Out with the old... and by old, we mean, geriatric, because Clark Kent is now pushing 80 in human years – but he's now passing the mantle to a new Super-Man, who is a 17-year-old from Shanghai called Kenan Kong. The move is part of a reboot to diversify DC Comics’ comic book universe, which includes reinventions of the Green Lantern as a Latina, and Lois Lane finally getting lead billing as Superwoman.
Its writer is US-born Gene Luen Yang, who revealed on the DC Comics blog last week that he almost turned down the initial proposal from DC on account of his perceived disconnection from his Chinese heritage. ‘My family hasn’t lived in China for at least a generation,’ he writes. ‘I’ve only visited China twice, so my understanding of Chinese culture is through echoes.' He has now, however, bucked up his ideas, and thus we here we have Kenan Kong, ready to fight crime, save a few damsels, and by the looks of it, dangle unsuspecting noodle-eaters in the air by their trousers.
Some early illustrations released depict the red-caped superhero stood in front of the Pearl Tower (a building which would naturally lend itself to the lair of a supervillain, or an emitter of a bat signal, something like that). KK’s origin story sees him getting his powers from the old Superman, and Yang has suggested that this initially constructs him as the ‘Other’ that was a pervading theme in the original.
Luen Yang also takes us through the thought process that led him to the name ‘Kenan Kong’, which, among other factors, he wanted to be a plausible Chinese name, and linguistically recall ‘Clark Kent’ through its hard 'K' sound consonants. ‘Nan’, meanwhile, translates to ‘south’ in accordance with the hero’s Shanghai roots, while ‘Ke’ is suggestive of him overcoming or overpowering something.
The comics will debut on July 13, available both in print and as a digital download. Head to DCcomics.com for more details, or hit the link at the bottom of this message.
