The Master Of Kung Fu!

When I first chanced upon Master of Kung Fu in the pages of the awkwardly titled Special Marvel Edition #16, I had not ever read a Fu Manchu novel nor seen a Fu Manchu movie. I had heard the name of the notorious fictional Devil Doctor but that was about all. This was my intro to his evil machinations and in a story in which he was not the focus. At the time my eyes were focused on Shang Chi, the son of Fu Manchu and the titular "Master of Kung Fu".

I loved the first few issues of the book by Steven Englehart and Jim Starlin. They knocked them out of the park, but for whatever reason I didn't follow the book regularly after it changed its title officially to Master of Kung Fu and eventually Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy came aboard to shepherd the rising and advancing of Shang Chi's spirit. Moench was sort of Marvel's go-to guy for offbeat books at the time and Gulacy was a novice who clearly was under the spell of the great Jim Steranko. Like Barry Smith, a devotee of Kirby, we got to watch Gulacy develop in real time on MoKF, getting a little better with each outing. The book was a smash and got a Giant-Size version early in its run, and the stories told there worked very well within the growing MoKF mini-verse.

What I was able to do on this reading of these books was approach them as Englehart had done originally, an extension of the Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu novels. Having now read all of those in recent years I am much better versed to understand how Sir Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie and other Rohmer originals fit into this Marvel mix.

That MoKF was part of the larger MU is quickly established with Shang Chi meeting up with Man-Thing early on and co-starring with Spider-Man in one of those amazing Giant-Size books. But nevertheless the book maintained a weird reality all its own. That Fu Manchu shows up irregularly I now realize is part of the natural way one of his tales will unfold, his presence often evident in the shadows and in the presence of surrogates. As another "unofficial" Rohmer tale the early issues of the run work quite well.

By the end of the issues in this  first Epic collection, Master of Kung Fu has finished its first phase and the team of Moench and Gulacy are geared to shift the book into a higher gear with even more elaborate and baroque storytelling techniques. Each will refine themselves and the characters as the world of Shang Chi grows ever more bizarre and fascinating. But the stories here are the bedrock, the base for what is to come.

Here are the covers of the books in this collection.

The collection finishes with a short story starring Midnight, an early Shang Chi foe featured in a solo-story in the back of this Iron Man Annual.

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The Wrath Of Fu-Manchu

With The Wrath of Fu-Manchu the official saga of Sax Rohmer's despicable "Devil Doctor" comes to a close. Released in 1973, well after the 1959 death of Rohmer, the book is actually a collection of stories as opposed to a novel. This makes the volume more akin to the earliest Fu-Manchu adventures which were serialized and had a distinctive episodic quality to them. In addition to "The Wrath of Fu Manchu" (which gives the tome its title) we have three more stories focused on Sir Denis Nayland's battle against the Devil Doctor: "The Eyes of Fu Manchu" (1957), "The Word of Fu Manchu" (1958) and "The Mind of Fu Manchu" (1959). The volume adds in other Rohmer short stories not featuring Fu-Manchu to make the volume more acceptable to the modern market and more like the novels which preceded.

The stories are dandy and have Fu Manchu trying to get his mitts on atomic power, life-preserving drugs and such as that. The usual material with a young hero who finds an exotic love battling alongside Sir Nayland Smith across the globe.

It's not the greatest, but it's pretty good. Fine entertainment and  recommended.

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Emperor Fu-Manchu!

Emperor Fu-Manchu is the final novel by Sax Rohmer about his infamous "Devil Doctor".  Published in 1957 - the same year that Rohmer passed away - the exotic and shadowy world of Fu-Manchu is now portrayed against the geopolitical nightmare of the "Cold War". The Soviets and the Communists in China are seen really as the true threats here while Fu-Manchu while still deadly is presented almost as an offset against the predations of the Red threat.

