Woo, born Ishiguro Takashi, was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army during the 1930s before deserting and fleeing to China. There, he became a vigilante named Yan Cheh.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 1932, Woo (then Takashi) was involved in the confrontation between the Chinese and Japanese in Shanghai. He captured Inspector Sung-Chi Li and took him before his superior, Major Ryuji Matsu.
In February 1936, Takashi's brothers were among the civil servants and government ministers killed in a revolt in Tokyo by the Sakura Kai and the Japanese First Infantry Division in support of the Kodo Ha. Takashi came to detest the "traitors" who led the Japanese military and deserted. Hunted by the Sakura Kai, who considered him a traitor, he fled to Hong Kong and then to China to act against his own people in the coming war.
By August 1937, Takashi had taken on the guise of Woo, a Hong Kong-born nightclub owner who ran Club Do-San in Shanghai. He soon adopted Woo as his real name and over time, nearly forgot his old one. Woo also secretly operated as a vigilante who gained the name Yan Cheh. Under that identity, he tried to protect the people of the city from the corruption of the local government and the Tongs.
Woo's ultimate goal was to create a united front against the Japanese Army at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War before they expanded the war from Manchukuo and advanced into Shanghai. During his efforts, he found himself involved in Hsien-Ko's plot to exact revenge on Magnus Greel, and assisted the Fourth Doctor and Romana I in thwarting her. Afterwards, Woo decided to give up his crime-fighting ways and move to the United States, where he could settled down as a simple nightclub owner in Los Angeles or San Francisco. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)