Discounts on BAO Publishing comics
After the saldaPress discounts that kicked off yesterday, now it's the turn of another avalanche of offers, this time offered by BAO Publishing. From 6 September to 3 October next, readers will be able to get their hands on a truly surprising number of collector's books, with discounts of 20%. The initiative is active in the participating bookstores and comics shops and the main online shops, but all the books published in the last six months are excluded from the promotion.BAO Publishing offers a truly rich catalog , among which we also find the now famous graphic novels by Zerocalcare such as The prophecy of the armadillo, An octopus in the throat, Every cursed Monday on two and, last but not least, Kobane Calling. Even the most recent works by Michele Rech, namely Skeletons and A father dead, are obviously present in the catalog, to which are added the foreign works Aiken, Last Man by Balak, Vives and Sanlaville, Black Science by Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera and fantasy with humorous colors called The Fortress, by Joann Sfar and Lewis Throndeim.
There is also a series of volumes translated into Italian directly from works such as Bone by Jeff Smith, I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and Ken JM Niimura and Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory. Among the Italian comics born from talented and young authors of our peninsula, Kid with Guns by Capitan Artiglio, Haxa by Nicolò Pellizzon, Gli Scarabocchi by Maicol & Mirco, Il porto prohibited by Teresa Radice and Stefano Turconi and Negativa by Alessandro Baronciani stand out. Returning to the great classics, there is no shortage of comics by Leo Ortolani (creator of Rat-Man), including CineMAH presents: The darkness in the room, OH! The book of wonders and Cinzia. All the news of the BAO catalog can be consulted on the official website of the Italian publishing house founded in 2009.
‘Shang-Chi’ surprisingly combines 5 comic characters into one scene-stealing warrior. Here’s what to know about Xialing.
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” introduces us to Marvel’s first ever Asian superhero, as played by Simu Liu.
But it’s not just Shang-Chi who is new. The movie presents a whole host of new characters, some of whom may become big players in the future of the MCU.
Warning: There are major spoilers for “Shang-Chi” below.
One of those characters is Xialing, played by Meng’er Zhang. Xialing is Shang-Chi’s sister, but the character featured in the movie is actually based off of five of Shang-Chi’s sisters in the comics. Here’s everything you need to know about Xialing, and what her future in the MCU could look like.
In the comics, Shang-Chi has five sisters, but Xialing seems to be based primarily off of two of them: Zheng Bao Yu, known as the Cursed Lotus, and Zheng Shi-Hua, known as Sister Hammer.
Bao Yu is the daughter of Zheng Zu, who is Wenwu in “Shang-Chi.” In the comics, Bao Yu rebels against her father and deserts him to become the leader of an underworld organization that she created.
This is exactly what Xialing did in “Shang-Chi” – she left her father after she felt abandoned by her brother and created her own fighting ring, where we first meet her when she battles Shang-Chi.
Meanwhile, there is a comics storyline where their father Zheng Zu chooses Shang-Chi to be his successor and Shi-Hua mistakenly thinks Shang-Chi murdered their father. This angers Shi-Hua, who then poisons Shang-Chi, although he survives.
While there is no poisoning in “Shang-Chi,” there is some hostility between Xialing and Shang-Chi as the former is angry at the latter for abandoning her when they were younger.
Plus, Shang-Chi and Xialing don’t actually have a conversation about their father’s death. Xialing sees Shang-Chi with the ten rings, and the two simply nod at each other in acknowledgment of their dad’s death.
This might not mean anything as of yet, but Xialing could theoretically think that Shang-Chi murdered their father, (which he didn’t), like the comics. She may also be jealous that her brother has the ten rings instead of her.
We’ll have to wait and see, but while Bao Yu’s storyline played out in “Shang-Chi,” we could very well see Shi-Hua’s storyline play out in future movies, too.
Since Xialing is a composite character of all five sisters, she is sort both. She feels like more of a hero in “Shang-Chi” as she puts her grievances with her brother to one side to fight alongside him. But at the same time, it feels like tension could brew up between them in the future.
Shang-Chi has numerous brothers and sisters in the comics, including half-siblings. In the movie, it seems like Wenwu only had two children, Shang-Chi and Xialing, with his wife Jiang Li. They’re the only ones mentioned.
However, Wenwu had been around for over a thousand years before he met Li. Don’t be surprised if, in the future of the MCU, a long-lost half-sibling turns up to either aid Shang-Chi or cause him problems.
Xialing and Shang-Chi part on pretty good terms, but they definitely part – each following their own path. We get to see Xialing’s path in the second end-credits scene of the movie, which shows that Xialing has taken control of the Ten Rings, the organization previously controlled by her father, Wenwu.
Xialing seems fully in control, and she has two right-hand men either side of her: Her confidant from her fighting ring organization, Jon Jon (Ronny Chieng), and Razor Fist, a former acolyte of her father.
At the end of the scene, she sits in what looks like a throne and watches men and women train alongside one another. While Marvel or Disney has not confirmed or even hinted at a new show centered around Xialing or the newly gender-inclusive Ten Rings organization, this scene definitely had the feel of setting one up.
We’ll have to wait and see if this is just speculation, but don’t be surprised if it turns into reality. Xialing made a big impact on the movie and we’re willing to bet she’s here in the MCU to stay.