Fascinating. I wonder how long the series could've continued without ever showing his face. I assume he had the classic open eye holes in the mask, so his eyes would be a give away to his race. I wonder why there wasn't a change to make the mask have white lens, so they could show the character's face without revealing his race. It would be a fun concept to play with.
Hi Just Some Guy! Great points. It makes you wonder. Batman and a few others were doing the all white eye look. Chu may not have been aware or even cared what other comics were doing. He was a classically trained painter, and I imagine he probably looked down on the medium of comic books. He was in his mid-40s at this time. He was always trying to break into the "cultured" art world. I guess we'll never know why he took this route.
There is a modern Green Turtle too. He is depicted as descendant of this character. I didnt read it but maybe they reference how mysterious the original was.
I recommend reading The Shadow Hero, it's an origin story of sorts. It explains the Green Turtles abilities and appearance. I first heard of the Green Turtle through the Shadow Hero.
Yes!! i read that comic in 6th grade and i know his origins from there and btw thats the only thing i read about the character and first time i heard of him
This channel and its content means a lot to me. I’ve been reading comics since the late 1950’s. Last year I finally stopped due to cataracts. In early 2021 I’ll have the eye surgery I need to hopefully continue on for a little while longer. Although I grew up in the Silver Age, I’m quite fond of the heroes who came before them. Your channel allows me to visit their world...and even meet The Green Turtle! Thank you!
Not being familiar with the Green Turtle, I have to admit coming into this video thinking this must be some really silly character, It turns out there was some thought and passion behind this hero. The creator's story was even more interesting. A very well done video.
Thank you for rescuing this FORGOTTEN shadow of the long LOST PAST!! You're craftmanship work is highly aknowledge and I, myself, ENJOY your researching material on your videos! I DO enjoy your English! It's a GREAT device for learning and entertaining! Keep up the GREAT work!!
The Chinese are a very traditional people. It's fascinating to see how their way of life influenced their heroes. I believe you when you say Chu was inspired by these things. Personally, I wonder if Gene Luen Yang was himself inspired by Chu. I am fascinated by Chinese culture in the way most people are with Japan. I'm just surprised I never imagined they had a character like this. Crouching Tiger was a great movie.
I just recently re-designed these Golden Age superheroes. My version of Green Turtle is a black guy whose costume looks more like turtle armor and I ditched the cape.
Okay this is awesome I have never heard of the Green Turtle and definitely that's a stupid name for a character but thank you for talking about this lost superhero because I literally never heard of this guy.
GREAT job on tha video I learned alot,didn;t know there were any Chinese artists back in those days.I noticed he didn;t serve during WW2,was it because he was Chinese??
Hey powerbad696! Thanks for watching! There were quite a few Asian artists working in comics back then. For some reason, a lot of them ended up working at Timely. When Chu Hing got to Timely, I believe Ben Oda was already there. As for Chu being in WW2, he would have been 43 or 44 years old by the time Pearl Harbor happened. He was probably a little old to join. I think I heard somewhere that the average age of American servicemen in WW2 was 26 years old.
I WOULD LOVE TO GET MY HANDS ON THESE COMICS, FOR THEY ARE FROM A TRULY LOST ERA AND I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THEM ALSO FOR I LOVE ASIAN STORIES WHICH THESE I FEEL ARE A PART OF THE STORY!!!GARY BAILEY KING OF DARKNESS
It bothers me to think of all the great stories we lost due to upheavals in the world. Who knows what stories we lost with the Fall of Carthage...or in the fires of World War Two...or the Cultural Revolution.
@@truefanforum3273 I'm surprised something akin to it didn't happen in either the comic or the animated movie. Closest we've come is that Batman TAS/Nick Turtles crossover mini series, but, Mikey simply wore one of Wayne's spare cowls, zero Turtle Titan involvement. Must be a rites issue with the 2003 cartoon.
