this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Well, that was both Marvel and DC
I think DC was the one where they had the Chinese superhero team named Great Ten, comprised of "caricatures" like...
Shaolin Robot, who is a robot built for the 1st emperor of China
Thundermind, who gains magical power from being super into Buddhism
Socialist Red Guardsman, who is basically just Chinese Captain America if he were also Iron Man and highly radioactive
Mother of Champions, a woman who is constantly pregnant and gives birth to litters of super strong men who die after a day or two
Yeah, that's the one. Mother of Champions is unfathomably racist and just sort of lives in my head rent-free something something Mao's land reform.
I remember later on there was a Chinese Avengers where it was literally just the normal Avengers but Chinese people (which sounds like a cumtown bit). I think the author was a diaspora Chinese guy who didn't like whichever racist version was written in the past but also accused it of orientalism on the basis of trying to have heroes reflective of traditional Chinese culture when, in the author's account "Chinese people like Spiderman, they like the Hulk" etc., so it was literally just the same heroes. I think it was Marvel, but I'm not 100% sure.
I honestly think the cumtown Avengers is equally chauvinist in its attitude as the Great Ten (on average, but not as bad as the Mother) because it's posing the highest aspiration of China as being a flagrant mimicry of America, basically cosplaying as Americans instead of being something in and of themselves.
Yeah, like I get it, because having a superhero team based entirely on cultural tropes is as cringey as stuff like Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters
Which, thinking about it now, they aren't all based in cultural tropes either
Gotta mix it up a bit
Have your Chinese team with guys like Collective Man (has the combined strength of every Chinese citizen), but you can also have a Chinese Iron Man (if Stingray can exist, Chinese Iron Man can exist)
Yeah, having one or two lended over is fine and it's not like they should be the cast of Journey to the West or anything, but the Avengers are still very reflective of American culture and it's clearly so much better to have the bulk of heroes not just standing in the shadow of the cultural hegemony of America, so having them reflect various aspects of where they are from or from other places that aren't in the American sphere as such seems way better.