New Super-Man #2: "Made in China, Part Two"

[superboyprime]

Comments

[espanolbot]

Hey, the Great Ten still exist! ...Kind of thought that they had been phased out after the reboot, but okay.

They previously appeared in Batman/Superman #32 (New 52)

[chortles81]

As did Dr. Omen.

[burkeonthesly]

Overheard at a DC strategy meeting: "okay, how can we make some money off of these Chinese knock-off action figures? These guys are riding our coattails and we don't see dime one."

[skjam]

I'm wondering if they'll reference the old Batgirl story with roughly the same plot device.

[burkeonthesly]

I haven't heard of that one. How old are we talking?

[skjam]

When Barbara Gordon was a Congresscritter; the "Batman Family" era. The Red Chinese were using (stolen?) technology to create pseudo-superbeings, which were patterned after the US-based ones.

[burkeonthesly]

Thanks. I think that story might be older than me.

[monsieur_safior]

I rely like the art and the design of chiness Wonder-woman.

I'm happy to know the the great 10 are confirm to still exist, but I'm still disapoiting they don't hommage real chiness super heroes like Inframan, Armor Heroes ect,ect...

[lucean]

This is surprisingly endearing for me. As a Bat-fan, I especially adore the Chinese Bat as he feels like someone who is trying to really hard to replicate the real Batman without having any idea what truly makes him tick. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I appreciate him for his... dialogue

[chortles81]

Plus at least if Gene Yang has to be dragged into DC's Trinity kick, at least he managed to give Bat-Man and Wonder-Woman their own relatively distinctive voices. Can you imagine Bruce saying "Sleeping gas or punches to the throat. We'll play it by ear"?!

Hell, even if what you say holds true I find it endearing!

[captainbellman]

Remembering Sun Wukong, it's surprising how even stretching back thousands of years, Chinese super-beings essentially need to be wearing shock collars to be kept in line.

[kamino_neko]

Hmm....Super-Man is named Kong...hmmmmmmmmm.

On the one hand

[chortles81]

It's Kong as in Confucius (Kongzi), 孔 instead of 空. On the other hand, look really close at the visor frame design... EDIT: Wait a minute, Kenan keeps getting head pain, he body-shames Bat-Man, Wonder-Woman wields a polearm, and Dr. Omen can trigger the head pain...

Well done, Mr. Yang.

Re: On the one hand

[cricharddavies]

OH. Oh, that is clever.

Re: On the one hand

[chortles81]

I don't know if the penciller did that on his own or whether the writer specifically instructed him, but it's chockful of meta when you consider the writer's breakout work that surely influenced DC's interest in him... and it has a bunch to do with why Kenan was introduced this way.

Re: On the one hand

[kamino_neko]

I never even noticed the shape of the head thing until you mentioned it. Clever clever...

And thanks to that reveal leading to me reading other things into Dr. Omen, Bat-Man, Wonder-Woman

[chortles81]

I'm now imagining them having a laugh by turning up the shocks so that Kenan's too distracted/in pain to notice Dr. Omen holding out one hand in faux prayer while making faces, Bat-Man (Wang Baixi) pushing up his nose, and Wonder-Woman (Peng Deilan) tying micro fog machines to Super-Man's boots... while singing the theme song of the 1986 series... to taunt Kenan over having not figured it out.

Re: And thanks to that reveal leading to me reading other things into Dr. Omen, Bat-Man, Wonder-Woma

[kamino_neko]

1) That image is hilarious.
2) Now I'm earwormed.

Fun fact

[chortles81]

I was literally humming said theme song while typing that comment...

... I also have the series on VCD. This may or may not be a coincidence.

However, immediately upon finishing this issue I did think that in-universe the point doesn't actually do anything except give Baixi (Bat-Man) an (intentional) laugh because he thought that Kenan was too much of a bumpkin (despite being from Shanghai) to get the joke at his expense. After all, "Bat-Man always does his homework..."

P.S. I also had the '94 Sanguoyanyi on laserdisc at one point, and managed to catch most of the 2010 series on YouTube.

Re: On the one hand

[monsieur_safior]

I don't get it.

Re: On the one hand

[chortles81]

The point in the middle of the visor is a stylized version of the popular image of the Monkey King's pain-inducing headband with Dr. Omen standing in for Tripitaka/Xuanzang (albeit here the I-suspect-Zhu Bajie-counterpart can set it off too), and in turn the Monkey King heavily featured throughout the writer's breakout graphic novel American Born Chinese. Moreover, the writer has explicitly drawn parallels between Kenan and the Monkey King.

Re: On the one hand

[monsieur_safior]

Oh!

So this chinesse superman is DC analogue to Son Goku!

Finally we can have the fight then the internet want since the creation of forum!

[adriantullberg]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zOFAD6e9Bk

I was actually thinking of this when I pointed out the visor

[chortles81]

Thank you!