It is time to finish up my coverage of New Super-Man Vol. 1: Made in China. Today I am covering issues #4-6. I don't have a lot of preamble but if you want to read part one check out the link at the bottom of this post. Let's get into this!
Made in China, Part Four: We left off with our team in trouble as they are confronted by The Freedom Fighters, led by Flying Dragon General (who I am now going to refer to as DG). Blue Condor (the villain from the beginning that was stopped by Kenan before he had powers) is using his powers to suck all the air out of Kenan's lungs. DG wants them to surrender but then has to stop BC from actually killing Kenan, because he was just bluffing. Kenan recovers pretty quickly, leading to him and BC fighting for a bit. The doctor that they were trying to save in the first place runs off and DG and Kenan have a heart to heart. DG basically berates Kenan and calls him a "bully in a cape." (Which I 100% agree with.)
Back at the Pearl Tower, Dr. Omen and her assistant are watching Laney Lan creep around the tower. The team takes Ghost Woman and Blue Condor to the Crab Shell (DG got away). Kenan thinks maybe they should run away, I think because he is scared of Dr. Omen. They do go back to the Pearl to find a fake friendly Dr. Omen chatting with Laney and explaining that Laney is going to help with the debut of The Justice League of China. They all step away from Laney and Dr. Omen tells them all to just shut up and follow her lead. Since the team has been outed they might as well take control of the story. Omen is also super pissed about them sneaking out but that is a later problem. At the Crab Shell, Ghost Woman barfs out Folding Paper Man (yep) who then kills a guard with his sharp paper body. In the interview Laney asks how Kenan will protect his family from his enemies now that everyone knows who he is. Kenan realizes he should probably go check on his dad. Crab Shell is having a mass escape, including them eyeing Starro. Kenan goes into his house to check on his dad and surprising literally no one who is reading this, the dad is revealed to be Flying Dragon General!
Made in China, Part Five: This issue begins with a group of English speaking tourists watching as all the criminals pop out of the ocean. (It is interesting because The Freedom Fighters of China keep shouting their mantra, "Fight for Truth, Justice, and Democracy!" More thoughts on this later.) Kenan is chatting with his father so we get a flashback of how his parents met. Turns out his dad's younger brother was the one really into the fighting for freedom and his dad only got into it when he realized Kenan's mom (Meitai) was also in the group. At a protest Kenan's dad gets knocked out but Meitai nurses him back to health and they get closer and closer, eventually having Kenan and stepping away from the cause. 12 years pass and the Justice League shows up on the scene, it inspires Meitai to take up the mantle Liberty Goddess. Two months later she dies in a plane crash that Kenan's dad is sure was not an accident. In his grief he became obsessed with her mission and created a team. Kenan's dad believes the Ministry of Self-Reliance are responsible for Meitia's death.
Bat-Man keeps trying to interrupt the conversation, even turning on the TV so that they can see all the escaped villains/heroes from the Crab Shell. Kenan's dad apologizes for not paying more attention to Kenan and asks him to join the Freedom Fighters. Kenan goes with him, leaving Bat-Man and Wonder-Woman who quickly deduce who Kenan's dad is. They try to follow but are attacked by a flying paper airplane bomb (yep, that sums it up).
At the Pearl Tower, August General is chewing out Dr. Omen for creating a Genetically modified Starro mind control device and tells her that The Great Ten (aka some real and adult heroes) are on their way to save China. At the docks Kenan is team Freedom fighters, for about two minutes. His uncle quickly reveals he is crazy and plans to use Starro to take over China, starting with Bat-Man and Wonder-Woman. Kenan jumps teams trying to save them but his dad's disappointment seems to make him lose his powers as he gets knocked into the ocean and loses consciousness. He finally decides to be a dad and quickly takes Kenan to Dr. Omen. They revive Kenan but he still has no powers. Ming Ming (Dr. Omen's assistant) thinks the powers are tied to Kenan's emotions, but there is no time to explore that because The Freedom Fighters have taken over a plane of innocent people (including the kid that Kenan both bullied and save in issue #1), so Kenan and his dad team up to go save the day!
