Real
Name: Wu (presumably surname; first name unrevealed)
Identity/Class: Human (1940s era), Asian ethnicity and possibly citizenship (see comments)
Occupation: Detective (see comments)
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Alfie
Enemies: Peter Barton, Evans
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: The Mysterious Mr. Wu
Base of Operations: An unidentified U.S. city
First
Appearance: All Select Comics#11/2 (Fall 1946)
Powers/Abilities: Mr. Wu is very observant and possesses excellent deductive reasoning skills. He is agile and an adept fighter, using his cane as a weapon when required.
Height: 6' (by estimation; see comments)
Weight: 165 lbs. (by
estimation; see comments)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Black
History:
(All Select Comics#11/2 (fb) - BTS) -
Mr. Wu was a well-spoken, quick-witted and dapper East Asian detective
who was virtually always accompanied by his friend Alfie, a streetwise
American urchin.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2 (fb) - BTS) - He was well known to
the public as a excellent detective.
(All Select Comics#11/2) - While driving through a
well-to-do neighborhood one evening Mr. Wu and Alfie heard a man
screaming for help on the other side of a mansion's garden hedge.
Literally springing into action, Mr. Wu leapt over the foliage to
witness two men brawling. Angry at a random interloper interjecting, one
of the men tried to punch Mr. Wu, who casually redirected the blow with
a swing of his walking cane, then used the handle end to yank the man
off his feet. Alfie meanwhile had subdued the other man with his
ever-ready fists, and with both men now on the ground Mr. Wu demanded to
know what was going on. The man who had attacked Mr. Wu identified
himself as George Willis, son-in-law of the homeowner, and he explained
that he had spotted an intruder in the grounds, but when he came to
investigate the other man had jumped him. The second man identified
himself as Cartwright's butler, Smiley, and insisted Willis was lying,
stating that he had seen someone lurking outside, but when he ran out to
check it had been Willis who initiated the fight. Noting to Alfie that
clearly one man had to be lying, Mr. Wu decided he needed to speak to
Mr. Cartwright. As Smiley took them inside the butler explained that his
employer was a philatelist, or stamp-collector, but when they got to his
study they found the door locked and no answer when they called
Cartwright's name. Smiley broke the door down, and inside they found the
recently murdered body of the homeowner, stabbed in the back while
sitting at his desk. A quick glance revealed a likely motive; on the
desk was Cartwright's stamp album, along with five loose stamps clearly
in the process of being mounted, but a dealer's bill listed six recently
purchased stamps, indicating one was missing.
Smiley informed Mr. Wu and Alfie that there was one other person in the house, Cartwright's lawyer Evans,...
(All
Select Comics#11/2 (fb) - BTS) - who Smiley stated had come there to
draft a new will for Cartwright, and stayed over because the hour had
gotten late.
(All Select Comics#11/2) - The
pair went to fetch Evans from his room in another part of the house. As
they traversed the mansion Alfie noted that since the study door had
been locked the killer must have entered through the window. Mr. Wu
concurred, noting that when Willis and Smiley had spotted the intruder
and gone to check they had unwittingly instead caught each other.
Nearing Evans' room the pair heard a scream, and as they raced to the
open door they heard someone cry out "Don't kill me!" Assuming someone
was in the process of murdering the lawyer too, Alfie rushed inside and
pounced on a man lying on the floor and began to pound him, until
Alfie's target shouted at him to stop, identifying himself as Evans, an
altercation Mr. Wu witnessed with mild amusement. Evans claimed that
someone had tried to kill him, but fled just before Alfie assaulted him,
and Mr. Wu jovially told his friend that he appeared to have made a
"little error," which Alfie confirmed was "me specialty." Evans added
that he hadn't gotten a good look at his original attacker, but he did
know they had fled down the back stairs towards the kitchen. Mr. Wu and
Alfie took those stairs but found the kitchen door bolted from their own
side, indicating that no one had gone that way. Unbolting the door and
opening it, the pair startled Smiley, causing him to drop a tray of
coffee that the butler stated he had been preparing for them.
A few minutes later Mr. Wu questioned Evans
in the library, quietly noticing that the lawyer had a stamp stuck to
the bottom of one shoe.
(All Select Comics#11/2 - BTS) - The
detective realized this meant Evans was almost certainly the murderer,
but held off accusing him in order to gather more evidence to prove
motive.
(All Select Comics#11/2) -
Mr. Wu asked Evans about the whereabouts of the new will, but Evans
claimed he didn't know, as he had gone to bed after finishing it. He
noted however that Cartwright often kept important papers in a
secret compartment in his desk. As Mr. Wu confirmed to Evans that he
would check, Alfie suddenly spotted someone was in the study,
seemingly searching for something. He and Mr. Wu raced there and
caught Smiley rooting around the desk. The man insisted he had
merely wanted to confirm that his late employer hadn't cut the $5000
legacy he had promised Smiley. While Alfie sat on the butler
(literally) Mr. Wu checked and found both the secret compartment and
the will within it. Perusing it, he noted aloud that its contents
were most interesting...