We follow the hero Tony McKay (hate that name) who has just enough Chinese in his bloodline to pass and so becomes an agent for Sir Nayland Smith, who despite the many years of his struggle against Fu-Manchu seems mature but hardly aged. Sadly Smith also seems a bit redundant in the story which I kept hoping would focus on him more. McKay has the usual tumble with various threats but his singular connection is with a beautiful Chinese girl he calls "Moon Flower". Her real identity of course becomes central to the action and McKay and she fall in and out of danger throughout a story which rumbles along with decent pace but little direction. There is some noise about biological warfare and I suppose the main focus is to find and shut down a facility which is engaged in this research, but it seems to fail to hold the attention of our heroes as one would think.

The one lurid detail of the story are Fu-Manchu's "Cold Men".-- zombies in all but name who are revived and maintained in a weird state of hypnosis. As with many of Fu-Manchu's threats in the later books, less is made of them than I'd have liked though they do play a critical role in the climax of the story.

The final Fu-Manchu novel is perfectly okay, but does lack the atmosphere of earlier outings, mostly due to the fact that our hero seems a bit too bland and our classic titular villain seems somewhat smaller in a more modern world in which the very real threat of atomic destruction makes his toxins and magics feel quaint.

There is one more volume in this collection, an anthology of smaller tales by Rohmer. That is due out from Titan next spring. I look forward to finishing the Fu-Manchu saga, it's been a wild ride for several years now.

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Re-Enter Fu-Manchu!

Re-Enter Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer was first published in 1957, the first of the Fu-Manchu novels to not be serialized before being collected.

This story, appearing a full decade after the last starring "The Devil Doctor" was first published by Gold Medal Books as a paperback with a lush and provocative cover by Bayre Phillips.

The story alas is not a particularly strong one, and for the simple reason that we are presented the story from the perspective of Brian Merrick, who turns out to be one of the dullest adventure protagonists it's possible imagine. He's a self-absorbed son of privilege who approaches his duties with the seriousness of an afternoon tennis match and spends a good deal of the narrative hot and bothered that he's so ill-used by his master Sir Dennis Nayland Smith.

The mystery set in the heyday of the Cold War is not a very palpable one, and the danger seems oddly remote. The blood and thunder which activates most pulp yarns is almost completely absent from this story which progresses along with little in the way of true feeling. For one thing, Fu-Manchu is entirely too present in the story, appearing almost from the beginning and not operating in the shadows as he most often does.

The romance which often overtakes the heroes of these stories seems lackluster and staid having little if any erotic component. There is little in the way of the exotic evident to tickle the nose of a Fu-Manchu fan. In fact I cannot think of a single detail in this story which I'd label as truly fantastic, other than perhaps Fu-Manchu's revival through his infamous elixir very early in the story.

It does pick up some steam a bit in the final third, but it's a while to get to that point. Sax Rohmer was writing these for the checks at this point it seems and while I cannot blame him for that, I likewise cannot really recommend this one to anyone not interested in reading all of the canon.

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The Shadow Of Fu-Manchu!

The Shadow of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer was first published in 1948, seven years after the previous installment. This yarn is good enough but lacks some of the grotesque depth of its predecessors. The story is a fairly straightforward yarn with the obligatory maguffin that the insidious Fu-Manchu longs to get his slender-fingered paws upon. As always it is defended by Sir Nayland Smith, but we are absent any appearance by Dr.Petrie or any of the usual gang who help Smith along on his missions.

The story this time is in reality a bit of a spy-thriller with Fu-Manchu's agents in competition with those of the dreaded Communists out of the Soviet Union, and both are after the invention of Dr. Morris Craig, a vaguely described energy weapon which can disintegrate all sorts of things and poses a threat to world peace much like the atomic bomb for which it is a literary stand in. Dr. Craig is a bit of a naive dope who though brilliant in the lab seems wildly incapable of understanding the basics of security, and so has to be spoon fed by Sir Nayland who shows up to try and save the day. The exotic beauty this time is a woman named Camille Navarre who has a multitude of secrets and of course falls in live with Craig who predictably does likewise.

There are scuds of secrets in this one, few of which are really all that deep. The final reveal is a bit of a surprise but seems to make the whole of the adventure a tad less important and opens up some serious questions about some of Fu-Manchu's previous schemes. The Fu-Manchu of this story is even more inscrutable than normal and I suspect it's because his motives don't really add up after all is said and done, so the less said the better.

