Born during the early
Qing Dynasty, Zheng Zu gained his education at the
Tibetan monastery of Rach where he learned martial arts, arcane knowledge, and every known discipline of science. Becoming highly regarded in his monastery, Zheng Zu was considered part of their brotherhood until the day he left to share his gifts with the world. A powerful sorcerer in his own right, Zu, along with his younger brother Zheng Yi and their five disciples, the Deadly Warriors, formed the
Five Weapons Society to protect China. His inspiration were weapons from the realm of
Ta-Lo, the legendary Five Sets of Heavenly Weapons: One Hammer (Hammer), Two Swords (Sabre), Nine Daggers (Dagger), Three Staffs (Staff) and
Ten Rings (Hand). On one such mission, the Sorcerer Brothers and the Deadly Warriors protected the
Tianjin Prefecture from
Fin Fang Foom. The
Ancient One, a fellow sorcerer and friend, provided the brothers the Eyes of the Dragon, a pair of stones that granted longevity and vigor while requiring the sacrifice of another. By 1860, the brothers had aged decades beyond their natural lifespans through the use of longevity spells and had grown weaker as a result. During the
Second Opium War, the Society fought against
British forces, but were defeated by
Dormammu and the
Mindless Ones summoned by the British sorcerer Baron Harkness, resulting in the death of the Deadly Warriors. Zu attempted to use the Eyes of the Dragon to save the fatally wounded Yi at the cost of his own life, but not wanting to rule the Society alone, Yi reversed the spell, granting Zu immortality and restoring his youth, giving him the power to defeat the combined British forces. Following the death of his brother and the Deadly Warriors, Zu led the Society alone, establishing five houses in their honor. Without his brother's guidance, Zu lost his way, becoming increasingly bitter and ruthless. After losing one of the houses during the
Boxer Rebellion, Zu renounced his country and followers for their perceived weakness and lied about his brother's death, claiming he killed him for being weak as well and stole his spirit energy to augment his own. Zu subsequently relocated four of the Society's five houses to foreign countries within the
Eight-Nation Alliance to monitor those who had fought against China and the Society during the conflict. For the next century while building his criminal empire, Zu would steal the life essences of his blood relatives, including those from numerous offspring he fathered in order to preserve his longevity. Zu would lose possession of the Eyes but created the Elixir Vitae to prolong his longevity. Over time, Zu would use many aliases for himself and the Society, eventually choosing the name "Dr. Fu Manchu" and renaming the Society as the "Si-Fan". When his daughter
Zheng Bao Yu (also known by the alias Fah Lo Suee) was a child, Fu Manchu showed her the Moon, where he said that he would one day have the power to move one world in order to rule another world. Fu Manchu was revealed to have discovered the knowledge of
Jack the Ripper's methodology. Fu Manchu later took the woman Mara Ling to be his wife as part of an arranged marriage, despite the fact that she loved a blind archer named Li. Zheng Zu discovered the existence of the heavenly realm of
Ta Lo and planned to steal the Five Sets of Heavenly Weapons to bolster the Five Weapons Society. However following an attack by
Hydra against the House of the Deadly Hand, Zu became cold and distant towards his family, as he felt that his love for them made him weak, and resumed his plans to infiltrate Ta Lo. Xin and Jiang Li confronted Zu in his personal tower, where they discovered he had constructed a makeshift portal to Ta Lo. While Zu fought his wife and father-in-law, Shang-Chi happened upon the scene, just as the portal's connection to Ta Lo became disconnected and Jiang Li was accidentally pushed through, sending her to the
Negative Zone. Zu and Xin blamed each other for Jiang Li's presumed death and each tried convincing Shang-Chi to join them. Shang-Chi sided with his father and threw one of Zu's chemicals at Xin' face, blinding and leaving a scar across his right eye. Xin denounced Shang-Chi to be as evil as his father and fled on his
Qilin. Zu subsequently placed a memory spell on Shang-Chi, making him forget the incident. During their childhood, Shang-Chi and Shi-Hua accidentally discovered one of their father's secret laboratories in his
Hunan retreat. As punishment, their father told Shang-Chi that he gave Shi-Hua a merciful death, explaining that the luxury of human bonds was weakness. In truth, he secretly sent Shi-Hua to the House of the Deadly Hammer in
