The Collected Works of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu

Karen: We have frequently spoken here of our frustrations about not being able to get reprints/trade paperbacks of Master of Kung Fu. Marvel has had legal problems with reproducing the original issues of the series due to the appearance of the Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu characters in the stories. But something has been worked out with the Rohmer estate, and Marvel is publishing Master of Kung Fu in omnibus form! In fact, there will be four of them reprinting the entire run. Volumes 1-3 will reprint the Master of Kung Fu series, along with Giant Size and Annual issues and other assorted stories, and a fourth volume will print the black and white magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. Based on Amazon's listings, volume 2 should be out in September, and  the Deadly Hands omnibus (which is not using the same numbering as the MOKF volumes) will be out in November. I'm not sure when volume 3 of MOKF will be out but presumably after that.

Karen: While this might not be the ideal format for everyone, at least we are getting the stories collected. It seemed like it might never come to pass, so it's a pretty big deal.

Karen: The first omnibus debuts this Tuesday, the 14th. The MSRP is $125, but In-Stock Trades is selling it for $68.75! Below is a description of what is in volume one:

SHANG-CHI: MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC

Written by STEVE ENGLEHART, DOUG MOENCH, LEN WEIN & MORE
Penciled by JIM STARLIN, PAUL GULACY, AL MILGROM, KEITH POLLARD, JOHN BUSCEMA, SAL BUSCEMA, ROSS ANDRU & MORE
COVERS BY TERRY DODSON & JIM STARLIN

One of the most groundbreaking Marvel Comics of all is collected for the first time! Born to be the world’s most fearsome fighter, Shang-Chi’s life takes a major turn when he discovers the truth about his father, the villainous Fu Manchu! So begins the epic story of the Master of Kung Fu! On a quest to end the reign of his pernicious patriarch, Shang-Chi pits his deadly hands and furious feet against incredible foes like Tiger-Claw, Razor-Fist, the mysterious Midnight — and even the macabre Man-Thing! But will his mastery of martial arts be enough in a throwdown with the Amazing Spider-Man? Collecting SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION #15-16, MASTER OF KUNG FU (1974) #17-37, GIANT-SIZE MASTER OF KUNG FU #1-4, GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #2 and material from IRON MAN ANNUAL #4.
696 PGS./Rated T…$125.00
ISBN: 978-1-302-90129-5
Trim size: oversized

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Karen: In the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," small, furry critters called tribbles breed rapidly and begin filling up the Enterprise. Lieutenant Uhura defends the fuzzballs, telling Captain Kirk that they're the only love money can buy. A frustrated Kirk responds, "Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing."

 I thought about this statement when considering our current geek existence. It's a pretty good time to be a geek. Look at this list of major motion pictures that have been or will be released this year that have comics or science fiction or fantasy themes:

• Deadpool
• Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice
• Jungle Book
• The Huntsmen: Winter's War
• Captain America: Civil War
• X-Men Apocalypse
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
• Warcraft
• Independence Day Resurgence
• Legend of Tarzan
• Ghostbusters
• Star Trek Beyond
• Suicide Squad
• Pete's Dragon
• Gambit 
• Dr. Strange
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Yes, there's really a Dr. Strange movie

That's a lot of genre-related movies! And that's just a partial list. I recall when we were lucky to get one or two major films a year. Now, there's one almost every week it seems.

We also have a ton of TV shows right now that are geeky, too many for me to remember and name, but off the top of my head, there's The Flash, Supergirl, Agents of SHIELD, Penny Dreadful, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Daredevil, Orphan Black, Twelve Monkeys, and so on. I mean, more than you can keep up with and still maintain a life.

And merchandise? Holy Cow. You got high end, low end, and everything in between. There's stuff for every show or character you can think of, no matter how obscure. It's incredible. You really have to watch your budget. We've seen a real explosion in trade paperbacks in recent years, with a lot of C-listers and even Marvel's horror characters  getting collected. And toys? I've become quite fond of the Hot Toys sixth scale figures -the detail is fantastic! -but I can't go buying them willy-nilly. These Megos on steroids are way too expensive for that. My husband sometimes gets them for me for birthdays or Christmas, and I buy one or two a year myself. I'll admit I just pre-ordered the Hot Toys Alien Warrior -but now I'm thinking Ant-Man looks cool. Ant-Man! Seriously. There's so much neat stuff out there.

So here's what I want to ask you. Are we hitting a saturation point of geeky goodness? Are we in danger of reaching, as the Captain said, too much of a good thing? Are there too many movies, too many TV shows, too many books and action figures? Will the fans -or even more importantly, the general public -get tired of so many super-hero movies coming out every year? I keep hearing about "super-hero fatigue" but the movies seem to keep making a ton of money. 

Or is there no such thing as too much of a good thing? Should we, the generation of "that's all we had"(copyright, David B.), just be damn glad we lived this long to see popular acceptance of the things we love, and ride it out as long as we can?

This Cover Made Me Buy This Book

Doug: Well, actually I talked my mom into buying it. I saw it at the grocery store of all places. The cover date of the book as listed at the Comic Book Database was August 1976. That would have been on sale in June, so I am wondering if maybe this was a gift for my 10th birthday. If you were to take a college course on the foundations of DC super-heroes, this would be your textbook. Released at the same time Marvel Comics was making their Origins of Marvel Comics series available, this was my primer to the DCU. The ten heroes pictured on the cover are all featured in this book, making it a tour de force of DC's Golden and Silver Ages. In cases where there are two heroes with the same name (think Earth-1 and Earth-2), both heroes' origins are featured.

