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| Great Ten | |
|---|---|
 The Great Ten, artist Stanley "Artgerm" Lau. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | 52 #6 (June 2006) |
| Created by | Grant Morrison (writer) J. G. Jones (artist) Joe Bennett (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Great Wall Complex,China |
| Member(s) | Accomplished Perfect Physician August General in Iron Celestial Archer Ghost Fox Killer Immortal Man in Darkness Mother of Champions Seven Deadly Brothers Shaolin Robot Socialist Red Guardsman Thundermind Thunderstrike |
TheGreat Ten (Shi Hao Xia) or (十豪侠) are a team ofChinesecomic booksuperheroes in theDC Comics Universe, who are sponsored by the government of thePeople's Republic of China. They were introduced in52 (June 2006),[1] and created byGrant Morrison,J. G. Jones, andJoe Bennett. Several of the characters have a basis inChinese mythology. Unlike conventional superhero monikers, their names are close to literal translations from the Chinese language.
Grant Morrison explained the background to his creation of the team, in a pitch that also contained the outline for theSuper Young Team:
I'm pleased with the introduction of the Great Ten who grew outPaul Levitz' desire to see more international superheroes. After the first52 story meeting I went home, dug out the reference material on Chinese history and culture I'd used to help create the backstory for the 'Xorn' character inNew X-Men and hammered out a huge document complete with detailed origin stories and backgrounds for every member of the Great Ten, as well as some details of the Chinese Government's 'super-functionary' program.[2]
The Great Ten returned in their own title,[3] in a ten-issue monthly miniseries, beginning in early November 2009 and produced by writerTony Bedard and artistScott McDaniel, with covers by Stanley Lau.[4]
First appearing in52 #6, the Great Ten's actions are hampered by bureaucracy. Three of the team's members were forced to sit out a battle with Green LanternsHal Jordan andJohn Stewart because they had not completed the required paperwork. Following the events in theInfinite Crisis story arc, as a signatory of the Freedom of Power Treaty China has entered into a coalition withKahndaq,Iran,Uzbekistan, andPakistan, leading the Great Ten to join forces withBlack Adam on the battlefield.[1] Later, in week #32, Accomplished Perfect Physician savesRalph Dibny from his rampaging teammate Yeti, and gains his help subduing and restoring him to his human self. The Accomplished Perfect Physician then shares with Dibny details about his life and powers, his role as a "super-functionary", and cryptic advice about a coming crisis in theMiddle East. The Great Ten later battle Black Adam when he invades China as part of his vendetta after the death ofIsis inWorld War III. This also involves confrontations with several American superheroes, as the Chinese government was willing to go so far as to launch nuclear missiles if their territory was violated. This portion of the stand-off was ended when the Great Ten lost contact with Beijing, leaving August General in Iron with the authority to allow international help - against his own wishes.
On the final page ofCheckmate #3, the Checkmate ground team, on an infiltration mission in China, is discovered and cornered by The Immortal Man in Darkness. InCheckmate #4 the August General in Iron, Celestial Archer and Yao Fei the Accomplished Perfect Physician show up to support the Immortal Man in Darkness, after a brief skirmish both sides declare a truce. Later, after Yao preventsCount Vertigo (acting under secret orders fromAmanda Waller) from stealing Chinese state secrets, the August General decides that Checkmate has betrayed the truce and orders their deaths, only the timely intervention of Green LanternAlan Scott and the Chinese ambassador saves the lives of Sasha's ground team.
InCheckmate #13-15 andOutsiders #47-49, the Checkmate team and the Outsiders are on an infiltration mission to Oolong Island. InOutsiders #48, they are attacked by Immortal Man in Darkness andChang Tzu has re-appeared, ready to experiment onSasha Bordeaux andCaptain Boomerang.
The Great Ten also received a self-titled miniseries that revealed the respective histories of its members.
