MASTER OF KUNG FU definitely falls into the "critically acclaimed" category. In certain scholarly comic book circles, it's ranked up there with the best of Marvel's late seventies/early eighties output; regarded at least as highly as the Claremont/Byrne X-MEN, Miller DAREDEVIL, and Simonson THOR. Still, given my lack of familiarity with the material, I probably would've waited for the inevitable Epic Collection trade paperbacks instead, except -- according to collection editor Cory Sedlmeier, these books are "...a special opportunity you don't want to miss out on." Working on the well-known knowledge that Marvel lost the rights to Fu Manchu, a prominent character in the series, decades back, and using that info to read between the lines, one might infer that perhaps Marvel has acquired a limited one-time reprint license, and after these Omnibus volumes are published, they may go out of print forever.
So, working from that assumption and trusting the numerous voices which have declared this one of the greatest Marvel runs of all time, I've bought volume 1 sight unseen and pre-ordered volume 2 as well, with full intentions to go for volume 3 too, when it's solicited.
