New Super-Man #6

[zapbiffpow]

I

In his best issue yet (maybe one of DC's Top 5 last week), Kenan Kong gets a neat, version-exclusive power gimmick!

Plus, Super-Man resembling "'Wonder' Years" Tim Drake, and Bat-Man resembling Bob's Burgers' Gene Belcher. Check it!

Writer: Gene Luen Yang
Art: Richard Friend, Viktor Bogdanovic

The Story:

Kenan Kong learns his dad is part of the Freedom Fighters against the Ministry of Self-Reliance (implied to be the reason the Ministry made him Superman: as an emotional bargaining chip.)

They try to rescue a hijacked plane aimed at the Ministry, with a Starroed Wonder Woman, Bat-Man, and Freedom Fighters on board, before the Great Ten blow it up to avoid the spread of Starro.




See that glowing octagon thing? Here's how Super-Man's powers work now: he focuses his Qi into a part of his body, which corresponds to one of the eight Chinese trigrams, each of which match a specific power.

So, his belly triggers Yin-Yin-Yin, activating Invulnerability (above), while his fists trigger Yin-Yin-Yang, which activates Super-Strength (below), and so on:



So that's two of eight powers activated, presumably.

In the plane, Kenan finds Baixi (Batman China), and they proceed with what should maybe be part of the template of every Batman/Superman origin: Superman saving Batman from some metaphorical darkness, and Batman using gadgets to help save the day:






Super-Man, Bat-Man and Wonder Woman rescue the passengers, stops the plane from crashing the Ministry, and hold off the Great Ten before they destroy the plane for the greater good.

Unfortunately, Kenan's dad is fatally wounded:







And as the New Trinity come together, back in the Ministry, Dr. Omen preps Kenan's dad for a resurrection procedure, revealing herself to be Kenan's mother.

Anyway, I like the powers thing! Shades of Jackie Chan Adventures, plus those Smallville episodes where Clark learns a new ability. It adds this nice feel of unlocking-based progression, like in video games and such.

I suppose the next issues will have Kenan forming his "with Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" arc, plus him re-unlocking the rest of Superman's powers like Kryptonian Ben 10. Which, kickass.

Comments

[icon_uk]

So is he like Ultra Boy in the Legion, only able to access one super-power at a time, or can he mix and match?

[zapbiffpow]

Based on those two lit-up trigrams for punching, it's a cumulative thing.

Granted, one-at-a-time could make for a cerebral, puzzle-oriented fightstyle, but once you hit heat vision and freeze breath, invulnerability (and therefore dual-wielding powers) becomes a hard prerequisite.

[junipepper]

Well, that's kind of cool. It's both conceptually and visually interesting.

I haven't been reading this. Can I ask why Chinese Wonder Woman has blue eyes? It's not something you see a lot of in Asia.

[zapbiffpow]

It's both conceptually and visually interesting.

Yeah, this! It's a nice spin on the Superman power-set.

As for the eyes, I think it's just the colorist taking liberties - everybody has randomly-colored eyes here. I checked back a few issues ago and Wonder-Woman's pupils were red for a panel or two.

[shakalooloo]

And she has green eyes in that panel where she's questioning the hand-holding.

[zapbiffpow]

Yeah. It's probably a 'color over continuity' thing.

[espanolbot]

It just seems to be the colour comicbook artists default to? Like how they made the Indian Spider-Man and Cassandra Cain have blue eyes also a short while ago.

[zapbiffpow]

Huh, I wasn't aware of that.

[long_silence]

I'm more curious about the origin of Chinese Wonder Woman's powers.

We know that the Ministry of Self Reliance siphoned some of nu52 Superman's chi to give Kenan his powers. And based on solicits there's an entire academy for Bat-Men in training.

But how did they create those Wonder Woman powers? Are they mystical in nature? Is she from an offshoot clan of Amazons like the Bana?

