It’s an interesting subtext, though a bit unexplored in this preview, warmly illustrated by Liew against a backdrop that seems equal parts realistic and cartoonish, but always authentic. The mother wants to embrace their Chinese heritage while Hank’s father wants to escape it, for various reasons. The entire cast feels real, like a family looking to give Hank a good future, through various means. Despite what I’ve been saying for the last couple sentences, Hank’s Mom is hardly the only highlight of this book. The contrast between Hank’s discontented mom at the beginning of the story and the way she glides around describing her encounter is one of the most striking visuals in the comic.
One of the major reasons for Hank’s Mother being such a compelling character has to be Sonny Liew, whose art displays an honest energy in all his characters. A stern woman struggling with the disappointments of immigrant life while taking the time to enjoy a pork bun in her boss’s car, through a chance encounter, she’s inspired to give her son a way of living beyond his dad’s grocery store and the energy in her body noticeably transitions from mildly discontent to straight up idealist. Though the mythology is given little elaboration here, a large portion of the issue is dedicated to the day-to-day life of the family, namely Hank’s mother who is an adorable and strong comic book character. Yang writes a backstory infused in mythology that’s filtered through the charming life of an immigrant family in 1940’s LA. “Shadow Hero” #1 focuses on the early days of Hank, the boy who’d grow up to become The Green Turtle and his family. Now, seven decades later, Boxers & Saints’s Gene lien Yang and My Faith in Frankie’s Sonny Liew unite to give The Green Turtle the respect he’s deserved with Shadow Hero. The actual graphic novel doesn’t come out for a couple months but if this sneak-peek e-issue is any indication, they’re well on their way to reinventing The Green Turtle as a hero fighting crime in 1944 Chinatown for the modern-day reader.
Unfortunately, due to an editorial policy in place at the time called “racism”, his creator Chu Hing wasn’t allowed to show his face so he was always drawn with an obscured face before ultimately getting cancelled and forgotten. A pulp hero from 1944’s Blazing Comics (which tragically never ran up to issue #420) who ran around with intense combat skills, a jade dagger, and an actual Turtle Plane, he’s one of the first Chinese-American superheroes who wasn’t just a cheap caricature.
The Green Turtle is probably one of the weirdest forgotten characters from the Golden Age.
0 kommentar(er)
