COMIC BOOKS – “The Shadow Hero” Comic Book Review

Who was the first Asian American Superhero? Well the unconfirmed rumor is that it was a golden age character called The Green Turtle.

The origin of this hero can be found and read in Gene Yang and Sonny Liew’s book “The Shadow Hero” published by First Second books.

It’s a comic book/graphic novel and it’s a little over 160 pages long.

I received a copy of this book in the mail from First Second at Gene Yang’s request. For which I’m very grateful.   I wasn’t expecting it.

This week I’ll be reviewing the book.  Before I do though, I’d like you to watch this video of Gene, explaining the origins of the comic.

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The Story

I’m not going to say too much about what the story is about.  That’s kinda the point of reading the comic.  I will repeat what Gene Yang said in the video above, it’s the origin story of The Green Turtle.

I will write about  the feel and the execution of the story and whether or not I liked it.

I did like the story.  It was very fun. There was a lot more comedy than I expected.  This is absolutely not a bad thing.

I think it helps going in that it will be a bit of a comedy.  But it’s not completely comedic.  People die in the story.  The stakes can be high.

There is one particular character, the protagonist’s mother, who’s there to make you laugh.  It’s odd because she’s introduced so seriously only to be portrayed so comically.  She’s fun to read.

She reminded me, so much, of a lot of my Asian friend’s mothers.

There are elements of fantasy in the story that I liked as well.  Although I kinda wished that they came into the story sooner.  The story starts off with them and they then get placed aside for quite a while before they appear again.

I found myself becoming impatient for them to show up.  They where the elements that fascinated me the most.

My favorite part of the whole story was the final confrontation with “the big bad.”  It was so good, I almost wished the set up to becoming the hero took less time so we could have more of the kind of stuff that was happening in the later part of the book.

The Art

Sonny Liew’s art is simply fantastic.  It’s just eye candy.

He’s go this really rough looking ink brush line that has so much life and energy.

His characters designs are fantastic and his acting is hilarious.  I love the way he layout pages too.

I can stare at the art all day long.  It’s so good.  It’s very unique.

The colors in the book and the way it compliments that line work is simply amazing.

I can’t say enough great things. It’s great to see an Asian person draw Asian people and not have it look like Anime.

Last Thoughts

If you’re a fan of Gene Yang, this won’t disappoint. It’s a fun read.

I wish there where a few more modern one shot stories of The Turtle’s adventures so we could see him in action.  That said, the book does provides a reprint of one of The Turtle’s golden age  adventures.

I found the idea of an Asian superhero from the 1940s fascinating.

It’s a universal story  that anyone can relate to. The human struggles the characters are going through are very relate-able, but I think it might be a bit more poignant and true to life if you’re Asian.

That said, I’m not, and I really enjoyed the story.  Can’t wait to see more from Gene and I have to look more into Sonny Liew’s work.

Check out “The Shadow Hero”