DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration #1

[cyberghostface]

"One of the issues with doing something with the Monkey King is that in Asia, specifically in China and in Japan, he is so popular that it feels like almost every working cartoonist in China and Japan has done something with him. There is adaptation after adaptation of Journey to the West, of the story that originally tells his adventures. And even Dragon Ball Z, which is one of the most popular anime and manga series on the planet, is essentially a retelling of the Monkey King story. So, one of the questions that we struggled with early on was, first, how do we not overlap with any of the stuff that's out there? And second, we just felt like there was no reason to bring him into the DC universe unless it could feel very natively DC.

"In the original Monkey King story, a lot of the action is built on this idea that demons wanted to eat holy people. They wanted to eat the heroes and saints of the time, because they believed that by eating holy people, by eating these heroes and saints, they would be able to get immortality. There was something magic about their flesh. So, DC is full of heroes. It's full of these paragons of moral virtue. So, it felt like a really nice and easy overlap, so we wanted to play with that idea."-- Gene Luen Yang

Comments

Page Count?

[icon_uk]

Have to ask, is this from a 12 page story? Because the 1/3 rule still applies to new comic stories.

Re: Page Count?

[cyberghostface]

I think it’s 12 pages. The whole book is over a hundred.

Edit: Just checked, it’s twelve pages.

Re: Page Count?

[icon_uk]

Thanks.

[beyondthefringe]

An interesting selection of stories in this issue.
But the thing which stood out for me was actually buried in the back, where we discover that Roy Harper's daughter Lian is... not as dead as we were led to believe in last week's Infinite Frontier story. And is, in fact, appearing in a comic regularly. And is apparently older than I would have expected.
Go figure.
I guess someone punched reality again.

[icon_uk]

I know Teen Titans has had a female Red Arrow of Asian descent recently, but I thought she was Oliver Queen's half sister (step sister?) rather than Lian.

[iamrman]

I'll just say that I'm glad I started reading Catwoman.

[filthysize]

Man, I like this, but I hate to break it to Gene that a human who turns into Sun Wukong to hunt down demons attacking the world of superheroes was done by Marvel a few years ago...

[beyondthefringe]

There have also been some really good Young Adult and Middle Grade books about the Monkey King in the past few years. :)

[cyberghostface]

I mean it’s still a centuries-old mythological figure that’s been adapted numerous times. It would be one thing if it was something like DC trying to do Thor and Loki but Marvel’s Sun Wukong is little more than a footnote in the Marvel Encyclopedia.

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah. Mythology's fair game for comic books, and the Monkey King is a hugely popular figure in Asian cultures. The question is, will DC be able to make this one stick or will he be forgotten within a few years and trotted out only for crowd scenes or when some writer does a "Batman/Superman travels to China" story and needs a local hero to bounce off?

[filthysize]

Well.... Now that you mention it...

[cyberghostface]

Yes and there’s also Thor and Loki in Sandman. But DC probably isn’t going to release a Thor title anytime soon.

[ozaline]

They actually had a story of someone finding Thor's hammer and getting his powers even before Marvel in Tales of the Unexpected #16 (1957).

Stan Lee once claimed to have been the one to come up with the idea of putting Thor in a comic...

But Kirby had him beat by about a decade. So I wonder whose idea it was...

[onsokumaru]

I loved the Monkey King one shot. I'm still mad that Pak killed him. It also killed my interest in Agents of Atlas.

[shakalooloo]

Hey, little mad scientist Sivana! :) It's been too long.

[leahandillyana]

Nobody ever uses Hanuman outside of India, always Sun Wu Kong.

[mastermahan]

I imagine that's because he's still actively worshiped, whereas no one believes the Monkey King was a real person.

Example: for Black Panther, the Indian film board censored M'Baku saying "Glory to Hanuman", and that was a positive reference from a heroic character.

[ozaline]

The one exception I can think of is the Mighty Max episode Maxnificent Seven

[lego_joker]

IIRC, he popped up during Eric Luke's Wonder Woman run, where the Hindu pantheon got to be guest-stars for a dozen-odd issues, but I don't remember how prominent he was there...

[icon_uk]

Yup, there are a LOT of Monkey King stoies around.

As a Brit of a certian age, this was my first exposure to it, but I liked it so much I sought out and read one of the translations.

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

And just last year, we got this in Miraculous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSMY9yGXorU

[fra080389]

Sanzo!pig would be a hit in Saiyuki...