After a brief, and awesome, interlude with Max Fury; the series hits 2nd Gear with the new arc for this series. It has been a fun ride so far for five issues, can Burbaker and Deodato continue the fun when we start going ‘Kung-Fu’ for the series?

If you know more about these old school, martial arts heroes and villains I would imagine this would be easier to know who these characters are. Brubaker does a good job of introducing them to us, but it definitely feels like he is going down a huge well of ideas from 60’s-70’s comics. Which is fine and I love to see Shang-Chi and get to know him better as a character. There is a good amount of action in this, but also a good amount of talking heads as well. But Brubaker makes the talking head portions interesting and also continues the mystery of the Serpent Society as well. Overall it was a fun issue to read, but if I knew more about the history of Shang-Chi then I probably would like it even more.

Deodato continues to bring his good pencils into the series. I will admit though that when it is a lot of talking; it is not one of Deodato’s strong points. Anatomy can look a bit off sometimes, especially Sharon Carter in this instance. But when the issue gets rolling in the beginning and the break in happens it is all gravy. Deodato continues the ‘Neal Adams’ vibe with the panels and flow of action but again it doesn’t seem to work too well when it’s just talking. Not the best issue for Deodato by any means, but it is still a pretty good looking issue overall.

Maybe there isn’t as much Kung-Fu fighting as I thought there would be (at least for Rogers and others); but there is no sophomore slump for me with this title. This is still a fun issue with loads of action and a good amount of information to continue the overall story along. I would like to know just how Brubaker is going to make War Machine kung-fu fight though…