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When DC Comics first debuted Monkey Prince, he revealed that he wasn’t a big fan of superheroes. An early encounter with Batman may explain why.
DC Comics’ newest superhero, Monkey Prince, reveals that he has had a fear of Batman since a young age.
In a preview for Monkey Prince #1, the debut of his first solo title written by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by Bernard Chang, Marcus Sun discusses how he developed his form of chiroptophobia due to a night his family experienced while living in Gotham City. After being tucked into bed by his parents, Marcus awoke to find his father and mother being threatened by the caped crusader himself, who left after realizing a child was in the house. The following pages show that no matter what DC city the family moved to, the memory would be triggered for Marcus by black curtains, bats flying and more, with each time prompting an involuntary response for him to make monkey noises.
This close encounter of the Bat kind could be responsible for Marcus’ distaste for superheroes. During the character’s first appearance in 2021’s DC Festival of Superheroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration #1, he impersonates Shazam and later argues with the hero while his inner dialogue discusses wanting to punch Shazam’s face in. Ironically, while Marcus cannot stand Shazam, he goes to school and enjoys talking with the hero’s alter ego, Billy Batson, and tells Billy that he feels “superheroes suck.”
Of course, Batman’s breaking-and-entering into the Sun residence was likely in line with his vigilantism. Monkey Prince’s first appearance not only introduced the hero, but his parents as henchman and henchwoman to the Shazam villain Dr. Sivana. Therefore, Batman could have been seeking out information on Sivana, unless the Suns have worked for other villainous “employers” in the past as well.
While he was raised under human parents, Shifu Pigsy has reminded Marcus much to his disliking that he is the son of the Monkey King. The Monkey King, or Sun Wukong, hails from Chinese mythology, but has been shown in DC Comics as a leader capable of fending off Darkseid in Monkey Prince #0, a digital issue that released in October 2021 around the time the Monkey Prince solo series was announced. The preview and solicitation for the limited series’ first issue can be found below.
MONKEY PRINCE #1
- Written by GENE LUEN YANG
- Art and cover by BERNARD CHANG
- Variant by STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU
- 1:25 variant by ANAND RADHAKRISHNAN
- 1:50 variant by Dustin Nguyen
- Team variant by Zao Dao
- $3.99 US | 32 pages | Variant $4.99 US (Card stock)
- ON SALE 2/1/22
- Introducing the newest hero in the DCU, the great sage, equal to the heavens, better than his predecessor the legendary Monkey King, even better than the Justice League—and definitely the Teen Titans—(actually, all the heroes combined), everyone put your hands together for…the Monkey Prince! Marcus Sun moves around a lot because his adoptive parents are freelance henchpeople, so this month he finds himself as the new kid at Gotham City High School, where a mysterious man with pig features asks Marcus to walk through a water curtain to reveal himself as who Marcus really is…someone who has adventured through The Journey to the West, can transform into 72 different formations, can clone himself using his hairs, and is called…the Monkey Prince!
Monkey Prince #1 is written by Gene Luen Yang with interior art by Bernard Chang, who also serves as cover artist alongside issue colorist Sebastian Cheng. Letters for the issue were done by Janice Chiang, with variant covers by Stanley Lau, Dustin Nguyen, Zao Dao and Anand Radhakrishnan. The book goes on sale Feb. 1 from DC Comics.
Source: DC Comics
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