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batcookies (batcookies) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-12 17:46:00

Entry tags:

char: egg fu/dr. chang tzu, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, publisher: dc comics, series: world of wondy

Wonder Woman Villains - Egg Fu
Happy Easter, everyone.

Because I derive fiendish delight from destroying your brains, this Easter I bring you...

Let me start by thanking google, which supplied me with the pre-Crisis images of Egg-Fu, and a summary of the plot. Because there's no way in hell I'd buy that comic.

Robert Kanigher made many great comics. He also wrote Wonder Woman comics.

This is one of the latter.

The plot, as it is, revolves around a somewhat unusual Chinese Communist agent named Egg-Fu. He captures Steve Trevor, turns Steve into a "living bomb" and apparently fires Steve and a rocket at the American fleet.

Kanigher called this "a tale of unbearable menace," and I agree. We apparently had some "sequels" to the pre-Crisis Egg Fu (why am I finding it hard to resist the temptation to type in a bad racist accent after reading that stuff?), but I'm not going to cover those. Egg Fu the Fifth and Doctor Yes were their names.

Post Crisis, Byrne had Donna Troy, Artemis and Wonder Girl run into something strange at a fair.

Skip ahead, they solve the mystery of Egg-Fu kidnapping people, and...

Ohhhkaaaay

Then came 52, and Morrison revamped the character into something (somewhat) usable.

After 52, he showed up in Checkmate and Outsiders

(Post a new comment)

	besamim 2009-04-12 07:55 pm UTC (link)
	Hum. Well, the revamped "Chung Zhu" (or "Chung Tsu"; an editor should've caught that inconsistency) may no longer be a racist "yellow peril" caricature. But he still comes across as ridiculous. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	filbypott 2009-04-12 09:25 pm UTC (link)
	No longer racist? He's a yellow egghead from China. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

besamim
2009-04-12 09:33 pm UTC (link)

Fine, no longer as blatantly racist, i.e. the stereotypical "Fu Manchu" face is gone and the name "Egg Fu" has been downgraded the name "Egg Fu" to a racial slur Chung Tsu hates. But yeah, still not exactly culturally sensitive. I suppose Morrison and/or the editor figured if they removed his Chinese origin and any mention of his old name, and changed his colour to purple, the character would be unrecognizable to fans of Golden Age Wondy. But the question remains: then why resurrect him at all?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	batcookies 2009-04-12 10:20 pm UTC (link)
	Actually, he's still Chinese, working for the Chinese Government as one of the "Great Ten". (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	besamim 2009-04-12 10:35 pm UTC (link)
	Pardon me if my comment was unclear; I was talking about a hypothetical situation in which Morrison removed any reference to his ethnic/national identity. Clearly in the story as published he's still Chinese, what with his name. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-04-14 02:50 am UTC (link)
	To me it looks like they've tried to make him DC's MODOK. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jarodrussell 2009-04-12 08:18 pm UTC (link)
	So he's Modok now? (Reply to this)

	xdoop 2009-04-12 09:51 pm UTC (link)
	Back on the old s_d, I made a Pre-Crisis Egg Fu megapost that included the appearances of Egg Fu the Fifth and Egg Fu's robot twin Dr. Yes. I'll probably try reposting that later. (Reply to this)

	mullon 2009-04-12 11:55 pm UTC (link)
	I'm waiting for the day someone just throws a brick at him and cracks him. (Reply to this)

	psychop_rex 2009-04-13 03:12 am UTC (link)
	I love Egg Fu. I love him truly and deeply, because he is just so INCREDIBLY inexplicable. A giant communist Easter egg with prehensile mustaches? I mean, how on Earth do you think up something like that, short of ingesting hallucinogens? There is a thin line between genius and madness, and Egg Fu balances perilously right on top of it. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	midnightvoyager.livejournal.com 2009-04-13 09:08 am UTC (link)
	...the... hell... That is all my brain can say. You are exactly right. This is completely inexplicable. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaron_bourque 2009-04-13 07:29 pm UTC (link)
	. . . Never noticed the eyeballs on post-Morrison Egg Fu. (Reply to this)

	roflstomper 2009-04-20 04:37 pm UTC (link)
	That accent in the first version... Its absolutely horrible - and quite inaccurate towards the stereotypes (Of, you know, giant yellow asian eggs!) (Reply to this)