Shogun of Steel (2002) Part 1/2

[mithen]

Shogun of Steel is an Elseworld story which places the JLA into feudal Japan.  In this world, Clark is named Hoshi (Star), a strange man with otherworldly powers. He's recruited to battle the evil warlord Zunou ("Brain" in Japanese) by a Japanese woman named Hana (Flower), who goes by Komori (the Bat).

I warn you it ends sadly!  But it also features

Comments

[theclexfactor]

This is seriously one of my favorite books. The art in this is beautiful, and I also love the changing seasons page. I also love the first time we see Hoshi's face, RRRROWR

[mithen]

I also love the first time we see Hoshi's face, RRRROWR

It's a great moment...the curl! *swoons* Sometimes the art gets odd, but there are some really striking effects with layout that are really gorgeous...

[irrelevant]

I just read this not too long ago--I'm on an Elseworlds kick at the moment--and in a way it amused me, but it also royally pissed me off.

It pissed me off that the only way the minds at DC could accept the possibility of 'more' between their two biggest-selling, longest lived male characters was to make one of them female. It also annoyed me that Bruce was the one they decided to turn into a woman; if they'd made Kal-El female, made it her story instead of making Bruce Kal-El's 'Blossom', I would have been a little impressed. As it is, not so much.

And Hana... this wasn't her story. It wasn't any woman's story, nor was it truly about the race of real people it supposedly depicted--they were just the setting. The whole book is dripping with white, heterosexual masculine privilege. Which makes me want to hurt people.

Please don't take this as a criticism of you or your journal; it's totally not. I'm just going off on a comic that hit me in a couple of very personal sore spots. *hugs you*

edit to correct spelling fail. *

[mithen]

Yeah, it would have been triple the fun if they'd taken a page from The Great Mirror of Male Love and the history of same-sex samurai romances in Japanese history and run with that! It would save it from the historical inaccuracy of a girl ninja as well--if you want to be fair to Japanese history and culture, that certainly isn't part of it. Though there are lots of contemporary female ninja stories, like Shinobu as well, though those are at least by Japanese creators.

Elseworlds in general do have a tendency to look for the "exotic" settings, don't they? Africa, Victorian England, Egypt--it's a real risk of essentializing and using cultures as wallpaper in the whole genre.

[starsandsea]

Oh, this story is so so pretty! Look at that page with tree, showing the change of the seasons... So gorgeous. I wish I could find it in print somewhere!

[mithen]

Do they not have it at Amazon.uk? I got a copy for Christmas, whooo! *hugs copy* The art has its odd bobbles, but when it's good, it's DAMN good...

[starsandsea]

No, they don't, it's so sad! They don't really have Elseworld's available here, apart from the really popular ones like Gotham by Gaslight and Red Son. It makes me very sad! :(

(Of course, I'm waiting for someone to come along and prove me wrong about that by showing me where I can buy them! :p)

*snickers* Oh self, you are so silly! I just found it! I'll have to hope it's still there when I have some money, lol!

[mithen]

Yayyy,l'm glad you found it! It's really worth owning, I like having it to pick up and thumb through now and then. :)

[kawahori]

This elseworld story has its pros and cons. I love the art, and its significance for Superman and Batman shippers. I also royally LOL at the really bad Japanese, somewhat fake Japanese setting, and yeah, the "white, heterosexual masculine privilege." But I do try to focus on things I enjoy about canon and just ignore other things that leave a bad taste in my mouth. Believe me, as an Asian female, if I only read stuff with political correctness, I would've stayed 10,000 miles away from most a lot of mainstream American comics. Or Hollywood movies. Or American TV series. Or Japanese manga or anime. Or...No, if I took all those things too seriously, I might end up being bald. LOL.

[mithen]

I also royally LOL at the really bad Japanese

*grin* I just gaped at the "Sumimasen, onegaishimasu" that Luthor says. They obviously looked up "Forgive me" and "please" and mashed them together, lol. That does get frustrating--it's 2003 and you can't find a soul to check a few Japanese phrases? damos rolls his eyes at the costuming, but I'm more likely to let that go since this is clearly some fantasy world that only lightly touches on Japan in many ways...

But I do try to focus on things I enjoy about canon and just ignore other things that leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I do see racefail and genderfail many of the times it occurs, but if I stopped reading everything that screwed those up, I wouldn't be reading superhero comics at all. And there may yet come a point where the errors become so awful that I do give up!

Or...No, if I took all those things too seriously, I might end up being bald. LOL.

Ah HA! This is clearly what happened to Lex Luthor, lol. He is a frustrated comic book fan!

[mithen]

For some reason the image of Hoshi's dad finding him in that rocket egg on the seashore reminds of Momotaro. :)

Oh gosh, you're right! Momotaro makes a great parallel, too.

I really like the art here (most of the time...there are some panels it's a little too stylized for me). It's really busy and detailed and gorgeous...