Here’s a deep cut for you. So the general belief is that Katy the Archer in ‘Shang-Chi’ was originally scripted as being Kate Bishop / Hawkeye, before Marvel put the ‘Hawkeye’ television series into development, and then they decided to keep the name, but when the film came out, ‘Variety’ reported that in the final film, Katy was considered an adaptation of a character created for ‘Avengers Arena’, one Katy Bashir / Apex.

I thought they changed the surname from Bashir because ‘Katy Bashir’ was too close to ‘Kate Bishop’, given they were changing her to be an archer?

That is what Variety seemed to be correcting. One insider is told Katy is based on the Bashir, others assume that is her actual surname, then Variety corrects it to “just based on her”. Like a reference more than anything else, like Jackson Norriss from All Hail the King.

I thought Katy Bashir was supposed to be British — how would that be racist? Genuinely in the dark here.

https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a37462212/shang-chi-simu-liu-action-scenes/ https://www.goldderby.com/article/2021/box-office-predictions-shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-marvel/ https://www.wired.it/play/cinema/2021/09/04/shang-chi-e-la-leggenda-dei-dieci-anelli-dettagli-easter-egg/ https://variety.com/shop/shang-chi-comics-1235055749/

Other outlets had been reporting the Bashir thing for about a month before Variety did their article is the thing.

Basically, Variety confirmed that Katy was based on the Katy/Apex of Avengers Arena, but only in the loose (at this point name-only) way like a lot of Marvel adaptations, like with a lot of the characters in Shang-Chi itself, from Xu Wenwu (a Fu Manchu/Mandarin composite character) and even Shang-Chin himself. Very different from the comics. But I am pretty sure it was just meant as a Hunger Games reference given Katy’s now and that Avengers Arena was Marvel’s Hunger Games… actually I want to see that. Maybe as a Disney+ series? Some of the Marvel TV and forgotten side characters set against each other in a death battle? Like some of the Runaways from Runaways, Cloak and Dagger in place of Hazmat and Mettle, Awkwafina does do TV. If the story ties in with the multiverse, we could even bring back in Dafne Keen as Laura.