Outside Interpretations
I found Gene Yang and Sonny Liew’s Shadow Hero to be an intriguing entry into the superhero genre. On one had, they are paying homage to golden age comics, because as it stands, Shadow Hero is an origin story created for the Green Turtle, an obscure golden age hero. However, they really take control of the character, making him into something new and breathing life into a series that had little going for it outside of possibly featuring the first Asian American superhero. Yang not only created a compelling story and personality behind the character, but also brought more modern notions of identity and empowerment to the 1940’s setting.
The main character, Hank Chu is a young Asian American man growing up in Chinatown of the fictional San Incendio. Hank at first is mostly content. He lives happily and just wants to work in his father’s grocery store. However, this changes when Mock Beak kills his father for not paying protection money. Thereafter, Hank makes a pact with the Tortoise spirit so that he can never be shot, and dons the mantle of the Green Turtle in earnest.
Within the story, this is where Hank’s identity is complicated, not by him, but by other characters. I would suggest that Hank is rather aware of who he is. In his guise as a hero other characters mistake him for a white man. Because the other superheroes present as white, Hank is assumed to also be white. And in finding out that he is not white, characters like Detective Lawful other him, by assuming that his Chinese heritage erases his American heritage. This is apparent in the scene where Hank leaves Lawful to track down Mock Beak on his own. Lawful follows after him and gives him a pair of handcuffs and tells him that it’s up to Hank to decide if he wants American law to apply to Chinatown (119).
Even other residents of Chinatown mistake Hank for a white man. During his raid on the hidden casino and then later when he takes part in the death match, he’s referred to as a “gwailo,” and his presence is protested until his Chinese identity is revealed. He subverts expectations here as well because he doesn’t abandon the American part of his identity, and goes on to arrest Mock Beak rather than kill him as the ceremony seems to demand.
Interestingly, the other superhero, the Anchor of Justice, is revealed at the end to be a space alien. In asking Hank if he’s going to fight for his country, the Anchor is doing what characters like Lawful are unable to do. He sees Hank as an American. The fact that Hank is also Chinese does not play into it for him, perhaps because he is more of an other to the culture than Hank is.
