Acquiring

Target 07 of 30 · Avengers

Shang-Chi

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameZheng Shang-Chi

CodenameMaster of Kung Fu

ContinentAvengers

In DoomsdaySimu Liu (on Marvel's cast list; role not yet named)¹

First seenSpecial Marvel Edition #15, December 1973²

Created bySteve Englehart, Jim Starlin²

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Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoA martial artist raised in isolation by a powerful criminal father to be a weapon, who walked away and turned against his father's empire.³

AbilitiesMaster-level martial arts and, on screen, the Ten Rings.³

In DoomsdayMarvel lists Simu Liu in the cast but has not named his role; his most recent released role was Shang-Chi.¹

Last seenShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), as Shang-Chi: He takes up the Ten Rings, then is summoned to meet Carol Danvers and Bruce Banner.⁵

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 1 sightings, 1 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of Shang-Chi, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2021
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings MCU
Simu Liu (Arnold Sun as a teenager, Jayden Tianyi Zhang as a child) Trained as a teenage assassin by his father, Xu Wenwu, Shang-Chi has been living quietly in San Francisco as a parking valet named Shaun until his father's Ten Rings organization comes after the pendant his mother left him. Reunited with his sister Xialing, he journeys to the hidden village of Ta Lo, fights Wenwu to stop him from opening the Dark Gate, and ends the film as the new wielder of the Ten Rings. A closing scene has Wong bring him and Katy to a holographic meeting with Carol Danvers and Bruce Banner.¹²

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.³

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since December 1973

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Shang-Chi grew up walled off from the outside world, raised by a father who was an immortal sorcerer and the master of a vast criminal empire. From early childhood he was drilled in martial arts and spiritual discipline until his body itself became a weapon, and he was taught that all of it served the cause of justice.

That belief cracked after his very first mission. Seeing his father clearly at last, the young fighter walked away from his inheritance and turned against the empire that had raised him, finding allies in British intelligence (MI6) and earning a lifetime of assassins sent in his direction. He debuted in Special Marvel Edition #15 (December 1973), created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin.

His earliest stories leaned on characters borrowed under license from early 20th-century novels. Modern comics rebuilt that background with Marvel-owned names: his father is now Zheng Zu, the family organization is the Five Weapons Society, and Shang-Chi's surname, Zheng, was confirmed in Marvel's Voices: Identity #1 (2022).¹²³⁴

