Socialist Red Guardsman
72 years ago - Gu Lao is born in Shanghai.
58 years ago - 14-year-old Gu Lao attends Party School.
54 years ago - 18-year-old Gu Lao joins the Peoples Liberation Army of China.
46 years ago - 26-year-old Gu Lao is in a mysterious accident, able to channel vast amounts of solar energy but becoming highly irradiated. He is equipped with a protective suit by the Chinese government, becoming the Super-Functionary Socialist Red Guardsman.
32 years ago - 40-year-old Gu Lao battles the All-Star Squadron.
19 years ago - 53-year-old Gu Lao's radiation is no longer manageable. He is forced to move to a facility in the Gobi Desert
14 years ago - 58-year-old Gu Lao's protective armor is updated with reverse-engineered Durlan Technology after the Qinghai Incident, allowing him to work in civilized China again.
13 years ago - 59-year-old Gu Lao & Fang Zhifu are dispatched to stop the terracotta automatons from the tomb of Quin Shi Huang from attacking Bejing.
8 years ago - 64-year-old Gu Lao becomes a founding member of the Great Ten.
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.
Gu Lao's StoryNotably, Gu Lao's Socialist Red Guardsman notably has the least amount of time spent on his origin. We know that he was originally empowered in a mysterious accident, but that's about it. The reason his origins are given such little attention is that he's specifically meant to represent the ideology and influence of the original revolution of Mao Zedong's Republic.
While his actual age is never discussed, Guo Lau is clearly by far the oldest of the Great Ten. He's also the most lethal; not only because of his dangerous powers but because of his frightening disregard for life. We made him a one-time enemy All-Star Squadron for that very reason, because while he is clearly meant to embody certain ideas that were at one time noble, it's hard to view him as a hero, exactly. |