Monkey Prince #1

[cyberghostface]

"It’s a thrill. There’s a lot of overlap between the Monkey King and the American superhero genre. They both are heroes, they’re battling for the fate of the world, they’re both dressed up in fancy, colorful costumes, and they both have these fantastical, superhuman powers. It felt good to bridge that gap between those two loves—American superheroes and the legend of the Monkey King.

We wanted to firmly ground our character in the DC universe. We wanted it to feel like a story that couldn’t be told anywhere else. The main character isn’t the Monkey King himself, he’s actually his son—that’s why he’s called the Monkey Prince. Second, we wanted to tie him into DC heroes and DC conventions. We wanted a relationship between the character and the heroes and villains that already exist in the DC universe." -- Gene Luen Yang





His parents, as we later find out, work for the Penguin. The Penguin wants to release a ancient golden demon as part of a scheme to get rich but the demon instead hops into his body.





He later jumps into the pool and goes into "the water curtain" where he sees his true father, the Monkey King. The janitor is also there:

Comments

[coldfury]

Wow, uh, I hope that there's some mystic shenanigans going on because I'm not sure I'm OK with Bruce chucking razor sharp boomerangs at kids with 'decapitation' level force.

[shakalooloo]

Maybe that 'yank' has something to do with it? Maybe he was pushed INTO the batarang with a lot of force?

Really reaching...

[sinisterlink]

It seems like Batman was aiming for the stick that Monkey Prince was holding to the kids neck when the kid yanked Monkey Prince forward into the path of the batarang, I assume thinking it would just smack him in the face or something. And I’d assume some sort of mystical shenanigans are going on and Bruce didn’t throw it at head slicing speed since he seems more confused than anything over what just happened in the last page.

Anyways, this seems like it could be a fun series.

[deh_tommy]

My guess is The Mask-type shenanigans. His dad *was* a shapeshifter and a notorious prankster (to put things mildly), feeling like his “body was made of clay” is probably a bit more literal than he realised.

[shakalooloo]

"MINIMUM NECESSARY VIOLENCE, BATMAN!"

[mastermahan]

Damian is never going to let his dad forget this one.

[scorntx]

"So, father, when on patrol tonight should I encounter a man attempting to force entry into a car which does not appear to be his own, what would be the minimum amount of force necessary to disable him? Should I dismember him and leave his parts scattered across the city as a warning, sever his hands at the wrist, or merely behead him?"

[blues32]

The Monkey Prince is filled with the purple stuff from those old Sunny D commercials. Well, now we know what it is. Mystic monkey blood.

Did Batman just slice the Ruyi Bang in half? Or is that a different magic stick?

[mastermahan]

Nah, that was just a lacrosse stick.

[blues32]

Ah, I see! That makes sense.

[janegray]

Seems OOC for Batman not to stake a house out before breaking in, nor to research his targets. It's really difficult to buy that he wasn't aware that they had a kid in there.

I suppose I'm at least grateful that the writer had Batman immediately pull back when he realised his fuck up, even if the fuck up itself is OOC.

[shakalooloo]

Bruce Wayne draws the line at doing obsessively detailed observation of schools.

[janegray]

I meant his parents' house.

[remial]

kid is afraid of Batman. seems like he has a case of common sense to me.

[lego_joker]

There’s a lot of overlap between the Monkey King and the American superhero genre

All due respect to Gene Luen Yang (The Eternal Smile is still one of my favorite indies), but this just comes off as reaching for something, anything to draw in new readers. Sun Wukong's thing was about escorting one guy to India, and he had to be press-ganged into it by Buddha.