(All Select Comics#11/2 (fb) - BTS) -
because it left the lawyer Evans $50,000 (around $850,000 in 2026).
Additionally, Mr. Wu suspected this was a forger on Evans part,
providing him a clear motive to murder Cartwright.
(All Select Comics#11/2) -
Alfie accused Smiley of being the killer, but Mr. Wu told him to not
be too hasty, and was about to explain his findings when they were
interrupted by someone throwing a dagger into the room. Spotting it
as it hurtled across the room, Mr. Wu shouted a hasty warning to
Alfie, who ducked just in time to avoid being skewered. Mr. Wu and
Alfie pursued the fleeing miscreant into the cellar, where Evans
tried to ambush them, attacking Mr. Wu from behind with a poker, but
Mr. Wu disarmed him using his cane, and Alfie finished the fight
with some well aimed fists. Finally having time to recognize who he
had been fighting, Alfie expressed surprise that the villain was the
lawyer, but Mr. Wu explained the clues, adding that Evans hadn't
been fighting anyone in his room, and had merely faked it to try and
throw off suspicion. Bringing their captive back upstairs, Mr. Wu
instructed Smiley to call the police, while Willis expressed
admiration at how quickly Mr. Wu had solved the case.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2) - Mr. Wu took Alfie to watch the
opera Pagliacci, but despite his best efforts he failed to get the boy
interested in the performance. After the performance the pair were
walking along the rear of the theater when they heard someone crying for
help. Responding, they discovered that someone had cut the wire mesh
over the window to the star's dressing room and, still hearing cries for
help, they climbed through. Inside they found the corpse of the tenor
Gina Marino, still in his costume as the play's lead Canio the Clown,
dead from a stab wound to the neck. Near the body was a hog-tied man,
who identified himself as Marino's nephew, Peter Barton. He explained
that a masked man had jumped them and strangled him into
unconsciousness, then presumably murdered his uncle. Just then two men
entered the room; seeing the body, they jumped to the conclusion that
Mr. Wu and Alfie were the killers and attacked them, but Alfie easily
overpowered his opponent while Mr. Wu tripped his with his cane, then
kept him down by holding the cane just over the man's eye. Mr. Wu then
began to introduce himself in an effort to clear up the
misunderstanding, but his foe suddenly recognized the renowned detective
and realized his error. Returning to the investigation, Mr. Wu listened
as Barton stated that he and his uncle had been attacked upon returning
to the locked dressing room, informing them that the assailant must have
come in via the window.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2 - BTS) - However, Mr. Wu noticed that
the wire mesh was bent outwards where it had been cut, suggesting the
person who sliced it had been inside and cut it to hide the fact that it
was an inside job. He kept this to himself.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2) - Mr. Wu then questioned the two men
who had attacked him, learning they were the stage manager Jim Foley and
Marino's understudy Alan Mathews. Left alone to search the dressing
room, Mr. Wu discovered some burned papers, but then Alfie spotted
someone lurking outside the window. Leaping out he was confronted by a
man wielding a knife in each hand, who immediately threatened to cut his
heart out if the boy didn't keep his distance. Instead Alfie charged the
man and headbutted him in the gut, prompting him to drop his weapons. By
the time Mr. Wu sauntered outside Alfie had the man pinned to the
ground. Examining the knives Mr. Wu noted that one had green paint on
it, proving it had been used to cut the screen over the window, and the
other was the murder weapon, covered in the tenor's blood.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2 - BTS) - Seeing this,
Mr. Wu realized the killer had to be Barton, since the only reason the
killer would have needed two knives was if he had to cut the screen
after killing Marino and couldn't afford to get the victim's blood on
it, as that would give away the order of events; the other suspects
who had dressing room keys would have cut the screen before the ambush
if they had intended to fool Barton into thinking the killer came from
outside.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2) - The
man Alfie had caught identified himself as the stage doorman Carstairs,
and insisted he hadn't killed anyone, but instead had come outside to
look for clues. He added that he'd found the knives under the window,
but that they had originally been props kept backstage. Mr. Wu thanked
him for the information and told him to return to his post, but before
he left Carstairs added that he believed the killer was Mathews, keen to
steal the lead roles Marino always got. Returning to the dressing room
to resume clue hunting, Alfie informed Mr. Wu that he'd heard Foley had
been about to be fired on Marino's orders, giving him a motive too.
However Mr. Wu was more interested in his new discovery, the remnants of
cancelled checks from Marino's personal accounts that hadn't been burned
totally away. Before he could consider their significance, they heard a
scream from the stage area. Racing there the pair found a staff member
lying on the stage. As Alfie helped him up, the man told them he had
seen someone dressed in a clown costume identical to Marino's, but when
he tried to stop him the clown knocked him down. Glancing around, Mr. Wu
spotted the clown lurking on a distant part of the stage, so he and
Alfie ran to capture him. Alfie barreled into the clown, but after a
brief scuffle the clown escaped backstage. Alfie was frustrated at this,
but Mr. Wu reassured him and took him back to the dressing room. Alfie
pointed out that only Mathews should have the spare clown costume, but
Mr. Wu drew the boy's attention to the screen in order to point out the
way the wires were bent. As chance would have it he spotted the clown
outside, looking for the knives lest they incriminate him. Mr. Wu and
Alfie attacked him, and when the clown tried to escape over a fence
Alfie weighed him down until Mr. Wu could stun him with a cane whack to
the skull. They unmasked him, confirming Mr. Wu's deductions, and the
detective explained to his sidekick that Barton had stolen the spare
clown costume in an effort to throw suspicion on Mathews.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2 - BTS) - While waiting
for the police to arrive Barton admitted his motive, which Mr. Wu had
already deduced. He had forged his uncle's personal checks, but Marino
had discovered this, so Barton killed him and burned the evidence.
