes place in the middle of another, extended misunderstanding between the two). Shang-Chi’s break with Fu Manchu has left its mark on his relationships with other men, particularly when it comes to issues of ethics and trust; his relations with women are relatively unaffected, as he tells Sandy, the woman he falls for in Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu 2:
“My,,,
“…father…
“Has taught me many things I have since…
“…turned my back on.
“The traditional Chinese attitude toward women is one of them.”
With men, Shang-Chi is emotionally guarded, his distrust focused on Smith in particular. For the past few years (in real, not Marvel time), Shang-Chi has struggled with the suspicion that agreeing to take part in Smith’s battles has compromised him; he even, we recall, seems to envy Miss Greville for her ability to obey without questioning. "The Phoenix Gambit" obliquely addresses the conundrums that have stymied Shang-Chi so far by continually blurring the boundaries between real human beings and robots. Most of the enemies who attack Shang-Chi are robots, but the robot who attacks him is Reston. And yet that Reston proves to be a robot, with the real Reston hidden in the form of the robotic Prime Mover. Shang-Chi is horrified to think that he murdered Shadow-Stalker, and then outraged that Shadow Stalker was yet another robot. By making robots and humans indistinguishable, “The Phoenix Gambit” breaks through Shang-Chi’s emotional barriers, making it impossible for him to operate on emotional auto-pilot. He is forced to treat the people in his life as people, in order not to fall into the trap of acting like a robot. No wonder he sounds so sentimental during the course of these two issues: the drugs, Doom’s baroque deceptions, and repeat unmotivated attacks have left him vulnerable. He is not yet at the point where he can truly reconcile with Smith, or forge a strong friendship with Reston, but this story makes clear that these are some of his deepest desires.
Note
[1] Steve Gerber and Jim Starlin had used the Prime Mover two years prior to “The Phoenix Gambit," in Giant-Size Defenders 3 (January 1975). But this story had few other callbacks to Steranko’s original: the robot’s opponent was the Grandmaster rather than Dr. Doom, and the approach to the storytelling was less dreamlike.