CM Punk Will Help Bring Back A Long-Dormant Marvel Character

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CM Punk is a man of many passions and many interests. The former WWE Superstar and champion is neck-deep in an attempted second career as a mixed martial artist, but he’s also well-known and well-respected as a longtime fixture of the music and comics industries. Although he’s mostly notable in music circles for his friendship with and promotion of a slew of bands, he’s actually gotten his hands dirty as a comic book writer.

Punk has written a Drax series for Marvel comics before (which is surreal not least because CM Punk essentially wrote a comic starring Batista), and has also penned a Strange Sports Stories comic for Vertigo. Now he’s heading back to the pages of Marvel, and will be writing one of the more obscure characters you can think of (or more accurately, probably not be able to think of).

PWInsider first reported that Punk would be writing a one-shot Master of Kung Fu story called “Shang-Chi’s Day Off.” Shang-Chi, the master of Kung Fu, first appeared in 1973 in the pages of Special Marvel Edition, and was about as pulpy as you would expect a Kung Fu comic in the early-to-mid 1970s to be. Special Marvel Edition was retitled Hands of Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu shortly after Shang-Chi debuted, and ran all the way to issue 125 in 1983 before the title was canceled.

This new issue from Punk will pick up right where the original left off, in a way, as the cover will label it issue No. 126, in a direct continuation of that first volume of the comic. The comic will ship in November, and the synopsis reads as follows:

Shang-Chi’s Day Off Part 1 (OF 1): The Marvel Universe is full of fighters: brawlers, scrappers, weapons experts, mystical kung fu virtuosi. But there’s only one martial artist skilled enough to be called the greatest. SHANG-CHI has been a pinch hitter for a long time, stepping in for Avengers missions when no one else would do, but when no one can match your speed or skill, sometimes it’s best to work alone. To see what you’ve been missing if you don’t know Shang-Chi, don’t miss MASTER OF KUNG FU!

Shang-Chi has popped up many times over the years since the cancellation of his series, but perhaps the Punk issue will prove popular enough for a full-time comeback for the master of Kung Fu. I just hope Punk writes him meeting Kevin Sullivan’s Dungeon of Doom Master. That’s probably what will happen. And once again, there will be no Hulkamaniacs there.