(Blonde Phantom#12/2) - Mr. Wu handed
Barton over to the cops, while Alfie boasted that his friend was the
smartest gent in all the world.
Comments: Created by unknown - various websites identify the penciller, but each one thinks it's a different person - Syd Shores, Bob Fuje, Bob Powell, Maurice Del Bourgo, etc.
Wu's
name and skin color make it fairly clear he's East Asian, but his
specific ethnicity isn't confirmed in either of his stories. He
speaks perfect English, without any stereotypical inflections so common
of Asian characters in comics of the era - indeed, his sidekick Alfie
demonstrates far more "eye dialect" than Wu does. Wu is apparently most
commonly a Chinese surname, rather than Japanese, Korean, etc. so he's
most likely Chinese, though he might be Chinese-American or British
Chinese. I've seen some sites online claim he is Indian, presumably
because of his relatively dark skin, but that fails to account for that
coloring in 1940s comics could be pretty inexact, that skin tones vary
quite widely within individual East Asian countries, and that his
surname is not one common among Indians. Most tellingly, his first story
describes him as "oriental" - while that term is no longer considered
PC, in the 1940s it was used to refer to people from East Asia -
Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. - and not generally applied to people
from India. Regardless, Wu's existence means that various online claims
that Jimmy Woo was Marvel's first Asian hero are incorrect. I'm not sure
if he was Marvel's first non-white leading character (Tigerman
doesn't count, as while born and raised in India he's explicitly
identified as being from a white British family), but he's definitely in
the running.
Despite the similar sounding surname, he's very unlikely to be related to Jimmy Woo. The different spellings don't disprove familial connections given that both are Romanized spellings, but equally Wu is a very common surname in China, and at least five different Chinese names all get Romanized to Wu. However, Jimmy Woo's family were heavily tied to the Atlas Foundation prior to Jimmy's parents fleeing that organization.
His relationship with Alfie wasn't explained.
I'm ASSuming that Alfie was an orphan or had some truly uncaring
parents, given he seemingly hung out with Mr. Wu all the time. They
could just be close friends, despite the age and background differences.
Or it may be that Alfie is effectively Mr. Wu's ward; I suspect it would
be very unlikely in the 1940s that an Asian man would be allowed to
legally take an abandoned/orphaned/perhaps otherwise homeless white boy
into his care (adopt or foster, OSLT), but that doesn't mean it couldn't
have happened without official sanction.
I've seen some claims that Mr. Wu is based on Mr. James Lee
Wong, a Chinese-American character created by author Hugh Wiley in 1934
in the story "Murder By the Dozen" (March 10th 1934, Collier's Magazine)
and later portrayed in five movies between 1938 and 1940 by Boris
Karloff and a single movie in 1940 by Keye Luke. I can't verify this -
in the prose tales Wong is a crime-solver but not a detective, instead
being a treasury agent, but come the movies he transformed into a
private eye. Additionally, neither Karloff nor Luke in the Wong role
seem a close match to Wu's appearance. If anything, the movie portrayal
of Charlie Chan has a better match for Wu's mustache. That said, even
without confirmation that Wu is based on Wong, I've decided to pinch
Wong's height and weight stats for Wu, since there's no character with
established stats he appears alongside for a proper comparison and
Wong's stats seem fairly reasonable for how Wu is depicted.
This profile was completed on 09/02/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Mr. Wu.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Mr. Wu has no known connections to:
|
Alfie was a friend of Mr. Wu's, a tough kid who spoke with a heavy (Brooklyn?) accent, and had a tendency to solve everything with his fists. Despite his relatively short stature, he was a very capable fighter, taking down full sized adult opponents. --All Select Comics#11/2 (Blonde
Phantom#12/2
|
images: (without ads)
All Select Comics#11/2,
p4, pan1 (main image)
Blonde Phantom#12
(Blonde Phantom fun page), p1, pan3 (headshot)
All
Select Comics#11/2, p2, pan5 (tripping Willis using
his cane)
Promo photos (the two Mr. Wongs)
All
Select Comics#11/2, p1, pan1 (Alfie,
headshot)
All Select Comics#11/2,
p8, pan6 (Alfie, main)
Appearances:
All Select Comics#11/2 (Fall 1946)
- no credits listed, editor
Blonde Phantom#12/2 (Winter
1946) - no credits listed, editor
First Posted: 09/05/2026
Last updated: 09/02/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright
info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099
Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you
should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!
Alfie