[zapbiffpow]

From previous literature, it seems Wonder-Woman can control her lasso and she's connected to it as if it were her 'skin', giving her true accuracy, so it's either psychic or mystical (I'm pulling for mystical, for the alien-tech-mystical trio thing). I'll do some coverage if and when more info comes!

[jaxjyls]

In some of her appearances she wields a pole-arm which made me assume her powers were related to Guan Yu somehow.

That could've been awesome

[chortles81]

But even if one could take the (hilariously inconsistent) design of her glaive as specifically a guandao, a shield's never been his thing, and I don't recall any other parallels beyond her mainly wearing green.

"implied to be the reason the Ministry made him Superman: as an emotional bargaining chip"

[chortles81]

This made #5 (and the initial pick in #1) so much more understandable in hindsight yet I'm disappointed that the writer didn't make it more obvious because it completely flew over my head, unlike Kenan-as-Sun Wukong.

Also laughing at the little exchange between New Super-Man and Bat-Man because it rings true with how they've been previously written (admittedly by the same writer):
"You ARE Bat-Man!"
"S-say it again."
"NO."

Re: "implied to be the reason the Ministry made him Superman: as an emotional bargaining chip"

[zapbiffpow]

Yeah, same! Good payoff, but the execution could have been tweaked so that we'd aware there'd be one. Like, in the solicits, or something. It actually is a pretty decent reason.

Laughing at the little exchange

This! I love how that panel makes it seem Kenan's still smiling while saying "NO." It's like something from an anime.

Admittedly though I confess that this motive doesn't quite make sense without #6's twist ending

[chortles81]

Namely, if a-Dr. Omen-who-wasn't-Mrs. Kong already knew Flying Dragon General's identity (Kong Zhongdan) enough to target him emotionally, why not go after him more directly earlier? There's also a bit of a logic gap in how Zhongdan didn't recognize her in #5... then again he had no compunction with energy-blasting Kenan in the face earlier that issue to maintain his cover while Dr. Omen-who-was-Mrs.-Kong (née Kuang Meitai) previously blasted Kenan in the face with faux-Kryptonite after he broke the visor-that-gave-away-Kenan's-Sun Wukong dynamic...

Hell, the new supposedly-government-sanctioned duo of Bat-Man and Wonder-Woman straight up fought alongside the Freedom Fighters of China against the Great Ten -- if only to stall the latter from blowing them both out of the sky, only to ditch the Freedom Fighters once Kenan had control of the airliner -- and then seemingly get away scot-free so I gotta say, this series has had a to-me amusing amount of whatever-icide.

This! I love how that panel makes it seem Kenan's still smiling while saying "NO." It's like something from an anime.

I'm entirely willing to believe that Kenan was smiling while saying "NO", considering how his banter with Baixi went in the panels between the ice and the Bat-Respirator (oh gosh he's gone the Batman '66 route).

Also quotable from #6:
Mr. Luo: "Wait. You're asking for my permission to destroy my plane and kill my son?!"
August General: "Not permission. Acquiescence."

Re: Admittedly though I confess that this motive doesn't quite make sense without #6's twist ending

[zapbiffpow]

Interesting points! For the targeting thing, it's probably meant to be a defensive insurance than an outright offensive - a final trap, instead of a weapon, hence bargaining chip. Consider how pissed Omen was when Kenan outed himself - it was too early in the game to ensure his loyalty to the Ministry, and maybe too early for her to find out if she could convincingly use her son to threaten her husband. Had she sent Kenan after Zhongdan early, all it'd take was to take off his mask to compromise the attack and flip the boy, which was what happened.

For the recognition thing, think of A New Hope: Omen and Zhongdan are Vader and Obi-Wan, and the movie audience is us readers. Obi-Wan and Vader know who Vader is to Luke, but the audience isn't made aware of this until the next movie. In last month's issue's dialogue between Omen/Zhongdan, there isn't really any outright indication that they didn't know each other, and their interactions (particularly "Help me save my son.") could be interpreted to imply estrangement instead of stranger-ship.

