Follow-up to the earlier question

[james_davis_nicoll]

Which mainstream science fiction or fantasy work would you say was the most racist mainstream science fiction or fantasy work?

(Mainstream = published by a legit publisher, not some vanity house)

Comments

[dewline]

And that's the series that Marvel got one of their martial arts heroes from. The one who's getting a Phase Four movie: Shang-Chi. The people who made those earliest Shang-Chi stories are not unhappy about the prospect of the movie version severing that connection, though.

[agharta75]

Until they found out that Fu was still under copyright by the Rohmer estate.

I don't know who Shang-Chi's father now is in Marvel continuity (yes, I could look it up on Wikipedia, I won't) but it isn't Fu.

[dewline]

They were able to cut a deal with the Rohmer estate recently, allowing a reprint collection of the entire original series to finally be published in a four-volume B&W format during 2016-'17, if memory serves. Whatever other rights they managed to get in the process of achieving that, I don't yet know.

[agharta75]

I am reminded of perhaps the most racist character (that is, the character's very existence is racist) ever created in mainstream _comics_ :

Egg Fu.

And people thought Marvel characters might be drug inspired. What was in the stuff being taken over at DC ... (speed, probably?)

[dewline]

And three new versions of Kanigher and Andru's creation were attempted in the last couple of decades: John Byrne reworked him into a Apokoliptian supercomputer in his run on Wonder Woman, and there was Chang Tzu of the Oolong Island Science Squad from 52, and later mainland China's Great Ten government-sanctioned "hero" team.

And then, there's Edgar Fullerton Yeung from the post-Flashpoint version of Harley Quinn...? But that one's after my time as a DC reader...so I guess the attempts-to-salvage something perceived as truly useful will continue. Otherwise the trademark reverts to the Kanigher and Andru estates, I suppose.

[agharta75]

The trademark. On Egg Fu.

Right.

And new versions, to keep it.

Okay, I can see him showing up in a humor book as a "yes we know this is a ridiculous stereotype that's so bad it's almost funny" thing.