@@alexlemonds2838 It could be a rights issue, or it could just be no one thought of it. But in a future mini-series or movie (which there should be) Turtle Titan could be included. Maybe Michelangelo meeting Batman inspired him to become Turtle Titan. He could even bug Donatello into making him some gadgets.
This is an interesting character. He's in the Liberty Brigade Indiegogo campaign, along with a plethora of other Golden Age characters. And after an interview I saw with a couple of the guys involved, I really want to know more about this character. He seems really cool.
@@jimdotbeep Sure. www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-liberty-brigade-gn-over-100-pages-of-action#/ I hope this link works. It is in demand right now, and according to the updates should be shipping soon. But, who knows, they might do a second volume, or a copy might end up on eBay.
@@truefanforum3273 I was about to mention the Liberty Brigade myself. They should be shipping soon according the latest updates. I kicked in a bit myself and can't wait. I've always loved the GA heroes and when I heard about the Brigade is when I first heard about the Turtle. I was thinking maybe he was Native American in origin, because there are Native legends with the turtle/tortoise as a major animal spirit guide. Say with the world growing on it's back.
@@Cavillier1970 I believe the update said August. So almost there. I am also a big fan of GA characters, and first learned about the him as well. It looks like a lot of fun, and has a ton of phenominal talent behind it. And you are correct about turtles in Native American folklore.
Very cool video!! This character has always fascinated me since Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew's graphic novel "The Shadow Hero" came out; I know someone else in the comments already mentioned it, but it's a very fun read and worth checking out. It creates a retroactive origin story and secret identity for the character and you could tell it was a passion project for the creative team; I would absolutely love to see them come back and do more Green Turtle stories someday.
The Green Turtle is a character who deserves more love. For anyone who is interested, I would recommend reading Gene Luen Yang's retelling, "The Shadow Hero." He provides The Green Turtle with an origin, and plays with the character and creator's origins. (ex: this isn't a major spoiler, the family of the Green Turtle run a store, which I believe is a reference to the creator's family).
I never even heard of this character! He is very interesting, even more so with the links to the chinese heritage of his creator. I am surprised that he was never resurected by Marvel in all those years. With series like Invaders, The Twelve, Agents of Atlas (the newest incarnation has gone all-asian)... More derivative and less original characters got revived since the Golden Age. Good job once again!
Happy Thanksgiving Rangersly!!! Chu worked for Timely, but he took this character to Rural Homes. This character is so obscure I think Marvel wasn't aware of him when they began trademarking all those lapse character names like Captain Marvel and Ghost Rider.
One of the four main "Spirt"/gods of China is the DRAGON TURTLE think Bowser and Gamera . I HIGHLY recommend the TPB "The Shadow Hero" by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew, 2014. Its it a origin story for the Green Turtle. I LOVE THIS CHARACTER!
@@FizzFop1 I would like to second Jeremy Huff’s recommendation of The Shadow Hero. It’s an excellent graphic novel. Right up there with anything from the Big 2. Gene Luen Yang is so talented and writes a very entertaining origin for the Green Turtle.
@@chasingsomethingmore7809 I would like to third the recommendation of THE SHADOW HERO. Gene Luen Yang does an excellent job and injects a nice amount of humor and depth to a character which didn't get a lot of development in the Golden Age
I found a bunch of articles talking about THE SHADOW HERO. Here's a link to the story NPR had done on it: www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/15/330121290/was-the-green-turtle-the-first-asian-american-superhero
Hi Xavier Orange Arms! Thanks for asking. I got into golden age heroes way back in the 1970s when I was a kid. I was visiting my grand parents in Tennessee. After a visit to the local swimming hole, I got chiggers. It's a little bug that burrows under the skin. It looks like a real nasty rash. I couldn't do anything but sit and put cream on it. I was miserable. My Mom went shopping and brought back a copy of Crawford's Encyclopedia of Comic Books. It was a great book that told the story of the golden age by publisher. It was written very similarly to what I do on this channel. I knew about Marvel and DC...I think I was aware of Charlton at that point...but it opened up a hole new universe for me.