Here are the contents (all links in this post take you to the CBDB) (NOTE: This post was updated 4-20-20; the Comic Book Database no longer exists, so all hyperlinks in the post have been removed.)

Action Comics (1938) #1
Adventure Comics (1938) #256
All-American Comics (1939) #16
All-American Comics (1939) #19
The Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis Edition (1973) nn
Batman (1940) #47
The Brave and the Bold (1955) #34
Detective Comics (1937) #33
Flash Comics (1940) #1
More Fun Comics (1935) #89
Police Comics (1941) #1
Showcase (1956) #4
Showcase (1956) #22
Showcase (1956) #34
WHIZ Comics (1940) #2
Wonder Woman (1942) #1
Wonder Woman (1942) #206

Doug: And oh, yeah... this still sits on my bookshelf (far left).

You Are Young and Life is Long and There is Time to Kill Today

Doug: Welcome to another inside look at what goes on in the BAB editorial room. These can be some all-day affairs, with multiple topics sliding across the table. We recently had a prolonged discussion, and we hope it serves as fodder for your thoughts and recollections concerning comic book reading. So without further ado, let's trip back to a time late last week...

Doug: We are traveling tonight and tomorrow, but Sunday some time I'll be able to get back into the Marvels post. Just let me know whenever it's my turn. Thanks for setting that up. I have some time today to look for art. I already entered the image of the Goblin on Gwen's windowsill, holding her body.Karen: Thanks for getting the art for the Marvels piece. I'll get to it again this weekend but I think we're nearly done. I read your remarks last night, and you were so right -I read this book quite differently this time around.  The art was the same -spectacular -but the story hit me more deeply, and perhaps more sourly? I don't know. I suppose I reflect on life a lot more now than ever. I guess I can connect with "old" Phil more than I ever could before!

Doug: I actually had about 10 minutes to scout some art, so it's in. Nice image of Luke Cage, the Kree-Skrull War splash, a pic of Spidey fighting the Goblin, and the full-pager of Capt. Stacy's death. Seems to cover all the bases.

Looking ahead, have you had much time to plow into Darwyn Cooke's massive book (The New Frontier)? I've read up to when Hal becomes GL. It's weird. I like it, but I'm thinking if I'd read it as a monthly I would not have liked it as much. For those steeped in DC lore, they would probably have loved it. But the DC lore I got in a panel or two of Perez's History of the DC Universe was a better-sized helping for me. I'm speaking of the Challengers, Slam Bradley, etc. here.

I need to finish the book and watch the cartoon again.

Karen: I haven't done more than skim through the book. I did read the whole thing years ago -when I got a copy from the library, and had a lot of time on my hands. It truly is massive. I always wonder about that difference in experience, getting something as a monthly versus reading it in large chunks (or all the way through). I recall reading Watchmen as it came out and never feeling all that thrilled by it -it seemed more exploitative than anything -but perhaps taken as a whole work it comes across differently. I did just order the blu-ray of New Frontier and it should be here this weekend. I loved it when we first saw it, but my husband didn't care for it at all, so we never bought it. But I got it for less than $20.

Doug: Inspiration - do you want to do a partner Open Forum on reading installments vs. reading tpbs/hardcovers? When "that's all we had" we were stuck on a 30- or 60-day cycle. Now -- piece of cake to gather as many as 25 issues together in one volume.

Karen: Hmm, that might have some legs. I don't have a ton of memories to pull on, but maybe we can put something together. I'm sure the readers would have something to say about it.

Doug: One general thought that comes to mind: the in-story recap of the previous issue. At a 30-day interval, necessary. In a tpb, drives me nuts. The Wolverine mini-series by Claremont and Miller is egregious in this regard. I think Claremont cut/pasted the same lines to begin each issue!

I think my read of "Winter Soldier" was greatly affected by the large graphic novel format. In installments, I'd have lost the build-up of suspense over a several week period. But sitting on the couch, I just kept reading. And reading. And...

So there are some thoughts.

Karen: So the basic argument might be something like the difference in the joys of anticipation versus the pleasure of deeply immersing oneself in a work? I think as I get older, the latter is better for me, as it gets more difficult to keep in mind all the details of things I read or (in the same category) serialized TV shows. Perhaps this is also why 'binge' TV watching is so popular? Who can remember what they read in a comic or saw on a TV show a month before?

Doug: I don't even know -- do modern comics have letters pages? I suppose with the Internet that would be a waste of time, since by Wednesday evenings blogs and websites would be rife with feedback anyway. But most of us have knocked the fact that many of our tbp and hardcover collections do not contain either the letters pages or the Bullpen Bulletins. For many of us, those really anchor the reading experience. So from that standpoint, seeking out the original comic books would be better.

But we are, after all, discussing reading at the time. So, if I was still reading new comics today, I think I would have been one of those who would have by now switched to the trades for my pleasure. But I wonder, as a child, what my memory was like -- I don't really recall digging out the previous month's issue to refresh my memory as to what happened, the various subplots, etc. So maybe this whole line of thinking is something I'm coming to as someone who is almost 50 (14 months away!).

Karen: As a young kid, I did read my comics several times -but I think they were also just more important to me, and I didn't have the concerns of work, and life in general, taking up so much of my time, so the events in the books were always fresh. I'm not sure I'd want to give up that sense of anticipation. but then we're talking about the 70s versus today's instant gratification culture. I'm sure I would be an entirely different person if born into today's world! But knowing I could see what was happening to the characters every month, or having to wait a year to get it collected -that might be really tough! That doesn't really apply to me now though, as I don't keep up on current books.

Doug: OK gang - there you have it. So what do you make of all or any of our thoughts above?