Once upon a time, in America, I mean, the Silver Age, comic books were not very politically correct. Like, at all. Among the worst offenders was perhaps the most inexplicable foe Wonder Woman ever locked hopefully metaphorical horns with: Egg Fu. We'll get too him in a bit.
Following Infinite Crisis, DC ran a fifty two issue maxi series called 52. I know, creative, right? Rather than having a central plot, the entire series was set up like a year in the life of various DC heroes, in real time. One ongoing plot at the beginning was that someone was kidnapping mad scientists. Over the years, DC has had a respectful number of mad scientists. Unlike other comppanies, such as Marvel, DC usually plays their mad scientists completely 100% straight. Folks like Thomas Oscar Morrow, Thaddeus Bodog Sivana and Anthony Ivo are firmly in the Cave Johnson School of Throwing Science At the Wall, ethics be damned.
Anywho, Will Magnus (Who I'll cover in more depth later)became the face of this story. For his first few appearances, he met with his former mentor and villainous friend Thomas Oscar Morrow (Whom we'll be covering in another update, along his windy creation.) to discuss life, the Universe and mad scientist kidnappings. Ultimately, Morrow ended up being kidnapped. Magnus ended up kidnapped himself a few issues later, in 52 Week 22. The following week Magnus arrived on the as of yet unnamed Oolong Island, which was introduced as, "..what you get when the world's maddest scientists are given an unlimited budget and encouraged to let their imaginations run wild on the finest mind expanding narcotics available to man!" Two weeks later, in week 25, we get the true purpose of Oolong: Create the Four Horseman of Apokalypse. More on them in a bit. Suffice to say, it was eventually revealed that Oolong was part of a conspiracy involving the Religion of Crime, headed by Intergang, to bring the Evil Gods of Apokalypse to Earth.
Oolong ended up being attacked by Black Adam following the destruction of first the Four Horsemen, then the nation of Bialya. Through the careful leadership of Ira Quimby, the Science Squad overcome the Black Marvel.
Following 52, Oolong Island is officially disconnected from the People's Republic of China and becomes its own independent nation inhabited by mad scientists. Veronica Cale (First appearance Wonder Woman v2 #196, November 2003) somehow becomes its president. Cale was created by Greg Rucka as an attempt at making a rule 63 Lex Luthor for Wonder woman's rogues gallery, and ended up being mostly ignored till 52, wherein she was one of the Science Squad's members and the only penitent one. She was a major part of the 52 Aftermath: Four Horseman miniseries, and ultimately was able to contain the Horsemen she had helped create using a special, Apokalyptian containment unit. And just as the collectible says, she did indeed eat it. That happened in 52A:FH #6, March 2008.
The independent nation appeared in both Four Horsemen and Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol. Interestingly, both were written by Keith Giffen, whom had done the layouts for 52. I guess Keith took a liking to it. In the latter, the island is home to its own resident superhero team: The Doom Patrol! I really the Doom Patrol a whole lot.Lots happened in that series, but none directly pertinent.
Oolong in DCUO is seemingly modeled after its Doom Patrol era, with the Science Squad still having free range with their experimentation and with Cale as its president. Frankly, this is pretty interesting. 52 is obviously the most important story with Oolong, as neither Four Horseman nor Giffen's Doom Patrol were especially well selling. Trust me, I know. Doom Patrol was at one point DC's lowest selling comic in the DCU- made me proud to be a reader of it.
Egg Fu
We also got the mastermind behind Oolong: Chang Tzu, originally called Chiang Tzu, better known as Egg Fu. Egg Fu has a bit of a... unique history. Whilst many DC characters were given reboots following Crisis on Infinite Earths, few are as dramatic as Egg Fu. And with good reason- Egg Fu was pretty darn racist when he first appeared.
In his original incarnation, he appeared in Wonder Woman Volume 1 #157, cover date October 1967 and was created by notable crazy man Robert "Bob" Khanigar, known for his somber war stories and crazygonuts superhero comics, and Ross Andru. This issue was a few years after China turned Red, when Vietnam was still grinding men and the Russian Bear was still menacingly casting its shadow across Europe. So he's definitely in the spirit of the times, albeit filtered through Khanigar Kraziness.
There were three more-or-less distinct Egg Fus in the Silver Age. The aforementoined Egg Fu, who appeared completely inexplicably in the aforementioned #157. During the issue, the astoundingly wrong headed racial caricature actually managed to kill Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor by first turning Steve into a human bomb then blowing him and Wondy up with a missile. Then Wondy's mother resurrected them with an atomic structure reassembly beam. You know, like the Amazons had back then. The following issue Wondy defeated Egg Fu.
