DC Announces Three New Miniseries Spotlighting Asian Heroes
The Dawn of DC initiative is now underway, giving the spotlight to a number of characters within DC's ever-growing arsenal. In addition to series surrounding longstanding fan-favorites and under-the-radar B-listers, it looks like the plans will be including some of DC's brand-new heroes. On Wednesday, DC announced a trio of six-issue limited series spotlighting their newest Asian superheroes — Spirit World, The Vigil, and City Boy. Each series will be published as part of a new "We Are Legends" banner, and will be released just in time for AAPI Heritage Month in May. All of these miniseries will spin out of the events of the ongoing Lazarus Planet event, which provided the first appearances of each of the central characters.
Spirit World #1 will be on sale on Tuesday, May 9. First seen in Lazarus Planet: Dark Fate #1, Spirit World features Xanthe, a non-binary Chinese hero with the ability to travel in and out of the Spirit World – the realm of the dead, and that of the living. Xanthe possesses the ability to burn items folded from ceremonial joss paper and turn them into real objects that can be used in the physical world. Their super power is based on the East Asian custom of burning joss paper at gravesites to send resources to ancestors in the spirit world. In this debut issue, Xanthe forms a reluctant alliance with DC's bad boy of the mystic arts, John Constantine, to rescue Batgirl Cassandra Cain from a horde of jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampires). The series will be written by Alyssa Wong (Batman: Urban Legends, Marvel's Deadpool) with art and covers by Haining (DCeased).
The Vigil #1 will be released on Tuesday, May 16th and will follow a mysterious team of South Asian metahumans who made their first appearance in Lazarus Planet: Next Evolution #1 and can be seen again in issues #1070 and #1071 of Detective Comics. Written by Ram V (Detective Comics, Swamp Thing), with art by Lalit Kumar Sharma (Truth & Justice, Marvel's Daredevil), The Vigil is Arclight, Saya, Dodge, and Castle, a group of individuals given powers they didn't want, determined to stop metahuman research and tech created for military applications at any cost. Along the way, they'll encounter super heroes that could be allies or enemies, not a surprise for a group that exists to shut down state-sponsored superhumans…and clean up the mess before any hero or villain arrives, as if both the crime and The Vigil were never there.
And finally, City Boy #1 will be released on May 23rd, following up on the events of the WildStorm 30th Anniversary Special #1 and Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn #1. Cameron is just a kid trying to make a living, using his powers of speaking to cities to find lost and hidden goods to pawn, just trying to get by. But having these powers also means that he hears everything about these cities, everywhere and all at once, including their histories and the truths behind them. In his two current appearances he's already made "friends" with Gotham City (including a rat avatar made from the city's scraps), but only time will tell if City Boy is received as openly by Metropolis, Amnesty Bay, Themyscira, or other cities in the DC Universe. This six-issue series reunites writer Greg Pak (Action Comics, Milestone Media's Duo) with artists Minkyu Jung (Batgirl, Titans) and Sunny Gho (Wonder Woman, DC Festival of Heroes, Justice League).
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