Panel 1: Gui Ji Chuan, or “Ghost Disease Fist,” is something that I worked up for a long-ago rejected Marvel pitch for a Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu miniseries. The proposal addressed the role of the advanced (but not superhuman) martial artist in the ultra-high-tech setting of a superhero universe, and depicted some fun complications that might result. One such bit of wackiness was Gui Ji Chuan, an ancient, malignant “evil style of kung fu” that winds up getting biologically weaponized in the course of the miniseries. Shenanigans, needless to say, ensue.

Anyhoo, years after the Master of Kung Fu pitch had been rejected multiple times, it belatedly occurred to me that the story could easily be adapted into the Empowered universe, but with Ninjette as the bemused martial-artsy protagonist instead of Shang-Chi. That adaptation hasn’t yet come pass, and probably never will, but I decided to insert this page’s early reference to the plotline in case I ever felt like rolling with the story of the “Ghost Disease Fist.”

-Adam Warren