In the Marvel Comics Universe, New York City is home to many famous faces. Look to the sky and you may see Thor or Iron Man fly past, Shang-Chi and Pizza Rat call the city home. Wait, what?
In Master of Kung Fu #126, a delightfully offbeat one-shot written by CM Punk with art by Dalibor Talajic, Shang-Chi is in the midst of enjoying his day off with his pet monkey when he gets kidnapped by ninjas working for an evil veterinarian named Dr. Mel Prasis. Recently ousted by the Hand, Prasis has been training animals in kung fu through a variety of means, including "dark arts, modern technology, and the best animal psychologists that didn't charge too much." Prasis' goals are simple: to build a rodent army responsive to his every whim. Shang-Chi its he was aware that a dark scheme was afoot in New York, having noticed the city's rats pulling kung fu moves to steal pizza.
Aside from serving as a hilarious tie-in to a particularly strange moment in New York history - the viral fame of a pizza-stealing rat circa 2015 - the Pizza Rat incident in Shang-Chi's story serves to show a different side of the hero. While largely serious when working in groups, like in the New Agents of Atlas, or as a mentor figure to younger characters like Sword Master, the Shang-Chi in Master of Kung Fu #126 confidently indulges in absurdity. This is perhaps best represented in the final of the issue, where the hero flashes a thumbs-up with an ice cream cone in hand. Meanwhile, an octopus he has freed from the clutches of Mel Prasis triumphantly holds up an ice cream of her own in the background, while the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty overlooks them both.
Shang-Chi's story cleverly positions the real-life Pizza Rat as just the first sign of a supervillain's plan but, more than that, seeing Shang-Chi on his day off provides readers with an opportunity to catch a glimpse into the off-duty life of an otherwise stoic hero. The issue's storyline has its tender moments, including a detail of Shang-Chi nursing his rescued monkey, Chee, back to health, as well as his devastation and horror upon finding the discarded bodies of Mel Prasis' animal experiments.
With a hero as disciplined as Shang-Chi, such emotional moments help advance his character in new ways while also grounding the more outlandish parts of the story (kung fu pizza rats). It is clear that Shang-Chi is attuned to the goings-on of his city on levels both great and small. After all, it's hard to imagine another hero besides the Master of Kung Fu being able to pick up on the martial-arts movements of rats carrying slices of pizza. Shang-Chi's presence in New York certainly adds a new dimension to how the city appears in comics, infusing it with a wealth of both martial arts expertise and comion for all its inhabitants - including Pizza Rat.
