Page 30 - aruba-today-20190525

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 25 May 2019
Asian, Asian American heroes to power Marvel comics series

By TERRY TANG a stand-alone, five-part including the Avengers, do-
Associated Press comic book series starting ing battle with a fire god-
Asian superheroes — as- this summer, the publishing dess. But the exclusively
semble. giant told The Associated Asian limited series is set to
Marvel Comics is giving Press Thursday. roll out in August.
ink to an unprecedented The roster of 10 super-pow- The man leading the hero-
team-up of its mightiest ered pan-Asian champi- ic charge is veteran comic
Asian and Asian Ameri- ons made their debut as book writer Greg Pak. Pak
can heroes, also known as a team earlier this month is credited with usher-
the new Agents of Atlas. in "The War of the Realms: ing in a new era of Asian
Established icons like mar- New Agents of Atlas." That characters in co-creating
tial arts master Shang-Chi comic book is one piece Amadeus Cho, a Korean-
and newbies like Wave, of an ongoing saga involv- American genius teen. The
the newest Filipino su- ing several different groups character first appeared in
perhero, will team up in across the Marvel universe, 2005. A decade later, he
absorbed the Hulk's pow-
ers and started going by
Brawn.
"It's always been my dream
to do a team book using a
bunch of Asian and Asian
American heroes," said Pak,
who thinks there's more ap-
petite for representation
with the success of the
movie "Crazy Rich Asians."
''There's literally never been
a better time in my memory
with more opportunities for
doing work that specifically
includes Asian and Asian
American characters."
The decades-old charac-
ter of Agent Jimmy Woo
(portrayed by Randall Park This image provided by Marvel shows the cover of the first issue
in last year's "Ant-Man and in "Agents of Atlas," Marvel Comics' five-part standalone comic
the Wasp" movie) leads the book series set to roll out in August 2019.
pack as head of the re- Associated Press
vived secret protection so-
ciety Atlas. Others getting Leon and Carlo Pagulay- new generation of comics
in on the action include an. In the series, the do- and heroes and getting to
Brawn and Cindy Moon, gooders find that someone see themselves a little bit
who is the Korean Ameri- has flipped a switch and more," Javier said. "It's very
can web-shooter Silk. created a "cross-Asian por- powerful." Charlie Kirihara,
Other recruits have only tal city" called Pan. In Pan, who is half Japanese and
previously been seen in Asian neighborhoods get half white, was thrilled by
Marvel video games or geographically scrambled "New Agents of Atlas" and
web comics only available and then stitched together tweeted at Pak and Marvel
in Asian countries. Among into one city. So, the streets pleading for more content.
them is Korea-born Luna of Tokyo could be next to Kirihara, 26, said it was a
Snow a.k.a. Seol Hee, a neighborhoods from Ho- welcome change to see
K-pop star who can ma- nolulu, Manila and some characters that represent-
nipulate frozen elements. of Marvel's fictitious Asian ed Asian and American
There's also Aero and countries. cultures in "The War of the
Sword Master, the prod- Filipino American Loren Realms."
ucts of creatives in China. Javier, 50, discusses Mar- "I read through the book
Besides crime-fighting, the vel comics on his "Castles, and realized that was the
group will spend time doing Capes & Clones" blog and first time I've read a com-
things like eating dim sum podcast. There were few ic book that was all these
or singing karaoke. Asian characters in the lexi- Asian characters and that
"That kind of diversity within con he could look up to as wasn't manga written in
diversity is amazing," said a child, and many were of- Japan," Kirihara said, refer-
Pak, who is half-Korean ten stereotypical mystics or ring to a genre of comics or
and half-white. "No one man-servants. graphic novels. "I want to
character here has to rep- "I love Marvel but I didn't see it have legs beyond this
resent all Asian-ness or necessarily see myself in storyline."
Asian American-ness. That's the comics," said Javier, That's Pak's wish as well. But
a ridiculous demand for who recalls being teased it depends on how Marvel
any character." by a classmate who called finds the fan response.
The rest of the "Atlas" cre- him "the enemy." "If people buy the heck out
ative team includes writer "Now, finally, I think about of it, I'm happy to keep writ-
Jeff Parker and artists Nico kids who are reading this ing them," Pak said.q