Shang-Chi Has Major Ties to MCU Past And Future
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the first Marvel Studios film that is both a part of Phase 4 and set in the post-Avengers: Endgame era of the MCU. Spider-Man: Far From Home is dubbed an epilogue to the Infinity Saga as the final Phase 3 movie and Phase 4's Black Widow movie is a prequel set prior to Avengers: Infinity War. Despite this, the early fan expectation of Shang-Chi was that it would be a self-contained story in an unexplored pocket of the MCU. While that is largely true of the film in the sense that it tells a story centered around its own characters (excellent characters with or without the MCU backdrop, might I add), Shang-Chi is bringing in character cameos and story connections that make it an integral part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's past and future, with all roads seemingly leading to Doctor Strange.
Right out of the gate, Shang-Chi has ties to a pair of Phase 1 movies: Iron Man and Iron Man 3. In a spoiler-free manner of speaking, the film rights the wrongs of Iron Man 3's Mandarin twist which was viewed by comic fans as a frustrating change to the source material (overall, it was still a quite well-received twist to have Ben Kingsley's Mandarin villain actually be merely an actor named Trevor Slattery). Kingsley's Trevor Slattery unknowingly became the face of a terror organization dubbed as the "Ten Rings" group, which goes back to the first Iron Man movie where Tony Stark was captured by a group using the same name.
"The Ten Rings was always this organization that was looming out there," Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige told ComicBook.com. "With the twist and Iron Man 3, we always said that didn't mean there wasn't a true leader of the Ten Rings. It just meant Trevor Slattery wasn't it."
With this new Legend of the Ten Rings story, the deeper and more accurate lore of the Ten Rings group comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "More importantly, it was about bringing Shang-Chi to the MCU and bringing this character and bringing this new Marvel hero into the pantheon of heroes," Feige said. "And what sets him apart is that story of family, and is the very complex relationship he has with his father, who was the founder, who led the Ten Rings for many years. So it's just fun, as always in the connectivity, to have something as new. And you need a Shang-Chi come out and yet have somewhat of its origin's go back to the very beginning."
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