While the DCU is breaking ground with their female superhero movie Wonder Woman, and now Aquaman, the MCU is stepping up.

Last week the DCU announced their first Latin superhero Blue Beetle and now Marvel has unveiled their first Asian superhero. Yes, the world of superheroes is getting diversified. Read on…

CelebNMovies247.com reports that Marvel Studios is fast-tracking Shang-Chi to be its first superhero movie tentpole franchise with an Asian protagonist.

The studio has set Chinese-American scribe Dave Callaham to write the screenplay. Deadline reports Marvel is already looking at a number of Asian and Asian-American directors who want to do something as potentially monumental.

Marvel’s first viable Best Picture candidate, Black Panther. That film tied to African and African American cultures and the sensibilities of its nearly all-black cast. Thanks to the genius director Ryan Coogler and writer in Joe Robert Cole.

The goal here is to do a similar thing: introduce a new hero who blends Asian and Asian American themes, crafted by Asian and Asian American filmmakers.

Whow is Shang Chi?

Shang-Chi first appeared in Special Marvel Edition #15 in December 1973, hatched by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. The script will modernize the hero to avoid stereotypes that many comic characters of that era were saddled with. The comic launched around the time that Enter the Dragon became a global sensation and martial arts films raged. In the comics, Shang-Chi is the son of China-based globalist who raised and educated his progeny in his reclusive China compound, closed off to the outside world. The son trained in the martial arts and developed unsurpassed skills. He is eventually introduced to the outside world to do his father’s bidding, and then has to come to grips with the fact his revered father might not be the humanitarian he has claimed to be and is closer to what others call him: The Devil’s Doctor. He also might be centuries old. The deceit makes them bitter enemies.