Egg Fu returned a few issues later in #166, cover date November 1966. This one was pretty much the same and was called Egg Fu the Fifth. Nothing much to note here, moving on...
The third-ish Egg Fu appeared in Metal Men #20, cover date June/July 1966. I guess that means he techincally came before the Fifth. Anywho, this one was a silly Dr. No ripoff called Dr. Yes. It's actually somewhat interesting that the Metal Men came to blows with an Egg Fu, considering their role in 52, where...
Egg Fu returned! After a mythology gag in John Byrne's Wonder woman run, Egg Fu returned in 52 week 25, Will Magnus meets the mysterious benefactor of Oolong Island, Chung Tzu. His old name is referenced at one point as one of his "nine thousand and nine unmentionable names" and is something he's a tad touchy about- the guard who alledgedly referred to him as Egg Fu is disintegrated. As the story moves on, we find out that A: Egg Fu is actually an Apokalyptian machine, similar to the easter egg from John Byrne's run and B: Is working for China, who is somehow involved in the whole Apokalyps situation.
Egg Fu's downfall ultimately comes from Will Magnus, who had been secretely recreating the Metal Men. In 52 week 49, Magnus takes a particle wave beam gun- the same one that is part of the Science Squad Experiments collection- Will Magnus destroys Egg Fu, leaving behind a yolk in the spider chair.
Little is actually explained about Egg Fu, truth be told. We know he's an Apokalyptian "flesh machine" and is capable of regenerating himself from a yolk left behind when he was destroyed. Following 52, he shows up in a Checkmate and Outsiders crossover still on Oolong Island, but isn't seen in Doom Patrol.
All told, it tickles me to no end to see that friggin' Egg Fu is in DCUO! Kudos to the development team.
Will Magnus and the Metal Men
(But mostly Magnus)Will Magnus and the Metal Men occupy that strange place as perpetual guest stars, destined to never hold a book long but show up every once in a while in other books. People like 'em. Just not enough to buy their book. Speaking of, buy Duncan Rouleu's Metal Men mini. It's great.
The Men were created as last minute filler by none other than Bob Khanigar and Ross Andru in Showcase #37, cover date March-April 1962. As introduced, the team were roobts made of elements and brought to life by "Responsometer" technology. Originally, they were wholesale robots. This has wavered once, in a four issue Metal Men miniseries that started in October 1993. In said mini, they were various people associated with Magnus who were killed and had their conscience transferred in a lab accident. I believe this is probably where player characters becoming Metal Men in the Oolong Island alert comes from.
Throughout the sixites, the Metal Men were destroyed and rebuilt in each story- it was sort of a gimmick of theirs. In fact, they were destroyed at the end of their first story, which wasn't intended to have followups! As sales fell throughout the decade, the writers tried something rather drastic. They had Doc Magnus go crazy, to be blunt. He was kidnapped and brainwashed by some foreign dictator. He ended up making a Plutonium Man, similar in concept to his Metal Men but malevolent. This story was referenced in 52. Rather than have the original explanation, Magnus was retconned to suffer from Bipolar Disorder, and was medicated for it. I'll explain it as I explained it to a friend of mine: When he's off his meds, he does science. Off his meds, he has no regard for ethics and makes science for the sake of science. The results are often things like the Plutonium Man. This has some basis pre-Crisis as well- in Metal Men v1 45, 1976, he was told to take medication to help with his shattered psyche. This ought to more than explain Magnus in the tech wing- "This is one of my bad days. Maybe I can finally get some work done."
The Plutonium Man wasn't the last time there were evil Metal Men, either. While most were Metal Men like Aluminum or Sodum, from Metal Men #3, there were emtotionless copies of the actual Metal Men in 52 Week 22. There is pretty good basis for the Metal Men enemies in Oolong Island, as they were made by evil scientists and were used to kidnap Magnus, as alluded to earlier in this article.
While we are talking about Magnus, I should explain something else related to him, but not especially to Oolong Island...
Veridium
Veridium appears as an adjetive on a handful of items in DCUO. This is one of the many fictional items in the DCU, although it did get some bizarre exposure in the Dragon Age: Origins videogame. Veridium first appeared in Metal Men v2 #4, from January 1994. In said issue, Doc Magnus is killed and transfers his conscience to a blank Metal Man robot made of an alien metal. Veridium has the special property of being able to store and channel heat and energy. I'm not sure the element has been used especially much since this, although Magnus' brother David became another Veridium in Metal Men v3 8.
As you can probably tell, Magnus didn't stay Veridium. In 52 week 22, it was retconned that that, along with the human origin for the Metal Men, had been a hallucination of Magnus', brought on by severe depression.
No comments:
Post a Comment