The world’s new superhero: Captain China
Alia | June 4th, 2012 - 4:52 am
This is not a parody from some Chinese comic fans or netizens who want to mock the Chinese government. This is a published comic book by Chi Wang and Jim Lai at Excel Comics. The Kindle version of Captain China volume 1 is already available for purchase at Amazon (link). According to its introduction on Amazon, Captain China is intended as “a propaganda-styled comic series aimed at capturing the main-stream consciousness of China. The stories will reflect and give insight to China’s current political stance, social environment, and cultural differences by blending complex characters, historical information, geographic locations, comic satire, and over-the-top explosive action!”
On popular Chinese BBS MOP, netizens shared a few strips from the Chinese version of volume 1 “The Return of Captain China”, which, according to introduction on Amazon, tells the story of how Captainn China recovered from his 50 years of sleep and saved Obama from being assassinated.
“After 50 years of Cryogenic sleep, Captain China is revived in modern times to demonstrate China’s economic growth and achievement of world power status in the 21st century. Out of time and out of touch with current culture and social climate of China, this once great communist super hero must now stop an assassination attempt on the American President despite all the obstacles in his way!”
In the comic, the Chinese government sees the attempt to recover Captain China from his Cryogenic sleep as an opportunity to show the country’s great power.
Captain China is the only survivor of a superhero program during the Great Leap Forward period under Mao (the period ended up with the 3-year long Great Chinese Famine that resulted in millions of deaths in China). Apparently, in addition to building up a world superpower out of China, Mao also wanted to create China’s own superhero. And…his original name was “The Liberator”.
Captain China has a body typical of an American superhero (Honestly, no ones really looks like Chinese in the book), wears a costume made from China’s national flag and a hat that is modified from police cap in China. His weapon is a Mauser pistol that was widely used by the Red Army during World War II.
The biggest fun of reading the comic is the crash between a Mao era mind that has been programmed to fight the evil Americans and the modern China thinking that is struggling to globalize. For example, when explaining to Captain China why he has to change his name, someone from the Chinese government says: “This country [China] is trying to embrace capitalism. ‘Captain China’ is much more easily marketed to the public than ‘The Liberator’.”
In a press conference to introduce Captain China to the world, the Chinese government hires a thief to put on a performance to show Captain China’s great power. But Captain China disappoints his government by shooting, instead of beating, the thief to death, which, according to some Chinese officials, makes China look bad in front of international press. Afterwards, Captain China is told to take out all bullets from his Mauser. You know….even when China has a superhero of its own, it has to be a censored version of a superhero, at least, that’s the message from the authors of Captain China.
To the dismay of this Mao-era superhero, Captain China’s first mission is to protect President Obama during his visit to China.
I wonder who will he save next
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Ah Chinese jingoism. Utter rubbish like its authoer
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fuck! shit!
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I prefer this guy, 总队长 AKA 红领巾
http://news.emland.net/news.php?id=2978&page=1
[...] The world’s new superhero: Captain China | Offbeat China This is not a parody from some Chinese comic fans or netizens who want to mock the Chinese government. This is a published comic book by Chi Wang and Jim Lai at Excel Comics. The Kindle version of Captain China volume 1 is already available for purchase at Amazon (link). According to its introduction on Amazon, Captain China is intended as “a propaganda-styled comic series aimed at capturing the main-stream consciousness of China. The stories will reflect and give insight to China’s current political stance, social environment, and cultural differences by blending complex characters, historical information, geographic locations, comic satire, and over-the-top explosive action [...]
For some reason asian supper heroes always looks cooler hahaha
I see that the author of this comic lives in Florida.
I didn’t think I’d say this, but this comic actually sounds like a lot of fun. I just wish there was an English translated version so I could read it for myself.
Ah never mind, I think the amazon product is in English
Where can you buy a hardcopy of this?
Sorry, but I don’t think you can. The only place I saw this was on Amazon Kindle.