This is a story with few twists but a few turns. The surprises are by and large easy to detect and the whole utter weirdness of a typical Fu-Manchu story is missing. We are treated to a properly bizarre zombie servant, but there's very little else which speaks of the distinctive nature of the threats the Devil Doctor usually supplies.

This is a solid read, but hardly are rousing one. You can sort of tell Rohmer is running out of gas a bit with these stories. The next Fu-Manchu novel will not arrive for yet another decade in 1957.

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The Films Of Fu Manchu!

The Face of Fu Manchu from 1965 is a movie with a great deal of chutzpah. A top-notch cast works diligently to bring Sax Rohmer's original "Yellow Peril" to the screen and by and large do a pretty snappy job of it under the directorial hand of Don Sharp. 

Fu Manchu himself of course is portrayed by the great Christopher Lee who brings a languorous charm to the master criminal, who in this story is plotting to get hold of a deadly gas which can murder people in the thousands. To that end he kidnaps a talented scientist and later his daughter (Karen Dor) to force his cooperation. The rescue of these two form the motivations for the early part of the story.  He is helped in his schemes by his own sadistic daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin).

Opposing Fu Manchu as always is Nayland Smith, played wonderfully by the charismatic Nigel Green. Green is the best Nayland Smith I've ever seen, he is a tall and powerful man who commands the screen and seems every inch the adventurer Smith is supposed to be. This is a guy who I believe can go toe-to-toe with the "Devil Doctor".

Helping Smith is Dr.Petrie, played in full-blown blustery Watson mode by Howard Marion-Crawford. Also along for the ride is Joachim Fuchsberger as the love interest of the kidnapped daughter who is there to be the romantic lead and to lend a hand in the fights. Oddly he seems a bit too old for the role, but offers up an energetic hand nonetheless.

This movie was a joint German-English production and so many of the leads do have a decidedly continental accent. There is a surprising amount of action in this one. Several hand-to-hand fights blast across the screen for long stretches and a few car chases add to the spectacle. The weird is injected into the proceedings by Fu Manchu's elaborate system of drowning his enemies and ejecting their bodies into the Thames River.

Perhaps the highlight of the film is the cold murder of an entire English town, a cold and heartless act which is presented with a strange sterile brutality, but which nonetheless adds to the tension. A weakness is that these horrendous murders seem not to have the psychological weight they require later in the movie.

The finale is fine but not surprisingly leaves the door open for a sequel.

That sequel is titled The Brides of Fu Manchu and hit the big screen the following year in 1966.

The Brides of Fu Manchu picks up the action immediately after the first movie. Don Sharp is on hand again to direct and in fact all the regulars return save for the lead role of Nayland Smith. Nigel Green, as able as he was, is replaced by Douglas Wilmer (not "Wilner" as it says on the posters). Wilmer had played Sherlock Holmes before and this Smith feels a great deal of that kind,  less an adventurer and more a cerebral opponent for the great Fu Manchu.

Chistopher Lee and Tsai Chin return as the villainous pair who this time are kidnapping lots of scientists and also their daughters to build a network of power transmission devices which can effectively deliver a death ray to any point that Fu Manchu seeks to attack.The "Brides" of the title are the beautiful bevy of daughters who are kept tucked away in a remote desert temple as their fathers are forced to do Fu Manchu's bidding.

This is a rouser, but lacks the sense of depth the debut movie had and the grotesque, an essential Fu Manchu element seems a bit wanting. 

There are three more in this series, by different directors. I've yet to see them, but I'm eager to do so.

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The Island Of Fu-Manchu!

The Island of Fu-Manchu is another installment in Sax Rohmer's prodigious series presenting the Devil Doctor's schemes to seize control of the planet.

This one picks up some time after the previous volume and completes some of the threads developed there. We are told the story once again by Bart Kerrigan and we again encounter his true love, the gorgeous Ardatha who happens to work for the Fu-Manchu himself. Sir Nayland Smith is right here too, this time a bit more in the background, but no less intent on bringing the Asian menace to ground.

The story was, like its predecessors, serialized in magazine form. This shows up in the storytelling which divides into recognizable parts, which seemed much less obvious from some of the most recent previous books.