InDoomsday Clock, the Great Ten expand into the Great Twenty, with additional members includingGloss, Dao, Guanxi, Night-Dragon, Ri, and Striker-Z.[5]
Accomplished Perfect Physician (Yao Fei) was born a peasant in theAnhui Province. He had dreams of becoming a doctor but lacked the money for medical school and enlisted in the army instead. When his unit was sent to suppress an uprising inGyantse, Tibet, Yao killed a monk named Tenzin Cering. Horrified at what he had done, he deserted his unit and was shot by his commanding officer. He was saved by a local medicine man who told Yao that his son, Tenzin, was supposed to be the seventeenth man to hold the position of the "Accomplished Perfect Physician"; since Tenzin was now dead, Yao was forced to take his place by Tenzin's father. Tenzin tossed Yao through a magical portal, wherein he was filled with the memories and powers of the past Physicians. As the new Accomplished Perfect Physician, Yao was branded an outlaw and an enemy of the state for many years before he willingly joined the Great Ten.[6]
With simple vocal sounds, the Accomplished Perfect Physician can produce a variety of magical effects, such as paralysis, force fields, energy manipulation, healing, destruction of matter, and earthquakes.
August General in Iron (Fang Zhifu) is a former member of the "Xeno-Team", an elite Chinese spec ops unit trained for encounters with aliens. 15 years ago, his unit was sent to investigate aDurlan ship that crashed inQinghai province. The Durlans wiped out his unit with a flesh-melting pathogen weapon. Fang barely survived by injecting himself with a counter-agent that slowed the degeneration. Chinese scientists subjected him to special treatments which saved his life, but also endowed him with superhuman strength and caused his skin to grow iron-like plates. He was then recruited into China's newmetahuman division. He wields a staff that can easily slice through metal.[1][7]
August General in Iron is the field leader of the Great Ten and while he commands the Great Ten, he must still run all command decisions in the field by theCentral Committee. He also serves as the Black King's Bishop inCheckmate.[1] He is the lover of Ghost Fox Killer and is immune to her death touch. As a fanatical soldier, he despises the Accomplished Perfect Physician for his irreverent attitude and for deserting the army.[7]
InThe New 52 continuity reboot, August General in Iron is invited to join the newJustice League International, with theUnited Nations council that assembled the group noting that he was selected because he represents "the world's most populous nation". His comments about the superiority of Chinese engineering quickly draw the ire ofRocket Red.[8]
TheCelestial Archer (Xu Tao) is a figure with ties toChinese mythology. As a teenager, Xu Tao sold souvenirs at the foot ofMount Tai. After his father's business was shut down by corrupt police, he joined a gang to support his family. He was not a good thief, however, and a botched robbery landed his fellow gang members in jail. When they were released, they sought his death. They chased him to an old temple below Mount Tai. While hiding behind a tree, Tao was swallowed up by the earth, and found himself in a cavern where he found the Celestial Bow ofYi.[9] The magical bow begged Tao to take it as his own, as it was dying after four thousand years of disuse. When Tao picked it up, he was transformed into the Celestial Archer and grantedYi the Archer's godlike archery skills. After chasing away his former gang, he instinctively fired an arrow at the moon, creating a magical bridge that took him to the home of the Chinese gods. The gods tasked him to serve as their agent on Earth, to inspire the Chinese and remind them of the old gods, whose worship was suppressed by the Communist government.[9]
The Celestial Archer has unerring aim capable of shooting arrows charged with a mysterious energy and turning day into night.[9]
TheGhost Fox Killer is a female emissary from the hidden colony of "Ghost Fox Women". She is charged with killing evil men, and has power over the ghosts of those men. Her home city is powered by the souls of evil men, and her touch causes instant death.[10] She is typically accompanied by a rui shi (orImperial guardian lion) of living jade. If Ghost Fox Killer does not kill off evil men for her colony, her society will fall.[11] She encountersAugust General in Iron early in her career, and is stunned to discover that she can touch his body without killing him. She has demonstrated undefined feelings of loyalty towards him.[7]
Fifteen years ago, a Durlan ship crashed in China'sQinghai province. The Chinese reverse-engineered the craft and used the technology to build the Dragonwing, the most advanced fighter plane in the world.[12] The pilot sits in a cockpit filled with a sort of amniotic fluid, bonding themselves to the craft. This bond gradually breaks down the pilot's molecular structure, with each flight taking a year from their life.[13] The Dragonwing has been flown by a succession ofPLAAF pilots, all of whom knowingly sacrificed themselves to serve China as the Immortal Man-In-Darkness. The current pilot isChen Nuo.[12]
TheMother of Champions (Wu Mei-Xing) is a former theoretical physicist who was working on aparticle accelerator when she was briefly exposed to a theoretical "god particle", which activated her metagene. At first she was unable to bear children, but eventually discovered her super-fecundity powers by accident.[14] Wu is immune to radiation and able to birth twenty-five genetically identical supersoldiers about every three days. These children are short-lived, however, only lasting one week, aging ten years every day.[15] She has at times used a metallic chair with insect-like legs to remain mobile while pregnant.[16]
One of her superstrong children named Number Four appeared inThe OMAC Project: Infinite Crisis Special #1. InNightwing #144, Mother of Champions is kidnapped from by operatives ofTalia al Ghul; in this same issue it is revealed that she has had thousands of children, and that each batch of superhuman children are conceived by suitors whom she hand picks.[17][18] Her children appear to demonstrate fairly standard superhuman abilities, save for when she has children with fellow Great Ten members.