Russia. Shang-Chi would continue to be raised in isolation in his father's Hunan retreat; unbeknownst to Shang-Chi, the Hunan retreat was the House of the Deadly Hand, with Shang-Chi chosen to be its champion. Like with Shang-Chi and Shi-Hua, their father selected several of his other children to be raised in the Society's other Houses as their respective champions, with daughter Zheng Zhilan and an unnamed son at the House of the Deadly Staff in
Britain, son Takeshi at the House of the Deadly Sabre in
Japan and daughter
Esme at the House of the Deadly Dagger in
France. When Zhilan voiced her plans to reform the Society, Zheng Zu ordered Takeshi to assassinate her, who instead chose to spare her and helped fake her death. Unbeknownst to both, their father ordered her death due to her status as a
mutant, whom Zu believed were colonial threats. after which Fu Manchu captured both of them, killed McKay with a "hellish green liquid" that 'took six seconds" to accomplish and used his Japanese sumo wrestler bodyguard Tak to cripple Smith by crushing his legs. Fu Manchu later introduced schizophrenia to a
gorilla which was used as the final guardian of his New York headquarters. Fu Manchu's African base was raided by the British military, where many of his followers there were killed. Upon finding a disfigured infant named
M'Nai after also finding his parents dead, Zheng Zu decided that he could shape M'Nai into a powerful servant and M'Nai was raised alongside Shang-Chi. M'Nai and Shang-Chi became inseparable, even referring to each other as brothers. Shang-Chi as a boy heard from K'uei Meng that Fu Manchu had plans to rule the world. When Shang-Chi confronted his father, Zheng Zu dismissed it as slander and Shang-Chi never saw K'uei Meng again. Another event in Shang-Chi's childhood is seeing his father thank a dacoit for saving his life. Years later, that same dacoit was killed by Fu Manchu for failing in his mission. When Shang-Chi bested his fellow student Ah Lung in combat, Fu Manchu demanded that Shang-Chi kill him. Due to Shang-Chi hesitating, Fu Manchu had his guards kill Ah Lung. When Fu Manchu had his pupil Shoh Teng seemingly betray Shang-Chi to MI-6 agents that were secretly on Fu Manchu's side, Fu Manchu "rescued" Shang-Chi and killed their leader, Death-Dragon, in order to earn Shang-Chi's trust. When Shang-Chi was 19, Fu Manchu dispatched Shang-Chi to
London to kill Dr. Petrie, who was said by Fu Manchu to be a threat to world peace. Shang-Chi was successful in killing Petrie and was confronted by Nayland Smith, who told Shang-Chi the truth about his father. After meeting with his mother in
New York, who confirmed Smith's claims, Shang-Chi fought his way past Fu Manchu's bodyguards at his New York base, where he told his father that they were now enemies. Fu Manchu later tried to move the Moon from its orbit around Earth in an attempt to move one world in order to rule another world (as he had promised his daughter years before) but was defeated by Shang-Chi and his allies. Under the alias of Wang Yu-Seng, Fu Manchu planned to kidnap Fah Lo Suee and Shang-Chi to jump-start the Elixir Vitae, which now needed the blood of his own children to return him to full vigor. With the help of the Death-Dealer, Fu Manchu captured Shang-Chi and held him hostage in order to get his blood, only for Shang-Chi to escape. Fu Manchu brought Fah Luo Suee to Honan to have her blood as he was pursued by Shang-Chi. To combat Shang-Chi, Fu Manchu unleashed a clone of Shang-Chi to fight Shang-Chi, which ended up being bested by Shang-Chi and killed. When a dying Zheng Zu attempted to lap up the clone's blood to save his life, the fortress began to crumble around him as Shang-Chi left his father to meet his doom. Determined to rid the world of his father's stain, Shang-Chi traveled to
A.I.M. Island to determine what his father's connections with A.I.M. were. His findings were inconclusive. After Fu Manchu's apparent death, their organization was divided into factions: Sleeping Dragon Clan (led by Chiang Kai-Dong), Steel Lotus Group (led by Hsien Ming-Ho), Wild Tiger Mob (led by Deng Ling-Xiao) and Coiled Serpent Syndicate (led by Mao Liu-Cho). The
Kingpin takes control of his own faction of the Si-Fan in
Hong Kong and provides them cybernetics. Shang-Chi joins forces with the
X-Men and
Elektra Natchios against the Kingpin's Si-Fan. Under the name Cursed Lotus, his daughter
Fah Lo Suee teamed up with Deng Ling-Xiao and the Wild Tiger Mob and marketed a new drug called Wild Tiger, Despite the Wild Tiger mob being brought down by Shang-Chi, she eludes capture. Shang-Chi never discovers his half-sister's involvement. Fu Manchu employed
Zaran (Zhou Man She) to retrieve a chemical from
A.I.M. and later directed him to kill Shang-Chi for him. Fu Manchu later sent his dacoits to aid Zaran against Shang-Chi and the
Marvel Knights. Although they succeeded in destroying the building that Shang-Chi was in, Zaran failed to slay him. Using the aliases of the
