ASIA / PACIFIC
June 3, 2019
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Asian, Asian-American heroes
to power Marvel comics series
By Terry Tang
The Associated Press
A
TWO-DOZEN TRIUMPH. Nepalese veteran Sherpa guide Kami
Rita, 49, is welcomed by his wife at the airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, on
May 25, 2019. The Sherpa mountaineer extended his record for success-
ful climbs of Mount Everest with his 24th ascent of the world’s highest
peak. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Nepal’s record-setting
Everest guide returns a hero
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Family, friends, and
supporters welcomed a veteran Sherpa guide upon his
return to Nepal’s capital days after his 24th climb of
Mount Everest extended his record.
After flying back from Everest to Kathmandu, Kami
Rita was greeted by the waiting crowd at the airport. His
wife hugged him and the crowd covered him with a
cream-colored scarf and offered him yogurt.
The brief celebration at the airport parking area with
traditional drums was followed by Rita riding on a truck
waving to supporters as they drove out of the airport.
He told reporters he was very happy but exhausted.
Rita reached the summit of Everest’s 29,035-foot peak
for the second time, having reached the top of the world’s
highest peak a week earlier, on May 15. He returned to
base camp after the first climb then headed back up.
The climbs bring Rita, 49, closer to his target of 25
ascents of Everest before he retires from high mountain
climbing. His two closest peers have climbed Everest 21
times each, but both of them have retired from mountain
climbing.
There are 41 teams with a total of 378 climbers
permitted to scale Everest during the spring climbing
season. An equal number of Nepalese guides are helping
them get to the summit.
Eleven climbers have died this climbing season, most of
them while descending from the summit during only a few
windows of good weather. Most are believed to have
suffered from altitude sickness, which is caused by low
amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can cause
headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath, and mental
confusion.
Among the fatalities was British climber Robin Haynes
Fisher, 44.
Murari Sharma, managing director of Everest Parivar
Expedition Pvt Ltd, said Fisher and his Sherpa guide
reached the summit at around 8:30am on May 25 and had
descended 490 feet when he fell unconscious. A group of
Sherpas changed his oxygen bottle and tried to give him
some water but he could not be revived, he said.
Rita first scaled Everest in 1994 and has been making
the trip nearly every year since.
His father was among the first Sherpa guides employed
to help climbers reach the summit. Rita followed in his
footsteps and then some. In addition to his two dozen
summits of Everest, Rita has scaled some of the other
highest mountains, including K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu,
and Lhotse.
Sherpa tribespeople were mostly yak herders and
traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal
opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and
familiarity with the mountains quickly made them
sought-after guides and porters.
sian superheroes — assemble.
Marvel Comics is giving ink to an unprecedented
team-up of its mightiest Asian and Asian-Ameri-
can heroes, also known as the New Agents of Atlas.
Established icons such as martial-arts master Shang-Chi
and newbies like Wave, the newest Filipino superhero,
will team up in a stand-alone, five-part comic book series
starting this summer, the publishing giant has told The
Associated Press.
The roster of 10 super-powered pan-Asian champions
made their debut as a team in May in The War of the
Realms: New Agents of Atlas. That comic book is one piece
of an ongoing saga involving several different groups
across the Marvel universe, including the Avengers, doing
battle with a fire goddess. But the exclusively Asian
limited series is set to roll out in August.
The man leading the heroic charge is veteran comic
book writer Greg Pak. Pak is credited with ushering in a
new era of Asian characters in co-creating Amadeus Cho,
a Korean-American genius teen. The character first
appeared in 2005. A decade later, he absorbed the Hulk’s
powers and started going by Brawn.
“It’s always been my dream to do a team book using a
bunch of Asian and Asian-American heroes,” said Pak,
who thinks there’s more appetite for representation with
the success of the movie Crazy Rich Asians. “There’s
literally never been a better time in my memory with more
opportunities for doing work that specifically includes
Asian and Asian-American characters.”
The decades-old character of Agent Jimmy Woo
(portrayed by Randall Park in last year’s Ant-Man and the
Wasp movie) leads the pack as head of the revived secret
protection society Atlas. Others getting in on the action
include Brawn and Cindy Moon, who is the
Korean-American web-shooter Silk.
Other recruits have only previously been seen in Marvel
video games or web comics available exclusively in Asian
countries. Among them is Korea-born Luna Snow a.k.a.
Seol Hee, a K-pop star who can manipulate frozen
elements. There’s also Aero and Sword Master, the
products of creatives in China. Besides crime-fighting, the
group will spend time doing things like eating dim sum or
singing karaoke.
“That kind of diversity within diversity is amazing,”
said Pak, who is half Korean and half white. “No one
character here has to represent all Asian-ness or Asian-
American-ness. That’s a ridiculous demand for any
character.”
The rest of the “Atlas” creative team includes writer Jeff
Parker and artists Nico Leon and Carlo Pagulayan. In the
series, the do-gooders find that someone has flipped a
switch and created a “cross-Asian portal city” called Pan.
In Pan, Asian neighborhoods get geographically
scrambled and then stitched together into one city. So, the
streets of Tokyo could be next to neighborhoods from
Honolulu, Manila, and some of Marvel’s fictitious Asian
countries.
Filipino-American blogger Loren Javier, 50, discusses
Marvel comics on his “Castles, Capes & Clones” podcast
and blog. There were few Asian characters in the lexicon
he could look up to as a child, and many were often
stereotypical mystics or man-servants.
“I love Marvel but I didn’t necessarily see myself in the
comics,” said Javier, who recalls being teased by a
classmate who called him “the enemy.”
“Now, finally, I think about kids who are reading this
new generation of comics and heroes and getting to see
themselves a little bit more,” Javier said. “It’s very
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AMAZING ASIANS. This image provided by Marvel shows the
cover of the first issue in New Agents of Atlas, Marvel Comics’ five-part
standalone comic-book series set to roll out in August 2019. The series
features established icons such as martial-arts master Shang-Chi and
newbies like Wave, the newest Filipino superhero. (Jung-Geun Yoon/
Marvel via AP)
powerful.”
Charlie Kirihara, who is half Japanese and half white,
was thrilled by New Agents of Atlas and tweeted at Pak
and Marvel pleading for more content.
Kirihara, 26, said it was a welcome change to see
characters who represented Asian and American cultures
in The War of the Realms.
“I read through the book and realized that was the first
time I’ve read a comic book that was all these Asian
characters and that wasn’t manga written in Japan,”
Kirihara said, referring to a genre of comics or graphic
novels. “I want to see it have legs beyond this storyline.”
That’s Pak’s wish as well. But it depends on how Marvel
finds the fan response.
“If people buy the heck out of it, I’m happy to keep
writing them,” Pak said.
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