I read the Shadow Hero graphic novel by Gene Young and it was amazing. It was a complete origin story for the Green Turtle even revealing the lore behind the Turtle spirit that follows him. It even includes an original comic too. I would love to see it get adapted for animated feature film. 🐢🦸♂️
Hey maybe one of these days you could do some Philippino Superheroes since Philippino Superheroes are very popular in The Philippines. You could start with the famous one of all Darna. Philippino Superhero been around since WW2 and they start making movies of them in the 50's.
@@FizzFop1 There's an enormous listing on wiki to start with: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Filipino_superheroes I'm not confident those are all superheroes (because, y'know, wiki) but the roughly 5% of them I recognize certainly are. Deep, deep rabbit hole to dig into, although you may run into language barrier problems.
Hi Will, You can find scans at the digital comics museum website or the comic book plus website. Once you get there...you can search for Green Turtle...or Blazing Comics...or Rural Homes Publishing.
Great video!! Did you know that an origin story for the Green Turtle was finally written in 2014 in a graphic novel called The Shadow Hero? It also explains the turtle/shadow spirit. Pretty good story... it was my first introduction to the hero.
Wow, this character is absolutely fascinating. He’s basically one of the first (if not the first) asian superheroes in American comics. Kinda seems like he should be more famous and well known and celebrated as a groundbreaking character. But I guess being asian also means that he is easily forgotten. Hopefully some day he’ll get more appreciation.
I'm happy you did a video on this hero. Namely because don't see many turtle themed hero who arent the usual. And it shows the efforts of the America dream.
Great video Fizzfop .I have never never heard of him, but he sounds interesting .Is this hero in public domain , Cuz I would really like to get a crack at him .
Hi Mark! Thanks for watching! Yes, the Green Turtle is in public domain. A lot of the golden age revivals have used him. He's a unique interesting character. Great character to revive.
there are a few Chinese pulp characters I'm aware of can't remember how to spell their names correctly due to incompetence on my part, about 3 I can remember clearly, the first 2 were clear local expies of Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin but in china, the latter even had an odd name written very similarly in english "Furpin" or something I think but there was an original one that I found who was a genius scientist who through use of his inventions and own mental discipline was able to discover the secrets of astral projection and explore the seemingly extradimensional subterranean realms below the earth's surface, I was disappointed I couldn't find anything besides summaries of his character and some stories as I'm a huge fan of Journey to the west and was eager to see the pulp fiction it inspired but upset to see it so poorly archived. The Green Turtle's not the only golden age hero that had their ethnicity obscured [in a way], The Bronze man was meant to be Black with a mask that fully covered his face, however, for some reason he appeared as white without a mask this however I think this may have been an honest mistake as some of the creative team may have thought the bronze man part of his name was a sort of swipe of one of Doc Savage's straplines "The Man of Bronze" as the character was often emulated heavily at that point and sometimes in roundabout ways meant to simply envoke elements associated with him.
When I was researching the Chinese pulps, I surprised to discover that detective and sci-fi were so popular. Detective stories may have been the most popular genre. I found lots of descriptions of detective stories and characters-but couldn't find the stories themselves (at least translated to English). I could hardly find any reference material to sci-fi other than statements that it was really popular.
@@FizzFop1 dam shame honestly we have Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the philippine's pulps but not mainland china's but at least some of the films survied, check out Nezha Conquers the Dragon kings or the Monkey king causes havok in heaven some time great films for any interested in the region, its fiction and or mythology
Fizz, you did it, again. Excellent work at uncovering yet another interesting character and writer that was relegated into obscurity by corrupt individuals.
the creator and his story is quite interesting , this character could work as a good period piece live action now days it is a sad shame what the chinese communist did to many of its own people and creations back then
Hi siamiam, thanks for watching. Yes, it's a total shame...think about all the lost masterpieces that we will never get the pleasure of reading...or seeing turned into movies.
