The Shadow Hero (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Yang, Gene

ISBN 10: 0606355219 ISBN 13: 9780606355216

Publisher: Turtleback Books, 2014

Synopsis

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. In the comics boom of the 1940s, a legend was born: the Green Turtle. He solved crimes and fought injustice just like the other comics characters. But this mysterious masked crusader was hiding something more than your run-of-the-mill secret identity... The Green Turtle was the first Asian American super hero. The comic had a short run before lapsing into obscurity, but the acclaimed author of American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang, has finally revived this character in Shadow Hero, a new graphic novel that creates an origin story for the Green Turtle. With artwork by Sonny Liew, this gorgeous, funny comics adventure for teens is a new spin on the long, rich tradition of American comics lore.

About this title

About the Author

Gene Luen Yang's first book with First Second, "American Born Chinese," is now in print in over ten languages and was a""National Book Award finalist and winner of the Printz Award. Yang's other works include the popular comics adaptation of "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and the "New York Times" Best-Selling graphic novel diptych "Boxers & Saints. The Shadow Hero," the story of the first Asian-American superhero is his most recent graphic novel. Sonny Liew is a Malaysian-born comic artist and illustrator based in Singapore. He is best known for his work on Vertigo's "My Faith in Frankie" together with Mike Carey and Marc Hempel, and Marvel's adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility." "The Shadow Hero," a graphic novel written by Gene Luen Yang, is his most recent work.

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up—Award-winning author Yang and artist Liew tackle a lesser-known aspect of history, breathing new life into the Green Turtle, a 1940s comic book hero. According to lore, the Green Turtle was originally drawn to be Chinese, but publishers quashed artist Chu Hing's plans, and Hing rebelled by drawing his hero so that his face was never visible. The Green Turtle is cast as an unlikely 19-year-old young man, Hank, the son of Chinese immigrants who own a grocery store in 1940s America. When his mother is rescued by a superhero, the loving but overbearing woman decides that it's Hank's fate to become a hero himself, and she does everything in her power to push her son in that direction. Though Hank initially shies away from assuming the role of caped crusader, when tragedy strikes, he's eventually inspired to call himself the Green Turtle, and fight back against gangsters who have been intimidating his family and many others in Chinatown. Liew's scratchy, action-packed illustrations have a nostalgia-tinged vibe ideal for the gritty/hard-boiled setting, and Yang plays expertly with clichés and stereotypes about Chinese culture without ever becoming heavy-handed or obvious. A detail about the four spirits of China, one of whom allies himself with Hank's father and then Hank, injects an element of magic and of Chinese history and mythology that made Yang's American Born Chinese (First Second, 2001) such a layered and complex work. A creative take on the superhero genre. [See author Q&A, p. 20.]—Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal

Edition details

• Publisher: Turtleback Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0606355219
• ISBN 13: 9780606355216
• Binding: Library Binding
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176
• Illustrator: Liew Sonny