DC Comics: The Great Ten

DC Comics Blog recently announced that a ten issue mini series featuring a group called the Great Ten would be published in November of this year. Why is this significant? It is significant because The Great Ten is a group of Chinese superheroes based out of the People's Republic of China. The group first made an appearance in DC's weekly series 52. They reappeared in last year's Final Crisis as well.

See the announcement here:
http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2009/08/11/some-tuesday-news-the-great-ten

For more information on the Great Ten, click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ten

While Japanese manga has become a big part of mainstream American culture, there have not been many Asian characters that had their own comic book series in the American comic industry. One of the few (in recent memory) was a character by the name of Ryan Choi who assumed the identity of an existing hero, The Atom. Unfortunately, the series was canceled after 25 issues.

With China being a growing economic power and wielding influence in an increasingly global culture, it makes sense that a group like the Great Ten would be developed. However, to many Americans of Asian descent, this has been a long time in coming. Asian-Americans are always fighting for fair representation in media. While the Great Ten will be considered a foreign group because they are based in China, just having any type of representation in the comic industry is a big plus.

As for me personally, I like this group because they will (hopefully) be different than other comics I've read growing up. The fact that they are Asian is a bonus. Ultimately, if the mini series had a good story and good characters, that's all I care about. I'm all for diversity in the media but the product has to be good as well.

Speaking of Asian Americans in comics, I should promote an anthology of comics featuring Asian-American heroes called Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. The anthology is available at online retailers like Amazon and bookstores like Borders.

For more information, go to the website here: http://www.secretidentities.org