Not only is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings rewriting the villain’s identity, but it’s also removing the hero’s biggest story from Marvel Comics. In the original comics, Shang-Chi was a master of martial arts forced to work with British intelligence to bring down his father’s criminal empire.

Easily the most talked-about change to Shang-Chi for the MCU is what it’s doing with his father. In the original comics, this character was Fu Manchu, an immortal villain from pulp novels published in the early part of the 20th century. Due to rights issues and a racial controversy related to the character, Marvel retconned him into someone else. As for the MCU version of the story, they’ve chosen to go with the Mandarin, who is Iron Man’s greatest enemy and a villain whose existence has been teased for years. So rather than being tied to Fu Manchu, the MCU’s Master of Kung Fu will be depicted as a weapon of the Mandarin (Tony Leung).

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Another notable change Marvel is making to Shang-Chi’s comic story is the removal of the espionage elements. Being sucked into the world of spies and secret government plots was a focal point of the Master of Kung Fu comic book series, which ran from 1974 to 1983. Shang-Chi didn’t like it, but working with MI-6 became instrumental to beating Fu Manchu. And even when it seemed like his father had been defeated, Shang-Chi always found himself getting dragged back into MI-6’s orbit for one reason or another. He had to embark on covert missions with their agents and help them combat spies from other organizations. During this time, his entire supporting cast of characters consisted of people associated with the spy life, including Leiko Wu, Clive Reston, Black Jack Tarr, and Sir Denis Nayland Smith. Living this sort of life was particularly hard for Shang-Chi, who called work in espionage “games of death and deceit.” His moral objections to being a spy was a consistent and important theme in his classic comics.

The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trailer makes it abundantly clear that the MCU is avoiding the spy side of the comics. It looks like Shang-Chi won’t be needing the assistance of MI-6 and secret agents when his conflict with the Mandarin kicks off. Instead, he’ll be joined by Katy (Awkwafina), who appears to be original to the MCU and someone without connections to any intelligence agency.

The change is huge, but not necessarily a bad one. In the MCU, infusing a spy story with heavy fantasy elements could be difficult to pull off, and it may be a formula that just wouldn’t work on the big screen. It’s disappointing that going this route could cost Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings the inclusion of fun characters like Black Jack Tarr, but hopefully Marvel can make up for it with the addition of exciting, brand-new characters. As for the interesting moral dilemmas that Shang-Chi faced during his team-ups with MI-6, it’s possible that Marvel can find another way to properly translate them to the MCU.

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