The co-creator and artist of Shang-Chi revealed that he didn’t want to see Fu Manchu in the live-action Marvel universe. Jim Starlin did an interview with Popcorn Talk at the San Diego Comic-Con where the interviewer asked him what he would like to see in the upcoming superhero movie Shang-Chi. Instead of answering what he wanted to see, he expressed what he didn’t want to see.

“Easier to say what I would not like to see out of Shang-Chi and that’s Fu Manchu,” Starlin said. “Which I’m hoping and I’m pretty sure they’re going to cut him out of the whole thing.”

Jim Starlin added that he “never read” about the Fu Manchu character until he was done with the first issue. It wasn’t until his friend gave him the source material that he realized his mistake.

“I’ve never read a Fu Manchu book before we did Shang-Chi,” he said. “And it was Stan and Roy who bought it from the Rohmer family and only after I got done with the first issue…and Larry Hama, a friend of mine said, ‘Have you ever read one of these books?’ and he gave me one the next day and it was like ‘oh jeez, this is kind of embarrassing.'”

Starlin was also asked who he thought should play the Shang-Chi character but he didn’t have anyone in mind.

“I’m not familiar enough these days with the kung fu, the martial arts community to take a shot at that,” he said.

According to Screen Rant, the character Fu Manchu began to appear in the comics in 1938 after it was licensed from British author Sax Rohmer, who created the character in the early 1900s. The character was an evil genius who wanted to take over the world. He was a racist caricature of Asian people and was an example of yellow peril as fears of Asian people rose.

In the Shang-Chi comics, Fu Manchu was the father of Shang-Chi and evil mastermind who raised his son to be an assassin. But, during an assassination mission, Shang-Chi realizes his father is evil and that he must stop him.