Enter the "Sampler": June Park vs. Ting and Joe

Slant Eye for the Round Eye has posted a lengthy but terrific interview with three of my Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology editors, Jeff Yang, Parry Shen and Keith Chow.

Props to Jeff for a well-thought out response to Racialicious contributor Sunny Kim's criticisms(*) about the novel (it's more East Asian than Asian, and where the hell are the heroes who are Southeast Asian or gay?), and for admitting that yes, the novel should have featured more characters from either of those segments of the diverse and complex Asian American diaspora. The minimal representations of Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders were one beef I had for a while with my own anthology because I'm Filipino myself (when Jeff wanted to replace Mañanaman, a Tomorrow People-inspired Filipino background character in "Sampler," with one of the Chinese characters from his story, "A Day at CostumeCo," I told him, "No, the character should be brown because there should be more of us in the novel"). My beef died down when I was relieved to see a Pinay heroine in Greg LaRocque's "Trinity."

In fact, Pinoys were the lead characters in two story ideas of mine that the editors rejected in favor of "Sampler," which centered on a Korean heroine I based partly on the then-beleaguered Chung dry cleaner family. (I went into detail about my rejected Secret Identities ideas during big WOWO's podcast, which you can listen to here or as a direct download.) While I was gratified that the editors chose one of my story ideas, I'll admit to also being disappointed that Pinoys got the shaft once again. But I learned to deal with it and decided to maybe save those rejected brown heroes for a separate project where I'd have more control over their development, like say, for instance, a Filipino American hero anthology (you in, Baroza?). I knew Secret Identities was going to be an East Asian-centric book because the editors were all East Asian (if I were in charge, of course I'd opt for more Southeast Asian characters than East Asian ones), and I was also aware that this was their very first major graphic novel project, so they were bound to make mistakes. Plus, they had to work under insane budgetary and page-related restrictions(**), so not all the various Asian American subgroups that they would have liked to have seen represented were going to make it into an already crowded anthology, although to echo what Secret Identities reader Christina Chou said in a tweet, I wish the stories were allowed to be longer. You can't win 'em all.

(*) big WOWO has posted an insightful response to the Racialicious criticisms, which he says are part of a troubling and frustrating trend: "Someone will try to create something, and another person will step in and try to overdiversify it to death. They'll complain about one thing or another until they've managed to sink the project... Had Jeff edited a work that perpetuated racism, or pushed the same ol' WM/AF storylines, or did something else egregiously bad, I'd say go ahead, let him have it. But to quibble over something as vast and undefinable as diversity makes zero sense. It's petty."

(**) The fact that they managed to get this thing completed while dealing with all those obstacles is a superfeat in itself. If it weren't for what the DISGRASIAN bloggers call that Hardass Asian Parent upbringing, this book would never have dropped on April 14 or 15 or whatever the hell the street date was.

That's why we need everyone to support this novel--so that it's popular enough to spawn a second volume where we can rectify the mistakes we made on the first one.

And if you weren't satisfied with this Asian American hero book, stop complaining and start your own book! This shouldn't be the only collection of Asian American heroes out there.


All in all, the Secret Identities editors' chat on Slant Eye's blog is a must-read. But the best part of the interview is a question about my creation, June Park from "Sampler," and a couple of other Secret Identities heroes, Ting Lee, a teen who's able to manipulate heat from foods she eats in "You Are What You Eat," and the super-strong, lightning-quick title character of "Meet Joe":

Last question. Who wins in a superhero cage match: Lynnn Chen's Ting, Koji Steven Sakai's Joe, or Jimmy Aquino's June?

KC: That's an interesting collection of characters doing battle. There must be some evil overlord forcing them to fight each other (think Han from "Enter the Dragon.") I say they team up and go after Han.

JY: I love/hate this game! It's the fanboy's ultimate smackdown, "Who Would Kick Whose Ass?" And the answer is always Wolverine, because of ADAMANTIUM and CLAWS and HEALING FACTOR, even if it's Wolverine vs. Galactus or whatever.

Anyway, I hope the next generation of fanboys and fangirls end up playing WWKWA with SI's characters. Here's my take. Ting is screwed because she's dependent on food. If there isn't a ham sandwich in the ring, what's she going to do? If you have this battle royale at the Cracker Barrel buffet, watch out, kids, but you mention "cage match" so I'm assuming not.

Joe's problem is that, by definition, his powers are just what every Asian can do, right? I mean, can't you crush a brick with a single blow of your mighty yellow fist? I know I can. So, put him in a ring with non-Asians, and he's deadly, but against his own kind, he is effectively countered at all turns. Plus, he's the only guy in the ring, and I suspect he'd pull his punches, which would only really piss off the ultimate winner in this battle, June Park.

Yes!

June's Sampling ability (and her ever-present swatches of costume fabric) would put her combat skillz way above the less flexible powers of her opponents. At least, until Wolverine enters the ring and smokes her with his adamantium/claws/healing factor, FTW!

Noooo! Go back to Vancouver, ya hairspray-drenched prick!

PS: It would be a real nail-biter. Joe would be in a dilemma -- afterall, he's a gentleman and would never strike a woman. So to end this quickly, he chooses the lesser of two evils -- June wears glasses and he's always been taught to never hit anyone with glassses, so he mathmatically figures out the best vector to leap at Ting and take her out with a quick nerve pinch.

Ting sees this and whips out a Chili Pepper stashed in her utility belt - gulps it down and bursts into flames by going Super Nova - temporarily blinding Joe and knocking him unconcious.

Ting then turns to June, and sends a flare from her fingers - June dodges aside and the flame scorches her favorite "I SUCK AT MATH" Blacklava shirt.

All this yellow-on-yellow violence is killing me inside. [*Sniffle*] Can't we all just get along?

Anger flares up behind June's spectacles and Ting sees she is in trouble. She tries a different tactic, reaches into a punch on her utility belt and munches on a cucumber to freeze the moisture in June's body and knock her out - but June simply touches the utility belt absorbs all of Ting's Yin/Yin food conversion projectile abilities and Ting is met with a blasts of fire and ice -- and instantly knocks her to the ground with a really bad cold and uncontrollably sneezing for days. The winner: JUNE

Yes!! What what! Pay up, foolz! Cue the victorious Enter the Dragon end title theme!