DC Announces "Asian Superhero Celebration"

[cyberghostface]

The 96-page one-shot issue will commemorate DC’s rich roster of Asian and Asian American characters, presenting new tales by some of the most lauded storytellers in comics. Ram V— the current Catwoman series writer—will at last unveil the long-seeded mystery behind Shoes in an action-packed tale that follows the character as she becomes Catwoman’s protégé, revealing her real name, secret origin, and who her mother is. Eisner Award-winning author Mariko Tamaki will continue her work on the Batman mythos and present an original Cassandra Cain story, marking the author’s first time taking on DC’s iconic Asian Batgirl. Joining these stories, Minh Lê—the acclaimed writer behind the smash-hit middle grade graphic novel Green Lantern: Legacy—will team with artist Trung Le Nguyen (author and artist of The Magic Fish) for an all-new story featuring Vietnamese American Tai Pham, DC’s newest Green Lantern co-created by Lê and Green Lantern: Legacy artist Andie Tong. This anthology marks Nguyen’s first work with DC.

For the main event, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang (Superman Smashes the Klan) and artist Bernard Chang will collaborate on a very special story fit for this celebratory month. Stay tuned for more details!

Additional stories and portraits will star iconic DC characters Katana, Lady Shiva, the Atom, and New Super-Man, among others, and will be written and drawn by fan-favorite writers and artists such as Francis Manapul, Greg Pak, Alyssa Wong, Marcio Takara, Sumit Kumar, Amy Chu, Dustin Nguyen, Cliff Chiang, Jen Bartel, Gurihiru and many more.

Comments

[tinygaylaura]

This is a wonderful idea!

[iamrman]

Always happy to see Cass get more focus. That variant cover looks lovely as well.

[shakalooloo]

Ryan Choi! :D

Who's the thirsty dude behind Cheshire?

[chortles81]

Percival Edmund Chang, aka Grunge from the original Gen 13.

[cainofdreaming]

Nice to see that DC is still willing to wheel out Wildstorm characters just often enough to keep the trademark.

[icon_uk]

It does feel a little random. Have they used anyone from Gen-13 for anything in, say, the last five years?

[onsokumaru]

Artgerm's covers are always so damn good.

[dcbanacek]

Cheshire the assassin who hasn't shown remorse after she nuked a country makes the cover of a book that claims its a "The Asian Superhero Celebration"?

Wow.

[cyberghostface]

Eh Harley and Ivy appeared on DC’s LGBT celebration cover. In this case they probably just told Jim Lee to feature different Asian characters.

[mastermahan]

Harley and Ivy tend to be morally gray, at least in most stories.

They could have gone with Lady Shiva - she's an antihero half the time - but Chesire seems better exposed (in the Teen Titans show, playable in a couple Lego games, etc.).

[shakalooloo]

She's certainly pretty exposed on this cover! :P

[tcampbell1000]

Really odd that they didn't use Shiva, considering she's in the story summaries and Cheshire isn't. I guess Chesh technically did a stretch with the Secret Six and reached a détente with Roy Harper, but yeah, that "genocide" thing is hard to get past.

This one's a guess

[chortles81]

But the description of Tamaki's Cass story could be referring to Lady Shiva.

[juniper6]

reached a détente with Roy Harper

Is that what they’re calling it nowadays? ;-)

[tinygaylaura]

I would love to "Reach a detente" with Cheshire like that

Especially since she's apparently triple jointed

[tinygaylaura]

That hasn't been canon since the New 52 happened

[tcampbell1000]

Nice idea. Who's the green-and-gray figure next to Speedy?

It appears to me to be Cheshire Cat

[chortles81]

aka Shoes

[stubbleupdate]

Top work with the copy department to keep the page count consistent.

How many of these featured characters have a prominent role in books that are regularly published?

Or are they just wheeled out as set dressing for occasions like this?

From the cover...

[chortles81]

Kong Kenan (New Super-Man) unfortunately has been set dressing/wheel-out after his ongoing run was up, but said run was more than most of the others on the cover got.

Tai Pham (Green Lantern) was created for the OGN; as far as I know his only other appearances are a vision cameo in The Green Lantern: Season Two #11 (along with Sojourner Mullein and Keli Quintela) and in the 80th Anniversary Special.

Shoes aka Cheshire Cat has been appearing in Ram V's Catwoman ongoing.

Cassandra Cain... do any of the Orphan appearances in Rebirth count as prominent roles? If the most recent Batman and the Outsiders run does, then you can include Tatsu Yamashiro aka Katana.

[whatsmoothbeast]

I'm really happy to hear that Kong Kenan will be showing back up. The New Super-Man was a criminally underappreciated series.

I'm interested in how he's going to be written by Greg Pak

[chortles81]

Seeing as Yang is instead writing Monkey Prince Hates Superheroes for this.