Celestial Archer
28 years ago - Xu Tao is born in Tai'an, at the foot of Mount Tai.
16 years ago - 12-year-old Xu Tao joins a gang when corrupt police close his father's market stall.
12 years ago - 16-year-old Xu Tao is attacked by his gang members, and hides in a tree in an ancient temple. Swallowed by the Earth, he finds the celestial bow of Yi and becomes the Celestial Archer, chasing away the gang before he ascends a magical bridge to the moon, where he meets Xiang-O, the Chinese Goddess of the moon, who charges him to become her avatar.
8 years ago - 20-year-old Xu Tao becomes a founding member of the Great Ten.
7 years ago - 21-year-old Xu Tao defends the Chinese Pantheon during the Godwar.
The Great Ten represent one of my all-time favorite Grant Morrison creations. They did more than just build a new team of original Superheroes (Or Super-Functionaries, in this case), but they built a whole history around them, giving each character a truly unique story and sense of place, and structured it all around the history and politics and culture of a very real-world take on China and all it's complexity. It's an incredible piece of worldbuilding, and while it's tragic that they don't have that many appearances, it's also very understandable, because they are such an intricately woven tapestry, I can see why it would be difficult for other writers to pick them up.
Xu Tao's StoryWhile all of the Great Ten are meant to explore aspects of Chinese Culture through the lens of comic book superheroes, Celestial Archer manages to do so in a particularly familiar archetype. We recognize the idea of an archer superhero, but as the avatar of the Chinese Pantheon of Gods, Xu Tao is actually more Thor than Hawkeye. He is capable of hitting targets halfway around the world, or holding off an entire modern army.
The idea of including traditional Pantheons of Gods is nothing new to comic books of course, and to illustrate that, we wanted to include Xu Tao in another crossover event that includes other Dieties; the Godwar. This will allow Celestial Archer to interact with characters like Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman whose stories intersect with other godly pantheons, and I actually really like the idea of him being there. |