Asian Heroines

Jubilation Lee: A Chinese-American born to wealthy parents in Los Angeles, Jubilation Lee led a privileged life before her mutant powers manifested, spending her days shopping and dabbling in petty crime. Unlike many other mutant parents, Jubilee’s mother and father accepted her abilities with relative ease. Unfortunately, they were murdered by mobsters and Jubilee was forced to live in a shopping mall, earning spare change by demonstrating her pyrotechnic powers. First appearing in “Uncanny X-Men” #244, Jubilee has had a long and heroic career with the X-Men and as a solo superhero. She lost her powers during the events of “M-Day,” but quickly gained new ones when cursed (or blessed) with vampirism. Surrogate father-figure Wolverine and reformed Vampire group, the Forgiven, helped her learn to control her new urges and abilities, which now include super strength, speed and the power to turn into a vaporous form. During this time, she befriended X-23, Wolverine’s clone, teaching her to become a normal woman, while at the same time caring for a young child, herself. [1]

2. Trieu Thi Trinh, the Vietnamese Joan of Arc: March 1, 2012 by KeriLynn Engel, in the year 43, Vietnam came under the rule of the Chinese Han dynasty. This foreign domination was to last for hundreds of years, with the Chinese campaigning to “civilize” and assimilate the native people. Though the Chinese ruled Vietnam for hundreds of years, their rule was not accepted by the Vietnamese. [2]

3. Dr. Light (Hoshi): DC Comics: Japanese: Kimijo Hoshi is the second incarnation of Dr. Light. Originally, she was an astronomer from Japan who was imbued with the powers of photonics by the Monitor during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Kimiyo Hoshi was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez based upon Arthur Light, a character created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky. Dr. Light (Hoshi) appears in 305 issues. [3]

4. Cheshire: From Vietnam Cheshire was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. She first appeared in The New Teen Titans Annual #2 "The Murder Machine" (1983). During the Vietnam War, American soldier Robert Pullman had an affair with a Vietnamese woman, leaving her pregnant with a child who would later become one of the deadliest and feared assassins on the planet. The girl was named Jade and spent ten years of her childhood being raised by her mother alone until she was separated from her. Ten years old Jade wandered through Asia trying to get back home. Soon she was kidnapped by slavers and sold into slavery. Struggling with torments of being a slave, Jade killed her master shortly thereafter, swearing that no man would ever rule her. Sometime after the escape she encountered Wen Ch'ang, a freedom fighter, former member of the World War II. The man took her under his wing and taught her everything he knew about guerilla warfare. He also unofficially adopted her. [4]

5. Mantis: From Avenger to cosmic traveler to the legendary Celestial Madonna, Mantis is perhaps one of the most well-traveled characters in the Marvel Universe. Mantis appears in 347 issues. Mantis is a Marvel comic books owned character created by Steve Englehart and Don Heck. She first appears in Avengers #112 released in 1973. Rather uniquely Mantis is one of few characters that has appeared in other comic book publisher’s books stories ultimately returning to her original publisher Marvels brand. When Mantis creator Steve Englehart left for DC Comics he could take the character with him. She would appear in DC comic books as Willow. The character would also appear in Eclipse comics as Lorelei. [5]

6. CASSANDRA CAIN: The daughter of two notorious assassins and adopted by Bruce Wayne himself, Cassandra Cain is both a hero and a total badass. Her father David Cain, long-time member of the League of Assassins, conceived her with the purpose of creating the perfect assassin partner for himself, after forcing her mother, Sandra Wu-San, to bear his child. Sandra went on to become Lady Shiva, also one of the world’s deadliest assassins, renowned for killing victims with her bare hands. Cassandra entered the DC universe in the “No Man’s Land” crossover story line in 1999, where she saves Commissioner Gordon’s life and is given the Batgirl costume with the approval of both Barbara Gordon and Batman. Cassandra also represents an important racial group in that she is of mixed heritage, having both European and Asian blood. Another interesting fact about her is that she’s a martial arts expert despite spending a large portion of her life mute and illiterate. Cassandra has recently taken up a new superhero moniker as Orphan in the pages of “Detective Comics,” by James Tynion IV, Christian Duce and Fernando Blanco, where she recently came into conflict with her estranged mother. [6]

7. TIMESLIP: The first Indian superhero on the list, Rina is a mutant with the power to manipulate time and send her mind forward or backward in time to any moment that she has or will experience. Rina was the last addition to the New Warriors team, first appearing in “New Warriors” #59, yet despite her rising popularity, the original series was still cancelled. The New Warriors was a superhero team formed by the wealthy superhero Night Thrasher, who invited a few of his friends to fight the villain Terrax.

The team went on to do great things together and everything seemed to be going well until their fateful battle with the villain Nitro. During the battle, an explosion triggered by Nitro wiped out most of the team and killed hundreds of innocent bystanders, resulting in the formation of the Super-Human Registration Act, which sparked the Civil War saga. Rina found herself cast out and hated as a result of her association with the New Warriors and has since been on the run. However, she was recently seen celebrating the holidays in San Francisco with the X-Men. [7]

8. SILK: Peter Parker wasn’t the only person to inherit powers from the radioactive spider that bit him. Shortly before dying, the spider bit another unsuspecting teenager, Korean-American Cindy Moon! Unlike Peter, Cindy was unable to control her powers, but thanks to the intervention of a mysterious stranger known as Ezekiel, she was able to hone her abilities, and would spend the next six years training in secret, before being locked up by Ezekiel to protect her from cultist spider serial killer, Morlun.

Cindy makes her first full appearance in “The Amazing Spider-Man” #4, when Peter Parker receives a vision detailing what happened to her. And boy, does she turn his world upside down! One of the biggest problems the two Spider heroes face is that whenever they come into close contact, they feel compelled to… get physical, shall we say (and we don’t mean fight). Although weaker than Spiderman in strength, her clear advantage over him is her speed, and that she can spin organic webs from her fingertips, webbing that’s even strong enough to catch a falling helicopter. [8]