Issue(s): Master of Kung Fu annual #1
Cover Date: 1976
Title: "The fortress of S'ahra Sharn! / The evil which is S'ahra-Sharn"
Credits:
Doug Moench - Writer
Keith Pollard - Penciler
John Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland - Inker

Review/plot:
Iron Fist shows up at Shang Chi's place in London.

He wants help looking for Colleen Wing. Refreshingly, Shang Chi agrees to help without the two first engaging in a Misunderstanding Fight. But instead of finding Colleen, the pair is attacked by a group of warriors summoned by a man named Quan St'ar.

Quan St'ar is from S'ahra-Sharn, an evil mirror image of K'un Lun. He was the first person to kill the dragon that Iron Fist had to defeat to get his powers. Apparently the dragon had gone berserk and attacked the August Personage In Jade and Quan St'ar killed it, but the Personage was not pleased that Quan St'ar slayed a dragon. The Personage revived the dragon and set up the scenario where potential Iron Fists had to fight it, but Quan St'ar became evil because his efforts at protecting the August Personage were spurned.

Quan St'ar deceives Iron Fist into thinking he's a good guy...

...and he teleports them back to the dimension of S'ahra-Sharn.

They eventually find out that they're on the wrong side and work with a resistance group to defeat Quan St'ar. Afterward, they are teleported home again but Iron Fist decides he doesn't really need Shang Chi's help after all.

More of an Iron Fist story that Shang-Chi just happens to tag along on, and of course it's neither Gulacy or Byrne on art, but its not terrible. It's nice seeing the two martial arts masters interact.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Iron Fist/Shang-Chi meeting.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Iron Fist is in London hunting for Colleen Wing, placing this between Iron Fist #4-5. The MCP places this between Master of Kung Fu #42-43.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This story didn't get reprinted in Essential Iron Fist, even though Marvel could have done so because Fu Manchu isn't in it.

Perhaps the best Keith Pollard's art ever looked, IMHO.

Also, the policeman and fish and chip seller who appear briefly in this are possibly THE ultimate example of 70's Marvel "Gor Blimey" cockneys.

hey there, have you given any consideration as to the identity of the Yu-Ti who appears in the backflash story? The thing is, the backflash tells the story of how Shou-Lao's heart was first melted to beccome the power source for the Iron Fists - later issues have stated this happened 66 times before Danny Rand became Iron Fist. Sooo, if the guy apppearing here must have been a Yu-Ti hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago, and can be neither Nu-An or Tuan, right?

There's probably something i'm forgetting, etrit, but in Power Man & Iron Fist #75, Nu-An describes K'un-Lun as "the city of immortals, where life was an ageless eternity and history was infinity". And in the flashback in that issue, Lord Tuan was the Yu-Ti. So couldn't Lord Tuan have been Yu-Ti thousands of years earlier when the events in this issue's flashback happened?