PUT A RING ON IT

THE MCU GETS ITS FIRST ASIAN SUPERHERO, EXPANDING THE UNIVERSE IN MORE WAYS THAN EXPECTED

- TARA BENNETT

WHEN MARVEL Studios’ Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings arrives, there’s a large sector of the MCU-loving fandom that will be flying blind when it comes to knowing anything about the title character. Much like Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy in their pre-movie days, he’s not exactly a household name.

If you’re a Marvel Comics diehard, however, you’ll know that Shang-Chi, the Chinese-American master of kung fu, has existed in the comics pantheon since 1973, when he was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin. Since then, he’s existed almost entirely on the printed page. Interestingly enough, back in the early 2000s when Marvel Studios decided to finance its own movies, Shang-Chi was one of 10 Marvel characters used as collateral to finance the start-up. Fourteen years later, Shang-Chi is finally coming off the bench, as actor Simu Liu embodies the hero in the first MCU film with an Asian lead and an Asian-centric storyline and cast.

NEW DIRECTIONS

For screenwriter Dave Callaham, known for his blockbuster scripts from Godzilla (2014) to Mortal Kombat (2021), writing for Marvel Studios was a goal he never quite landed. He did a production pass on Ant-Man, but it wasn’t until 2018 that he got the call to come and talk about a developing project.

“I was told Marvel wanted to talk to me about an Asian-led superhero movie, which blew me away,” Callaham tells SFX from his Los Angeles office. But he admits that in the moment, he was equally baffled by whom they might be referencing.