Seven Deadly Brothers
1703 - Yang Kei-Ying is born in crushing poverty in Fujian Province.
1718 - 15-year-old Yang joins the army of Emperor Yongzheng.
1723 - 20-year-old Yang participates in the destruction of the Shaolin temple along with traitorous Shaolin grandmaster Bak Mei. He is rejected when he asks to learn kung-fu, so he deserts and climbs the Song Shan Mountains to the temple of the Taoist immortal sorcerers the Seven Scribes of the Cloudy Satchel. Revealing his corrupt heart, they curse him with seven lifetimes of martial skill and no ability to control it. He is unleashed on Bak Mei and the emperor's soldiers, and left to wander the land.
26 years ago - Yang is found by the Chinese government. They are unable to imprison him, and instead use him as an operative.
8 years ago - Yang is a founding member of China's Great Ten. He becomes the Super-Functionary Seven Deadly Brothers.
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.
Yang Kei-ing's StorySeven Deadly Brothers is by far my favorite member of the Great Ten, and is also among the characters with the least total comic appearances. He's just such a cool interpretation of a concept; he's a martial artist, and in DC there are quite a few martial artist characters, but in execution, Yang Kei-Ying's powers are far, far more deadly than just a person with martial skill. He's like a bomb going off, a level of power that puts him on par with characters like the Flash.
I also really love the way his backstory is executed. He isn't a typical martial arts character who wields his skill with delicate control and with practiced training; this is a curse, something he is inflicted with. He barely pays attention to the particulars of the mission at hand; his seven minds are rarely in agreement... all he knows is his love of violence, and the wait to unleash it. This is a SCARY character... and he's been around DC's timeline for a long time. I hope we can find more places to use him. |