Fu Manchu

Fu Manchu
Main aliases:	Mumu Manchu
Species:	Human
Affiliated with:	Si Fan, Order of the White Peacock, Sisyphean Society
Place of origin:	China
Created by:	Sax Rohmer
Children:	Heir, Dilys
First mentioned in:	All-Consuming Fire
First appearance:	Character Assassin
Appearances:	PROSE: The Beasthouse PROSE: The Delightful Bag

Doctor Fu Manchu was one of the foremost criminal masterminds of the 19th century. His son also described him as "one of the world's leading racial stereotypes".

Biography

19th century

Fu Manchu was the leader of the Chinese crime organisation Si Fan, (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire) the second-most grotesque criminal organisation of its day. His expertise in biology enabled him to create monsters such as giant scorpions, poisonous fungi spores, giant glowing hounds, man-eating octopi, and lion-kestrel hybrids.

He knew the secret of eternal life, which he put into use through a process of dying, controlling cultists to ritually purify his corpse, and returning from the grave. Despite this, in the 1870s Fu Manchu decided to use his control of biology to sire an heir without physical involvement. Placing his belief in the theory of maternal impression, he tormented the mother with horrors throughout the pregnancy in the hopes that his child would become fearsome and monstrous. He also experimented on her so she would lactate liquid explosive, which made the child fireproof. She raised the heir and several other of Manchu's children.

Manchu sent his son to l'Academie Sinistaire and entrusted him with control of an experimental facility, but after the son was ejected from l'Academie, Manchu cut him off entirely. The family ultimately received credit for the invention of time travel between the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. (PROSE: The Beasthouse)

By 1887 the Catholic Church believed him to be a great menace to civilisation. The Library of St John the Beheaded had shelves of books on the doctor and his organisation. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire)

Manchu's criminal activities led to the invention of time travel, although its criminal potentials were not realised for some time. Fu Manchu's son also believed him responsible for Dr Moreau's experiments in hybridisation experiments. (PROSE: The Beasthouse)

20th century

In the early 20th century "Mumu Manchu" was intent on bringing down the British government. (PROSE: The Delightful Bag) John described Mumu as "the demented crime lord of Limehouse". (PROSE: Fellowship of Ink)

At the turn of the 20th century, one of Manchu's schemes was foiled by Isiah Dogberry.

On a Christmas in the 1920s, Manchu came to Manleigh Halt with his daughter Dilys and his hired dwarf Mr Glister. He encountered Iris Wildthyme and Panda. Mumu, Dilys, and Glister became the targets of George Mistrise's Wild Hunt. (PROSE: The Delightful Bag)

Sometime before Henry Cleavis moved to Darkholmes in the 1930s, he and John had an encounter with Manchu. (PROSE: Fellowship of Ink)

In 1942, Professor Challenger was on the trail of Fu Manchu, taking the same train to London as the Eighth Doctor and Fritter in the belief that Manchu was operating out of an abandoned mill in Yorkshire. (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)

In fiction

Sax Rohmer wrote a number of books about Fu Manchu's life (PROSE: The Beasthouse, The Book of the War) in which he was opposed by "Sir Denis Nayland", a character based on Richard Carnac Temple. These books propogated the aesthetic of the Order of the White Peacock through the West in the early 20th century: for instance, in The Devil Doctor, published 1914-15, Manchu was frustrated when Nayland removed one of his white peacocks. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Fu Manchu's son dismissed the books as "generally absurd". (PROSE: The Beasthouse)

In the Land of Fiction Fu Manchu was a member of the Sisyphean Society's senior circle. The Master killed him along with the other members of the Society by directing Martian tripods to their hideout, thus giving the 19th century villains a devastating "glimpse" of what the 20th century would bring in terms of fictional evil. (COMIC: Character Assassin)

Appearance

Fu Manchu had drooping moustaches. (PROSE: The Delightful Bag) On his spine was a tattoo of his son's face being eaten by owls. In Sax Rohmer's books about Manchu, he wore traditional Oriental robes and kept a pet marmoset. (PROSE: The Beasthouse)

Behind the scenes

• During the first appearance of the "Mumu Manchu" version of the character alongside other pulp pastiches in Paul Magrs' novel Something Borrowed, it's made clear that "Mumu" is only a nickname given to him by his wife based on his sense of dress.
• Fu Manchu is treated in Character Assassin as one of the 19th century fictional characters, as explicitly contrasted with the 20th century fiction represented by H. G. Wells's Martian; however, in the real world, the character actually debuted in 1913.
• Philip Hinchcliffe cited Fu Manchu to Robert Holmes as an item to use as inspiration for writing The Talons of Weng-Chiang. This decision, and its subsequent impact upon the story as an influence, has been since the source of significant criticism. The Canadian syndication run on TVOntario in 1980, dropped the story due to complaints from the local Chinese Canadian community. Specifically, the Chinese Canadian National Council's Dr. Joseph Wong highlighted the Fu Manchu element as one of the issues. In more recent years, authors like Kate Orman have noted in critical analysis pieces the significance of the inspiration upon the negative racial overtones of the story.