Made in China: Conclusion: The Great Ten have a plan and it is to kill everyone on the plane for the good of China. Kenan and his dad, Flying Dragon General are flying up to the plane with not much of a plan and Kenan is still powerless. Kenan relaxes his mind for a moment remembering what Ming Ming said about his emotions and channeling his qi. This works and he gets back his invulnerability, he focuses some more and gets his strength back too. He punches his way into the plane (it is okay, they use an airlock from the other plane, don't overthink it). Kenan's Uncle, now leader of the Freedom Fighters I guess, commands all the Starro-faced people to attack the traitors (this includes Bat-Man and Wonder-Woman). Kenan, finally having done some homework, knows that Starro is weak to cold, but he can't get his cold breath to work. The kid from issue #1, aka, Lixin is there and not taken over by a Starro, so he can tell Kenan about the freezer in the galley. Kenan is able to shove Bat-Man's face into the ice machine, freeing him from the Starro. Bat-Man being super smart, uses his Bat-respirator to Hyper-free the air. The plan works as all the Starro fall off.
Unfortunately The Great Ten just showed up and they still plan to just blow up the plane. Suddenly almost everyone is in the sky fighting each other. Still on the plane DG is fighting his brother and is losing. Kenan gets in the middle and seems to be about to defeat his Uncle, but the Uncle knows that when Kenan is afraid he loses his powers. So being the great dude that he is, he shoots a fire blast at his brother DG and it looks really bad. Kenan does indeed lose his powers again, but his Uncle is human so he keeps fighting him, when it looks like Kenan might win, DG realizes that his brother is willing to blow himself up to win. Being a true dad for the first time DG jumps on his brother taking the bulk of the explosion. So Uncle is dead and Dad is in bad shape. Outside The Great Ten are mostly fighting the Freedom Fighters. In what might be the most growth we have seen from both Kenan and his dad, the two share a moment of realization. The dad sees that he should have valued his son and Kenan finally sees the value is protecting people. (It appears that the dad dies.)
The plane lands safely and no one else died. Later as Kenan visits the graves of both his parents, he tells Baixi and Deilan that his father thought that the Ministry of Self-Reliance killed his mom. Baixi promises to do some digging. Deilan agrees to help too and our team is finally a team! Back at the Pearl Tower, Ming Ming gives Kenan a card for a martial arts studio so he can better learn to control his qi. Elsewhere, in a Ministry of Self-Reliance's mountainside research lab Dr. Omen has Kenan's dad in a tank where he is alive I assume? She then calls him Love. Very much a cliff hanging mystery.
Thoughts: Okay so the second half of this volume was much more interesting for me. I still don't have a ton of thoughts, but maybe I was hard on Kenan. I still think he is kind of a jerk but knowing about his mom and dad, as well as learning more back stories. I hope that there will be more backstories for Baixi and Deilan too. I wonder if we are supposed to assume that Dr. Omen is his mom, but he wasn't that young when she died to have forgotten what her face looks like. Also the dad totally meets Dr. Omen and doesn't know who she is, so that is confusing. Anyway, I will for sure read more of this comic, but I have not decided if I am going to post more about it.
This is one of the few volumes I have read where the same artists worked on every single issue. Viktor Bogdanovic was the main penciller and did all of the main covers. I liked his work and I really liked the consistency. Richard Friend did all of the inking and the colorist was a company called Hi-Fi Color Design. Click on the names if you want to see more of what these artists are up to.
Bernard Chang made all of the variant covers and some of them are really cool. I did pick a favorite though and it was this beauty.
It was a little difficult finding lines that jumped out to me, but I did find one I liked. I don't love that Kenan is always calling Baixi names, but I do love that Baixi is a Bat-Man through and through. Bat-Man doesn’t hug.
Thanks for giving this a read, tune in next week for another volume 1 and to catch up with a real shady guy.
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