Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Black Widow might be the first
Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Black Widow might be the first ones to pop into the minds of a mainstream audience. However, there are a number of diverse heroes in the world of comic books too. Black Panther, Blue Beetle, Storm, Shang-Chi, Spawn, Miss America Chavez, Static, and the Green Lantern are just a few examples of some primetime players in tights representing many different cultures.
But before Kamala Khan, the very first Asian American superhero was the Green Turtle.
Back in the mid-1940s during the Golden Age of comics, the Green Turtle appeared in the pages of ‘Blazing Comics’ before disappearing into obscurity. However, before the name was all but forgotten, the hero was credited with being the first Asian American superhero to appear in American comic books. And after a very long absence from our local comic shops, he’ll be making a comeback thanks to cartoonists Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew, who will be reviving the character in their brand new project from First Second Books called ‘The Shadow Hero: The Green Turtle Chronicles’.
The Green Turtle is now in the public domain, so will be reinvented in a more comedic light for a high-profile revival in the form of six monthly digital comics beginning later this month, which will also be collected into a graphic novel in July. The publisher describes the new version of the hero as “a young, Asian-American immigrant named Hank whose mother is really, really excited about the possibility of having a superhero for a son with at times disastrous results”.
Bet you didn’t know that!! 🙂