The record, by era

1973–1983
Master of Kung Fu Bronze Age
Free of his father, Shang-Chi spent the 1970s tearing down the old man's criminal network piece by piece, working beside MI6 operatives such as Black Jack Tarr and Leiko Wu. The series took the title Master of Kung Fu with issue #17 and mixed spycraft with the mystical; along the way he met his long-running rival Shen Kuei, the Cat, and joined Iron Fist, Jack of Hearts and White Tiger against the Corporation. The series ran to issue #125 in 1983, and in time Shang-Chi stepped out of the spy game altogether.¹⁵⁶⁷⁸
Key issues: Special Marvel Edition #15, 1973 · Master of Kung Fu #17, 1974 · Master of Kung Fu #38, 1976
2000–2003
Marvel Knights and Hellfire Apocalypse Modern Age
Shang-Chi stepped back into the costumed world as part of Daredevil's Marvel Knights, a task force first pulled together to drag the Punisher into court, and stayed with Black Widow and the group through a run of street-level threats. In 2002 a six-issue Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu series by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy, both veterans of his original run, set him and MI6 against his father's Hellfire Weapon, a device capable of wiping out cities.¹⁹¹⁰¹¹
Key issues: Marvel Knights #1, 2000 · Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu #1, 2002 · Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu #6, 2003
2006–2011
Heroes for Hire and the Secret Avengers Modern Age
During the superhuman registration crisis he signed on with Misty Knight and Colleen Wing's Heroes for Hire, a stint that ended badly when, amid the Hulk's assault on Manhattan, he killed teammate Humbug after learning Humbug had betrayed Tarantula, then left to recover his inner balance. His father's return in 2010 drew him into Steve Rogers' Secret Avengers, and he stayed on as one of that unit's trusted allies. During Spider-Island he taught a Spider-Man without his spider-sense a new way to fight, caught the spider plague himself, and teamed with Iron Fist to bring down the Bride of Nine Spiders.¹¹²¹³¹⁴¹⁵
Key issues: Heroes for Hire #1, 2006 · Secret Avengers #6, 2010 · Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1, 2011
2013–2015
Avenger Modern Age
Captain America and Iron Man picked Shang-Chi for their enlarged Avengers roster, with Stark arming him with custom gear, and he fought the Garden on Mars and the Builders and Thanos during Infinity. In Avengers World he faced a dragon woken beneath Madripoor, finally beating it once Pym Particles made him a giant. When one of Ex Nihilo's origin bombs struck Kobe, he gave himself over to the strange matter there instead of resisting it, and came away with a power of replication.¹¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹
Key issues: Avengers (Vol. 5) #1, 2013 · Infinity #1, 2013 · Avengers World #14, 2014
2017–2021
The Protectors and the New Agents of Atlas Modern Age
Shang-Chi was out with Amadeus Cho, Silk, Ms. Marvel and Jimmy Woo when an alien prince abducted them from Manhattan; calling themselves the Protectors, they broke free with help from the ordinary people taken alongside them. Woo then folded the group into the Agents of Atlas, and during the War of the Realms Shang-Chi trained the team for its last stand against Sindr and her forces from Muspelheim, later taking the young Sword Master under his wing. After freeing Amadeus from a tech mogul's control in Atlantis Attacks, he walked away from Atlas, angry that Woo had used the team as pawns.¹²⁰²¹²²
Key issues: Totally Awesome Hulk #15, 2017 · War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1, 2019 · Atlantis Attacks #5, 2021
2020–2021
Supreme Commander Modern Age
Gene Luen Yang's 2020 series found Shang-Chi working in a bakery in San Francisco's Chinatown until assassins, and two half-siblings he had never known, Brother Sabre and Sister Dagger, crashed into his quiet life. They told him his late father's spirit had chosen him to lead the Five Weapons Society, then held by his full sister Shi-Hua, Sister Hammer, and her army of jiangshi. Urged by his uncle's ghost to stop running from family, he broke Shi-Hua's grip on him in a battle across London and accepted command of the Society, vowing to turn it toward protecting people.¹²³²⁴
Key issues: Shang-Chi (Vol. 1) #1, 2020 · Shang-Chi (Vol. 1) #5, 2021
2021–2022
Friends, Family and the Ten Rings Modern Age
The Phoenix Force pulled him into its contest for a new host, where he advanced until he refused to kill and was eliminated. Back home, running a formerly criminal society strained his bonds with Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, even as he rescued his mother, Jiang Li, from the Negative Zone. When his grandfather Xin of Ta Lo began hunting his father's bloodline, Shang-Chi took up the Jade Emperor's Ten Rings, briefly surrendered to them and took on his father's face and temper, and was talked back by his siblings; a month later the Rings found their way back to him on their own.¹²⁵²⁶²⁷
Key issues: Avengers (Vol. 8) #41, 2021 · Shang-Chi (Vol. 2) #1, 2021 · Shang-Chi (Vol. 2) #12, 2022
2022–2023
Ring-Keeper Modern Age
Everyone who wanted the Rings came for them: criminal outfits raided his vault, and his old MI6 friends stole them, only for their tampering to unleash the Wyrm of Desolation. The gods then summoned him to the Game of Rings, a tournament in which he beat Darkstrider and Zaran, survived a betrayal by Shen Kuei and still chose to save his rival's life, a choice that earned him the Jade Emperor's recognition as the true Ring-Keeper. In Master of the Ten Rings he slipped back to 19th-century China, met a younger, kinder version of his father, and came home to give the old man's remains full funeral rites.¹²⁸²⁹³⁰
Key issues: Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings #1, 2022 · Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings #6, 2023 · Shang-Chi: Master of the Ten Rings #1, 2023
2023–2024
Gang War Modern Age
When New York's underworld broke into open war, Shang-Chi took a seat at the crime lords' table for the Five Weapons Society, his real goal being to keep Chinatown out of the crossfire. He survived a Darkforce ambush and a coup by his lieutenant Captain Feng that left the Ten Rings sealed away, then played rival gangs, and even the heroes who came to confront him, off against each other until he tricked Feng into releasing the Rings. With Chinatown secure, he left to help Spider-Man and the others end the war.¹³¹³²³³
Key issues: Amazing Spider-Man: Gang War First Strike #1, 2024 · Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War #1, 2024 · Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War #2, 2024
2024–2025
Thunderbolt, Then Avenger Again Modern Age
Bucky Barnes recruited him into a new Thunderbolts squad built to finish off the Red Skull; working under the codename Gamemaster, Shang-Chi knocked out U.S. Agent in Hong Kong and used the Ten Rings to break open the Skull's bunker in Latveria. Captain America then drafted him into the Avengers Emergency Response Squad, where on his first mission he shrugged off Sin's psychic control and freed his teammates. He later helped expose a Serpent Society plot hidden behind a chain of crises.¹³⁴³⁵³⁶³⁷
Key issues: Thunderbolts (Vol. 6) #3, 2024 · Avengers Assemble (Vol. 3) #1, 2024 · Avengers Assemble (Vol. 3) #5, 2025