The actual island referenced is in the Caribbean and that brings our heroes to the Americas again, after some proper locked room mystery in good old England. Actually this particular novel begins a bit slowly, but by the end the action is properly heated and the adventure ends literally with an epic bang. Although the the raging world conflict is referenced in the novel, this adventure by and large happens parallel to world events and is not involved in the happenings directly of World War II.

What I found most striking about this one was that it felt for all the world like Rohmer meant to end the series here. We get a nice detailed look behind the scenes at Fu-Manchu's operation inside a sleeping volcano, an operation which combines the Devil Doctor's avaricious interest in biology, especially the lethal aspects, and high-tech gadgetry. The nature of Fu-Manchu's slavish servants is explored and tied into the macabre concepts of voodoo which is fully on display in this sometimes weird adventure. We have anti-gravity gimmicks and death rays all over the joint. Fu-Manchu's secret lair is so high-tech and so riddled with radioactive agents that his workers must wear uniforms to protect them from the effects.

I was very  much reminded of Dr.No's lair in the debut James Bond movie and other Bond secret bases in Thunderball and elsewhere. There's no doubt that Dr.No was inspired by Fu-Manchu, but having read The Island of Fu-Manchu, I'm a little shocked that Ian Fleming didn't catch more heat for having ripped off Rohmer's yarn.

Taken together with its predecessor The Drums of Fu-Manchu, this novel forms a right action-filled story. The previous novel had a great beginning and this one has a great ending. Take out some of the middle sections and you'd have a Fu-Manchu novel bristling from beginning to end indeed.

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The Drums Of Fu-Manchu!

Sax Rohmer's "Devil Doctor", the infamous Dr. Fu-Manchu turns back up in 1939's The Drums of Fu-Manchu. This novel is a throwback of sorts, a return to the more episodic rhythm of the earlier tales.

That makes some sense, since like all of the previous novels it was serialized, this one in Collier's, before being collected. But this one is not quite greater than the sum of its parts which have distinctive characteristics.

The story is pretty typical for a Fu-Manchu yarn. Our narrator, a new character named Bart Kerrigan meets Sir Nayland Smith in the midst of his never-ending struggle against the "Devil Doctor". It seems that Fu-Manchu's most recent scheme is to maintain world peace. That doesn't sound like a bad thing, except of course Fu-Manchu wants to have peace so that his own plans for world domination don't fall asunder while the despots and dictators of Europe are battling amongst themselves. To that end, Fu-Manchu has identified important leaders who he feels are the most specifically threatening to world peace and the Si-Fan sends each of them warnings to knock off whatever it is they are up to that's rocking the global boat or the will meet grisly ends. Each leader gets three warnings, the final one only hours before their demise.

Sir Nayland and Bart roam around with Scotland Yard in tow trying to save first an arms manufacturer, then a rather familiar dictator, and so and so forth. It's weird to see recognizable Fascist leaders of the day (Hitler, Mussolini, and such) treated with relative respect in a narrative from the time. As bad as they might be, Fu-Manchu is always held up as worse. Rohmer gives "Rudolph Adlon" his Hitler stand-in quite a bit of good press actually. The story roams across Europe and sadly looses steam as it goes. The early installments were more exciting to me than the later ones. Bart, our narrator, does the typical thing in these yarns and falls head-over-heels in love with one of Fu-Manchu's henchwomen. We've seen this ruse so much it rather fell flat this time I think.

The story ends very abruptly, so be prepared for a quick stop. Apparently the narrative is picked up in the tenth novel, which is due out from Titan Books in a few months. I'm looking forward to it, because while this one wasn't as strong as the predecessors it was still a pretty wild ride. 

In 1940 there was a very good serial made using the title Drums of Fu Manchu, but this movie has not connection directly with the novel that I could detect.

Also included in this volume from Titan Books is a Nayland Smith short story from 1931 called "The Mark of the Monkey". This story with Smith and his original partner Dr.Petrie are in the moors where they are confronted with a murder. The setting was very evocative of the great Doyle classic Hound of the Baskervilles, and this one has a dog too. Neat little mystery. 

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