In American comics in general, there are many characters created based on real people, such as iron Tony Stark based on genius businessman Howard Hughes. To take advantage of the fever of martial arts film in the United States in the 1970s, Marvel decided to create a new hero that both fits the trend and attracts more audiences. To create the character Shang-chi, that pattern is none other than Ly Tieu Long.
Created by Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom and Jim Starlin, Shang-chi appeared for the first time in the Special Marvel Edition #15 in 1973. Similar to Bruce Lee, Shang-Chi was a Chinese-born martial artist. According to Roy Thomas, the successor of Stan Lee at Marvel, Shang-chi is designed to be special like Ly Tieu Long.
Stan Lee, the father of many famous comic book characters, is a very fans of Li Xiaoping. In 1974, after the legendary Li died, Stan Lee published a special 33 -episode comic series titled “The dead hand of Kung Fu – The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” as a gratitude to Ly Tieu Long.
Stan Lee said:
“What makes Li Xiaoping special is that he is an extraordinary thing! Shang-chi is trustworthy, he is a superhero, but what is attractive is that he is real! You feel like you can become a person like Shang-chi.”
“Li Xiaoping is a peace lover, he is a person of philosophy, he encourages people to become as best as possible. He is not violent. In fact, it is the similarity between Ly and many characters at Marvel.
The similarity between Shang-chi and Ly Tieu Long was so big that when Marvel plans to make a Shang-chi film in the 80s, the actor that aimed at was Brandon Lee-Ly Quoc Hao, the son of Ly Tieu Long. Unfortunately, because Brandon Lee died in 1993 due to an accident on set, the project was missed to this day.