This particular chronicle begins in 282 BC, when a rogue  warrior/mage  known as Lo Pan terrorized the inhabitants of what would become  China.  In  fact, the man who eventually defeated Lo Pan only did so by uniting  the  warring provinces against him as a single front, creating the nation of China  in the process.

    Lo Pan was cursed by the First Soverign Emperor, so that he must forever exist as a living specter, a waking dream, intangible, but always  conscious of his horrible state.  This curse could only be reversed by Lo Pan's marriage to a woman with green eyes.  This is a genetic trait almost completely unheard of in Asians.  Of course, halfway around the world were plenty of green-eyed women, but neither Lo Pan nor the First Emperor could  possibly have known that.

    Lo Pan, of course, continued on, continually learning more magic, despite his intangiblity.  He also began amassing a powerful underground army, the Wing Kong.

    Sometime during the age of the Mongols, a headstrong, bloodthirsty warrior approached Lo Pan, hoping for training in the arts of evil. He is the man who is known as Hanoi Xan, arch-foe of Dr. Buckaroo Banzai. Lo Pan  took Xan under his wing, as a protege, and taught him many magic skills, as well as the secret to extended vitality.  It is in this fashion that Hanoi Xan still walks among men, while his ancient foe, the distant ancestor of Buckaroo Banzai, is not so lucky.

    Sometime along the way, Xan and Lo Pan split paths.  Lo Pan is a schemer and a weaver of webs, while Xan is more of a bloodthirsty warrior. Lo Pan found a new student in a young Chinese boy named Ling Fu Shan, who studied the arts of war, deception, and chaos under Lo Pan.  He excelled in his studies, and Lo Pan sent him out into the world to wreak havoc and to pave the way for Lo Pan's own empire.  To disgrace Lo Pan's treacherous former student, he took the name Hanoi Shan.  Of course, this is the young man who would become Fu Manchu, the Devil Doctor.  Some time after Manchu's departure, Lo Pan gained the service of three elemental mages, each of which based their personas around the elements of the Storm.  Calling themselves Thunder, Lightning, and Rain, the Three Storms struck fear into countless souls, with their devastating combination of martial arts skill and magical power.

    In the same timeframe as Shan's tutelage under Lo Pan, a martial artist named Lee Pow found himself indoctrinated into the Chang Sing clan, ancient foes of Lo Pan's Wing Kong.  His orders were to travel to America and set up a splinter group there.  Lo Pan's men had not gained a solid foothold there, and they must never be allowed to do so.  Lee Pow dubbed his branch the Scarred Foot clan, after an initiation practice involving bare feet and hot coals.  While in San Francisco's Chinatown, Pow befriended Marshal Brisco County, and swore to help him fight HIS foe, the villainous John Bly.  It is due primarily to Pow's Scarred Foot, and the later influx of what could be called "True" Chang Sing, that Lo Pan's empire did not conquer all of California, and eventually the rest of the US.

    The last important piece to come into play, is an unassuming Chinese mage who used the name Egg Shen.  Egg Shen's origins are a mystery even to me, and it is possible that he is as old as Lo Pan.  Shen has laid low in San Francisco for an indeterminate time, and was instrumental in the final blow against Lo Pan, in 1986, when trucker Jack Burton, (who had some Wold Newton blood in him as well) and immigrant restauranteur Wang Chi led a full assault on Lo Pan.  Surprisingly, the blustering, obnoxious Burton was the one to finally claim the life of the demonic magician.  Burton fled Chinatown soon after, with a large sum of money in hand and one of the Wold Newton Universe's greatest villains under his belt.  Interestingly enough, Jack Burton once had a fling with a woman named Felicia, who was the fiancee of one Billy Travers, the resident computer specialist for the Banzai  Institute, home of world-renowned rock star/adventurer/neurosurgeon/race car  driver/Wold Newtonite Doctor Buckaroo Banzai.