Master Of Kung Fu - Fight Without Pity!

Master of Kung Fu - Fight Without Pity is all about the art of Paul Gulacy. Gulacy had become the regular artist on the series, albeit with many fill-in jobs by other talents since the departure of Jim Starlin. He was a young and rough talent but one could see his Steranko-inspired style cohering with each job he turned in. With this volume he has come of age and his artwork is simply stunning. The stories created by him and Dough Moench are among the most compelling in the long run of the series. 

The new distinctive direction begins with a trio of tales in which Shang-Chi agrees to work officially for Sir Nayland Smith and his secret service. His first mission is to confront a drug trafficker named Velcro. Shang-Chi pursues him to his remote island fortress and battles his agents Razorfist and the whip-wielding Pavane. I want to note that as much as I love and appreciate his work, the Masterof Kung Fu series was hampered by some indifferent Gil Kane covers which only hint at the quality of the work beneath those covers. In general, the covers are much too similar and I'm hard pressed to attach any single memory to most of them. 

Sal Buscema steps in to give Gulacy a hand with a story about secret documents aboard a ship filled with all manner of dangerous folk. 

Gulacy is back in time for a trilogy featuring the menace of Mordillo, an eccentric villain who turns out to be someone close to the organization. Pavane is back and we encounter the peculiar Brynocki, an an artificial man with real feelings. Mordillo has a secret island (don't they all) which is whimsical and filled with threats from nursery rhymes and fables. Most importantly we meet for the first time Leiko Wu, an agent of Smith's outfit and a fetching love interest for Shang-Chi. 

Then we get an offbeat two-part tale from Moench drawn by Keith Pollard about a magical circus of sorts filled with a menagerie of mythical and mysterious creatures, all led by a man named Moon Sun. This is a strange tale which brought to my mind The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney which was made into a movie starring Tony Randall. 

In Master of Kung Fu's one and only annual he meets Iron Fist for the first time and the two martial arts heroes battle a magician named Quan-St'ar in the land of S'hara-Sharn, a land which is the dark opposite of K'un-L'un. Once again Keith Pollard does the artistic honors. Pollard's art is not especially well suited to martial arts action but his storytelling is very concise. 

Then Shang-Chi finds himself going to rescue a damsel in distress who doesn't want his help since she's fallen in love with Shen Kuei, the Cat, the "villain" of the story. Gulacy's artwork continues to get even more refined as Shang-Chi begins to look more and more like movie icon Bruce Lee. 

We encounter the "Murder Agency" in the next issue which sets up a number of plot elements which will play out as the series progresses. Gulacy's artwork is exquisite in this Moench story which introduces us to another cast member, a disgraced former agent named Larner. 

The story is interrupted by a fill-in of sorts drawn by Sal Buscema in which Shang-Chi reflects back four years earlier when he came into conflict with his "brother" Midnight. We get to see these two characters before they come to a death match in the second adventure of the series. 

Gulacy is back in fine form as the story of the Murder Agency unfolds. It turns out it has connections to the other main character in this comic book - Fu Manchu. We get a superior villain in these issues named Shockwave who combines martial arts with high voltage. He gives Shang-Chi a pretty good drubbing, his worst defeat of the series.  Of course Shang-Chi recovers. 

Shang-Chi and Clive Reston come up against the Golden Daggers, an outfit of former Si-Fan who serve Fah Lo Suee. The battle between her and her father is coming to dramatic climax and the world itself is in the balance. There has been much intrigue in the series, and hidden villains are revealed and Sir Nayland Smith himself finds himself facing his mortality. 

Then we are treated to Doug Moench's and Paul Gulacy's masterpiece. Gulacy has had wonderful inkers on the series such as Dan Adkins among others, but when Pablo Marcos steps in the artwork becomes luminescent. Shang-Chi is now in full Bruce Lee mode as he is just one of Nayland Smith's agents working to forestall Fu Manchu's latest threat which will destroy the world by destroying the Moon itself. To make these stories even tastier we get a break from the regular narration from Shang-Chi's point of view and each chapter is related from a different character such as Clive Reston, Sir Nayland Smith, Blackjack Tarr, and Leiko Wu with Fu Manchu himself narrating the final installment. 

Though he had never done a cover before, Gulacy supplies a magnificent portrait of Shang-Chi for the epilogue. Jim Craig takes over the art chores as the team that saved the world from Fu Manchu decides to go their separate ways. Moench is throwing aside the espionage angle for a time, as his partner Paul Gulacy bids a farewell to the series which made his reputation. 

Keith Pollard is back on art in a weird and wild story which see the return of Rufus T. Hackstabber. This is a story set in Morroco and offers the reader more than a few echoes of the Bogie classic. Other familiar faces appear in a story which is actually a sequel to the third issue of the Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu series. 

This volume closes out with the Ernie Chan cover for a reprint of the twentieth issue of Master if Kung Fu. We also get some choice ads, covers and original artwork. A very handsome Epic volume this is indeed. 

Though he was almost never able to do any covers for the series when he was the main artist, Paul Gulacy did return to the series from time to time to gives us another glimpse of his singular vision of Shang-Chi. These covers are not contained in the Epic volume but since this tome bids a farewell to Gulacy I thought it fair to include them. 

There's a little bit more Master of Kung Fu to come as he will team up from time to time with Iron Fist in the pages of The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. The Dojo takes a gander next week. 

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