Happy Thanksgiving to you William Todd...interesting Thanksgiving fact I read a year or so back...the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America happened near El Paso Texas by Coronado and his men. There were also large public feasts in Jacksonville and St. Augustine forty years before the Pilgrims.
Very informative video about a superhero I didn't know before. And a well-balanced assessment, based on thorough research and "close reading". Thank you for sharing this with other readers of comics and graphic novels!
_Great_ and fascinating video! In fifty+ years of collecting and studying superhero comics I had never before come across this character! Gonna have to check this out!
Hi Mike, my gut feeling is that Kato played no influence on Chu. He was a classically trained painter and was always trying to break into the "cultured" art world. He walked away from comics without looking back.
@@FizzFop1 I think you are probably right and the Green connection a coincidence. It does make sense for him to want to create a hero he himself can identify with.
Ah, yes. The first Avatar of Maturin, who fought Pennywise during the Cold War. This was originally just a joke about Tim Curry in space, but now I'm thinking we could remake IT but have it be about turtle-themed heroes fighting Pennywise. The team would be Green Turtle, of course, then Gamera, Master Oogway, and the Ninja Turtles. It's not the Loser's Club. It's the Turtle Squad.
FizzFop, a fantastic channel based around forgotten superheroes of yesteryear, profiles The Green Turtle - the first Asian American Superhero. Created by the son of Chinese immigrants, The Green Turtle is one of the most unique characters to come out of the Golden Age of Comics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GB1IZoHUA7k.html
Another amazing article. When I saw the title I was like ….. na skip….. and then decided nope just watch it. This is the best article to date. It should be a feature film on his life. Before Bruce Lee. Before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles….. I wonder who their true cultural influences were. I wonder if it’s Choo!
I'd always heard the rumors that the Green Turtle was meant to be Asian and that was the reason he had no "Bruce Wayne" and all the funky angles he was drawn in. Interesting to find out his creator was Asian. Always liked the character. He had different vibe to him. He looked like a Lucha wrestler but felt more like Zorro than Batman and had a cool transport, like Blue Beetle. Plus the setting of Japanese occupied China was pretty unique. Lots of potential if someone wanted to bring him back.
It could be interesting to have a Time travelling team up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the Turtles being able to see the Turtle Animal guide and being led to help the Green Turtle out of a jam. Even with Marvel taking its property out of Netflix, there's still a body of work out there that's in the public domain that Netflix could draw from.
Thank you for bringing this lost hero to my attention. Thanks to the Digital Comic Museum I was able to read all of it online. It was quite interesting, and the art very good for its time.
A follow up video would be greatly appreciated! I did some Googling and this blog post ( chimericaneyes.blogspot.com/2014/01/about-artist-chu-f-hing.html ) offers links to samples of Chu Hing's work during the Golden Age, along with more information about Hing's later years. His Golden Age output was pretty impressive! Also, the reference to CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was greatly appreciated! Watching the film, I could see its connection to the superhero genre. It was delightful to see how the worlds of wuxia and superheroes intersected in the Green Turtle. Thank you for this episode. I think it's one of my favorites.
The Turtles draw heavily on cherry-picked parts of Japanese culture. Green Turtle is a Chinese superhero who (as you'd expect from all the atrocities Japan committed against China in WW2) loathes the Japanese and regards them as monsters. To this day there are still a fair number of Chinese citizens who want vengeance on Japan for the actions of their ancestors. A friendly crossover between the two would be about as respectful to the original author as a team-up between Captain America and Captain Nazi.
@@richmcgee434 True, but TMNT is about as true to actual Japanese culture as Taco Bell is to Mexican. Besides, the turtles themselves aren’t Japanese, while their main enemy, Shredder, is. I think it could still easily work.
