Appearing in "Cyclone at the Center of a Madman's Crown!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Mordillo
- Brynocki (First appearance)
- Carlton Velcro (Only in flashback)
Other Characters:
- Mordillo's goons
- Clive Reston's father (Mentioned)
- Clive Reston's great-uncle (Mentioned)
Locations:
Items:
- Death-Hand (First appearance)
Synopsis for "Cyclone at the Center of a Madman's Crown!"
Clive Reston pilots a rocket plane, with Shang-Chi aboard, to Mordillo's island in the East China Sea. Below, Mordillo unties the wrists of Leiko Wu, his captive. She knocks him down. Brynocki, wearing a cowboy hat, lassos her.
Mordillo's island
Without enough room for a landing strip, Reston crashes the plane into the trees. When he and Shang-Chi reach the ground, a train meets them. They find an invitation and climb aboard. In London, Black Jack Tarr confronts Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Doctor Petrie. He complains that Reston, once the lover of Leiko, has a "personal involvement" in this case and that he (Tarr) should have gone instead. Smith says, "there is far more at stake in this matter than the mere lives of three agents."
Brynocki, wearing a director's beret, shows Mordillo film of Shang-Chi destroying Carlton Velcro's operation in France (issue Vol 1 31). Mordillo says that Shang-Chi cheated him out of a million-dollar contract on Velcro, who was "an interference to the Red Chinese plans for solar warfare." At dinner that evening, Mordillo asks Leiko about Project: Ultra-Violet. She professes ignorance (since she was hypnotically programmed to forget about it). He shows her the Solar-Chute, a device that can strip away the ozone layer in a spot and focus deadly ultraviolet radiation directly from the sun onto the earth below. She still professes ignorance.
Reston and Shang-Chi reach a giant shoe. Wooden soldiers charge, bayonets at the ready. They are four in number and slow. Once Reston and Shang-Chi beat the soldiers, they reboard the train. It goes to the castle in the center of the island and begins to accelerate as it climbs. The drawbridge rises, so they have to jump and grab it while the train crashes. Once inside, they find a toy village with a box set in the middle. A Fu Manchu doll pops out of the box. Reston shoots it. A mime leads them through the village. Shang-Chi hears a stone Humpty Dumpty being pushed off a wall and pushes Reston out of its way. The mime takes them into a theater. Brynocki, wearing an usher's cap, leads them to the front row. A metal bar traps them in their seats. The curtain opens. Leiko is on the stage, trapped in the bottom of an hourglass ....
Notes
- Beginning with this issue, Marv Wolfman took over as editor of this title and as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics.
- Denis Nayland Smith appears next in a behind-the-scenes cameo in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Vol 1 16.