M'Nai

Raised in the Hunan province of China, M'Nai — known as Midnight — was a childhood companion of Shang-Chi who was taken in and trained by Fu Manchu, honing his martial arts mastery and lethal stealth abilities into those of a near-peerless assassin.

Few characters carry the atmospheric weight of M'Nai, who burst onto the Bronze Age Marvel scene in 1974's Special Marvel Edition #16, conjured by the formidable creative trio of Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin, and Al Milgrom — a debut pedigree that alone marks this as a book worth hunting. Most deeply rooted in the pages of Master of Kung Fu, M'Nai moves through a world populated by the likes of Shang-Chi, Zheng Zu, and Midnight Sun, the kind of morally complex, martial-arts-drenched corner of Marvel that defined so much of what made the Bronze Age feel genuinely dangerous and cinematic. That this character's footprint stretches across nearly 45 years — touching even the cosmic grandeur of Silver Surfer and earning a place alongside an Avenger like Thor — speaks to a lasting resonance well beyond a single era. With Avengers affiliation on the résumé and key appearances collected in the celebrated Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu Omnibus, M'Nai is exactly the kind of discovery that reminds you why digging deeper into Marvel's Bronze Age is always rewarded.