Capabilities

Master martial artist

Widely called the world's greatest martial artist, expert in every martial art on Earth, including kung fu and the Dragon, Leopard and Crane styles.¹

Pressure-point strikes

Knows exactly where to strike to knock out or immobilise a foe, even pressure points shared by animals.¹

Chi augmentation

Channels his chi to break brick, concrete and iron, endure heavy impacts, heal burns and poison quickly and dodge point-blank gunfire.¹

Peak human condition

Trained to the top of human strength, speed and stamina: he has kept pace with a subway train and survived a bear hug from the Thing.¹

Weapons master

Highly skilled with swords, staves and nunchaku, improvises with pipes or tree trunks, and throws shuriken with pinpoint accuracy.¹

Nervous system control

Can deaden pain, resist drugs and poisons, slow the spread of toxins and reduce his own bleeding.¹

The Ten Rings

Wearing the Ten Rings gives him superhuman strength, speed and durability, plus flight, energy blasts, force fields, portals and teleportation.¹

Source of power

Raised and trained from childhood by his father to be an assassin; his main edge is unmatched martial arts skill.¹

Can focus his mystical chi to push his strength, durability, healing and reflexes past human limits.¹

Now wields the Ten Rings, which grant superhuman power; a healing factor comes from his immortal father's herbal remedy.¹

Recorded feats

comics Grown to giant size with Pym Particles, he tore the Gorgon's headquarters off Madripoor, threw it miles away and beat a dragon in combat. Avengers World Vol 1 #14 (December 2014)¹⁸¹
comics Disabled the Thing's arm with a single pressure-point strike. Shang-Chi Vol 2 #4 (November 2021)³⁸¹
comics Lured Iron Man into the House of the Deadly Hand's arsenal and fought his armour with adamantium-plated weapons, taking one of his gauntlets. Shang-Chi Vol 2 #5 (December 2021)³⁹¹
screen On a runaway San Francisco bus he fought off Ten Rings agents and Razor Fist, threw attackers off and got the passengers out safely. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)⁴⁰⁴¹
screen Fought Ten Rings agents on scaffolding high above Macau, then came close to beating the assassin Death Dealer before his father intervened. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)⁴⁰⁴¹
screen Given the Ten Rings by his dying father, he used them with Xialing and the Great Protector to destroy the Dweller-in-Darkness. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)⁴⁰⁴¹

Notes from the archive

Steve Englehart coined the name from his study of the I Ching; it is usually translated as the rising and advancing of the spirit.¹⁴¹
His given name appeared in his 1973 debut, but his family name, Zheng, was not confirmed until Marvel's Voices: Identity #1 in 2022.¹⁴
In 1995 Dwayne McDuffie pitched a Shang-Chi series as part of a line Marvel nearly outsourced to Milestone Media; the plan fell apart after changes in Marvel's editorial leadership.¹
Marvel Studios once considered introducing Shang-Chi in The Avengers, alongside the Mandarin, long before his own film.⁴¹

Sources

Signal history1973 to 2026 · bars: screen · line: comics eras

197320002026 · Doomsday

Known associatesShared the screen

No released title puts Shang-Chi on screen with another target yet. Doomsday will be the first.

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