As for Batman+Wonder Woman+Freedom Fighters, I think Omen's the kind of person to finagle/blackmail/coerce permission to handle this internally a la Waller, both to piss off the Ten (with whom I think she's got a CIA vs. FBI thing) and to cover her own ass. With public perception currently on Super-Man's side, it'd be easy (or at the least beneficial) for a misinformation team to spin that as some kind of honest misunderstanding. I assume that'll be covered in the future.

Man, I wish I could put in more quotes, but I don't have the one where Kenan finds out what Baixi's face looks like! It was a good scene.

Re: Admittedly though I confess that this motive doesn't quite make sense without #6's twist ending

[chortles81]

And of course the early reveal also threw off the timeline for both the Freedom Fighters and Dr. Omen's respective plans... though I gotta wonder where Dr. Omen's 'true' agenda is: was she Kong Meitai (née Kuang) and actually flipped, was she Dr. Omen all along and her time as Meitai a cover (hence her exchange with Zhongdan and namedropping Plato) or someone else altogether and this whole thing itself a deep-cover front for the Freedom Fighters or for someone else...?

Re: that last one -- it's not just a CIA vs. FBI thing with the Great Ten; Baixi found out in #3 (his first unmasked scene) that the Ministry of Self-Reliance was actually privately funded while in #4 Dr. Omen's kind of admitted-by-implication that the JLC isn't (as she's presenting publicly) "just another government-approved task force, similar to the Great Ten", both of which were much to Deilan's surprise, and also in #3 August General believed that the whole thing is Omen's comeback from Batman/Superman #32, therefore "someone is providing you political cover. I'm going to find out who. Then I'm coming to shut you down", so something's clearly up beyond mere 'shielded by good PR'...

... and now this all has got me wondering if Mingming is the Chekhov's Gunwoman of it all.

"Whoa. THAT's what your actual face looks like?"
"Yeah. So?"
I want to tell him it's no wonder he's the only one of us who wears a mask. I bite my lip.
"Nothing."

BONUS from #3:
"A giant sea monster...! Shouldn't we call in the Aqua-Man of China?"
"There is no Aqua-Man of China."
"WHY NOT?!"
"Dr. Omen didn't see the point."

Re: Admittedly though I confess that this motive doesn't quite make sense without #6's twist ending

[zapbiffpow]

Oh, man, that Dr. Omen reverse double-agent theory is crazy in a kickass way. I would love to see that done! (If not here, then somewhere else).

I will tell you something, though: in all of Kuang Meitai(did I write that right?)'s flashback appearances, she's got this mole on her face, one that Dr. Omen doesn't have. It might be a sign of extensive facial reconstruction, which is why Kenan never recognized her given that his mom died when he was twelve, or it also might point to your 'someone else althogether/deep cover' theory.

As for the Ten/Ministry thing, yeah, that seems to be a more accurate picture of the situation. Good catch on the B and S back issue!

Listen, I gotta cut and run from this thread, but it was nice discussing this stuff! Hope I didn't come off as too much of a asshat. Good talk!

Thanks for the replies! No obligation to reply to this one

[chortles81]

Good catch on the facial mole, which I completely missed! And yeah Kuang Meitai is the maiden name for Kenan's mother in the flashback; if she married and took on her husband surname she would have been Kong Meitai.

For me the idea of 'deep cover for the Freedom Fighters of China' works whether or not Dr. Omen is Meitai or someone else altogether (i.e. loved Zhongdan but not Kenan's mother) and that angle would clarify her master plan from merely "take the government endorsement from the Great Ten in favor of her trio" to "replace the loyal with her unwitting moles".

You were great at exploring the intricacies of this title (this actually helped sell me on the book again after being thrown for a loop by #5) so hopefully we can do this again!