While I'm very supportive of any attempt for a large publishing house to take a Great Leap Forward (pun intended) in absorbing Asian stories and being a global community - the potential for screwing up The Great Ten as far as cultural and political sensitivities is concerned is pretty jarring. Now I'm not saying that the Chinese Communist Party or even the non-English reading population of the PRC are going to be offended or even aware of this upcoming title (coming Nov 4 this year), but there are enough overseas Chinese who are avid readers of DC Comics to take notice of this one.
Chinese comics are nothing new - themselves inspired by Chinese myth and legends on one side, and stories of criminal honour on the other. Notable titles are Feng Wan (Storm Riders, made into movie in 1998) and Chinese Hero - probably the breakthrough title showing a line-heavy pencil style that set it apart from the more simplistic Japanese style of, say, Lone Wolf & Cub. But this is a subject for another post (ayah, my blogs-to-be list is piling up!)
DC Comics actually preceded Marvel with coming up with a Chinese superhero team by about 2 years. Introduced during 52, the year long crossover event, The Great Ten is China's official team of "superfunctionaries" ("hero" connoting a level above the masses of the people). They have been both fighting on the side of Western heroes as well as against them, for while they protect the people of China - they are public servants and all orders and doctrine must come from the CCP bureaucracy. In their first fight, several of them were unable to take part as they had not filled in the proper paperwork. It is assumed they are named after the literal translations of the character set they were given, and they consist of:
Accomplished Perfect Physician - in the past, an outlaw named Yao Fei, who is their equivalent of Dr. Strange, in being a practitioner of mystical arts. This actually puts him in conflict of the Communist Party as there are cults and religious societies in China like Falun Gong that are not exactly on the good side of the authorities themselves. But then Chinese history itself is replete with horrendously bloody religious rebellions like the White Lotus or Taipings killing millions of people.
August General in Iron - certainly one of the coolest-looking characters in the set. Fang Zhifu has been reshaped by alien DNA into being turned into a living steel statue and functions as their field commander.
Celestial Archer - with clothes resembling Chinese comics, he is their Hawkeye or Green Arrow, coming with the same off-kilter, irresponsible and irascible personality.
Ghost Fox Killer - you have to have your female assassin somewhere and this one is it. She is a Ghost Fox spirit, from Chinese mythology and she kills all evil-doing men plus she has a poisonous touch. In some ways, she has the least potential for any interesting back-story unless she truly isn't human at all.
Immortal Man in Darkness - I LOVE the name of this one. A jet fighter pilot bonded with a black alien fighter-craft that can turn into dark smoke. Not too sure if this was voluntary but considering that his real body is eroding due to the bonding process, they probably failed to mention that fact. Or they can blame it on excessive lead poisoning.
Mother of Champions - this one is particularly clever, as how many times have you ever heard of a living birthing chamber being referred to as a hero? Niang Guan Jun has the ability to give birth to 25 super soldiers every 3 days. Now of course this could lead to a population problem even if China wouldn't have that gender imbalance of 2 men to every 1 woman in about 10 years thanks to female infanticide.
Seven Deadly Brothers - a guy who can split into seven duplicates. Each one a kung fu expert. Sort of like X-Men's Madrox the Multiple Man, except with actual fighting skills. Sort of liked pwned cloning...
Shaolin Robot - although I'm sure it is an expert in the monkey, tiger, mantis, etc etc kung fu forms - it speaks in I Ching hexagrams. This may sound cool, but considering that most Chinese themselves have no idea how to interpret hexagrams I can imagine the difficulty it can have in relying useful information to the team during combat. It's like someone speaking morse code.
Socialist Red Guard - an old radioactive racist fogey who dreams of killing old skool pre-Taiwan Chinese Nationalists/KMT and forcing all urbanites into working on collective farms and reciting from Mao's Little Red Book. I'm sure he is popular during diplomatic meetings even if he wasn't permanently wearing a giant suit of thermal-shielded armor.
Thundermind - a Bodhisattva. Yes, a Buddhist. Yes, Buddhism is the religion of Tibet. What the hell is he doing on a team that serves the Chinese Communist Party? They should also include an Imam to represent all the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang if using that logic.
It is noted that these people are based on a real nationality and culture. The Immortal Weapons are based on mystical cities and frankly speaking, the authors can do whatever they want with them, their homelands never having actually existed. With the Great Ten, some of them have some pretty bad political and cultural issues that need to be explained in order for the worldwide Asian community to take them seriously. No joke.
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