Yang Kei-Ying, known as theSeven Deadly Brothers, was born in poverty inFujian province over 300 years ago. He was a soldier in service to theYongzheng Emperor in 1723, and took part in the destruction of theShaolin Temple.[19] One of the temple's kung fu grandmasters,Bak Mei, defected to the Emperor and helped destroy the second temple. Yang was impressed with Bak Mei's skill and wanted to learn kung fu himself, but Bak Mei laughed at him and thought him unpromising. He deserted the army and headed to the school of the Seven Scribes of the Cloudy Satchel, seventaoist sorcerers in the mountains nearSong Shan. Yang begged to become a pupil and fed the sorcerers all manner of excuses and lies, but the sorcerers saw through him and placed a curse on him as punishment for his evil actions. Yang was given the ability to split into seven clones, each a master of one type of kung fu, then sent back to slaughter Bak Mei and the soldiers who had destroyed the Shaolin temples. Centuries later, he was incorporated into the Great Ten and fabricated his origin, claiming that he received his powers from an old mystic whom he saved from a beating.[19]
When theFirst Emperor of China commissioned the construction of his tomb, a brilliant engineer by the name of Lao Yuqi built a hundred clockwork automatons to serve as tomb guards. The vain and jealous emperor ordered that Lao be entombed with him upon his death so that his genius would never serve another patron. Before dying of thirst, Lao reprogrammed one of the automatons with his own insights, values and priorities and gave it a semblance of free will. Thousands of years later, when the tomb was uncovered by archaeologists, the automatons went on a rampage in an attempt to topple the Communist government and restore imperial rule. These automatons were defeated by the Super Functionaries. Only Lao's reprogrammed automaton remained inactive back at the tomb. The Chinese government reactivated it and upgraded it with Durlan technology.[20]
Shaolin Robot speaks in simpleI Ching hexagrams, but can express more complex thoughts using writtenpinyin.[21]
Real nameGu Lao, Socialist Red Guardsman is one of the oldest Chinese heroes. He used his solar powers to carry out theCultural Revolution. His body is highly radioactive, so he is forced to wear special armor reverse engineered from Durlan technology. He has since become bitter and disillusioned as China abandonsMao Zedong's vision and embraces market economics. He lives like a hermit in an isolated stretch of theGobi Desert due to the possible threat of a nuclear meltdown.[15] Mother of Champions is immune to his radiation, and was the first person to touch him in over fifteen years.[14]
Thundermind or 雷念 (Léi Niàn) is Zou Kang, a history teacher atBeijing No. 8 Middle School who, on a tour of theBeijing Museum, accidentally recites aloud aSanskrit "trigger phrase" from an ancientBuddhist artifact. Zou transforms into Thundermind whenever he recites his trigger phrase and unlocks what he calls his full human potential, becoming aBodhisattva with the power to access metahuman analogues of the powers listed in the Buddhistsiddhis.[22] He also has super-senses akin to telepathy, and fancies himself the team's conscience.
Chang Tzu and hisScience Squad are allies and financial supporters of the Great Ten.
Number Four is one of the Mother of Champions' children.[18] He is based on the myth of theTen Brothers, with the fourth possessing invincibility and elasticity.
Shen Li Po was formerly the Black King's Bishop in Checkmate.[23] Shen returned to the Great Wall Complex on a leave of absence and was replaced by August General In Iron.[24]
Hu Wei is a scientist who unlocked anatavistic trigger gene that gave him the ability to transform into a powerfulyeti-like monster plagued with an uncontrollable rage. While in his Yeti form, Hu wears a special electronic amulet around his neck to keep him from going berserk.[25] He is killed byBlack Adam in52.[26]