Comte de St. Germain and the
Ghost, Fu Manchu employed his son,
Moving Shadow, as he prepared the Hellfire weapon. He was opposed again by MI-6 and Shang-Chi, with the resulting battle destroying the Hellfire weapon. Under the alias of
Han, Fu Manchu offered his daughter Kwai Far to the
Black Panther as a prospective bride. The Black Panther refused this offer and drove him off with the assistance of
Luke Cage and
Shang-Chi. Fu Manchu eventually died sometime after his last encounter with his son. Aloysius Thorndrake of the
Shadow Council had somehow partially resurrected Shang-Chi's father, whose real name was revealed to be Zheng Zu (with "Fu Manchu" being one of his many aliases) and his organization is called the Hai-Dai, the Shadow Council agents are digging for the Eyes of the Dragon. Max Fury (a rogue
Life Model Decoy of
Nick Fury) then reports to Aloysius that they have found the Eyes of the Dragon. Aloysius, Max and Hai-Dai ninjas then move on to the next part of the plan that involves capturing Shang-Chi and using him to restore Zheng Zu to life. The
Prince of Orphans and the
Valkyrie arrive at Zheng Zu's grave, where they find a few Shadow Council agents on guard, knowing that someone would come to the grave. They defeat the Shadow Council agents, take one of them prisoner and have him taken to an unknown location. Meanwhile, Max Fury informs Aloysius Thorndrake about the two unfortunate mishaps. Zheng Zu is not pleased, for there is only two days left to complete the ritual needed to restore himself to life. Aloysius promises to Zheng Zu that Max Fury and John Steele will handle this. Zheng Zu prepares the ritual that will enable him to use Shang-Chi's life-force to resurrect himself. Disguised as a Shadow Council agent, the Moon Knight gives the signal and the Secret Avengers drop in on the Shadow Council. Captain Steve Rogers fights Max Fury, while the Valkyrie fights John Steele. The Prince of Orphans disrupts the ritual, causing Zheng Zu to turn to stone, which the Prince of Orphans then shatters. The reveal of Zu's true identity results Fah Lo Suee's real identity,
Zheng Bao Yu being revealed as well. Now in full control of the Hai-Dai, Bao Yu resumes her father's long-forgotten experiment of bio-engineering
Brood eggs as weapons, which she uses to carry out hits in New York's
Chinatown. The plot is uncovered by
Misty Knight and
Annabelle Riggs of the
Fearless Defenders with help from
Elsa Bloodstone; the three track Bao Yu and the Hai-Dai assassins and scientists to an underground laboratory. With the help of No-Name of the Brood, the Fearless Defenders defeat the Hai-Dai and destroy the experiments, forcing Bao Yu to teleport away from her lair. With Zu's death, the title of Supreme Commander of the Five Weapons Society was passed down to his son, Brother Staff. Believing that the Society had been reduced to a "glorified drug ring" under Staff's leadership, Shi-Hua, now known as Sister Hammer, challenges him at the House of the Deadly Staff in London to usurp control of the Society. Despite Hammer defeating and mortally wounding Staff, Zheng Zu's spirit selects Shang-Chi as the new Supreme Commander instead of Hammer. An enraged Hammer assumes control of the Society and sends the Warriors of the Deadly Staff to kill her brother in America. While imprisoned in the Jade Palace dungeon in Ta Lo, Zheng Zu's spirit visits Shang-Chi to convince him to take the Ten Rings to stop Xin, who kidnapped Jiang Li (who was released from the Negative Zone by Shang-Chi) and plans to destroy their family. Xin, empowered by a
taotie mask created from Shang-Chi's blood and Shi-Hua's severed hand, arrives at the dungeon to destroy the Zheng bloodline once and for all. Shang-Chi reluctantly allows his father to guide him to the Jade Emperor's vault containing the Ten Rings, donning them to save his siblings from his grandfather. Zheng Zu's bones are extracted from battle between the Secret Avengers and Shadow Council by a gang of disgruntled Society members who attempt to use the remains as part of a ritual to summon a younger version of Zheng Zu to take over the Society. Shang-Chi and his siblings attempt to stop the ritual but Shang-Chi is accidentally sent back in time to the
First Opium War where he encounters younger versions of Zheng Zu, Zheng Yi, and that era's Deadly Warriors. As a younger man, Zu is shown to be heroic and amiable and befriends Shang-Chi. Zheng Zu and Shang-Chi work together to apprehend a corrupt
Constable and part on good terms as Shang-Chi is transported back to the present; Zu remains oblivious to their familial relationship. Due to the experience, Shang-Chi and his siblings bury Zu's remains next to his brother's grave and with
full funeral rites, honoring the man he once was. ==Powers and abilities==