A review by sasaboba
DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration #1 by Dustin Nguyen, Gurihiru, Marcio Takara, Jim Lee, Greg Pak, Alex Sinclair, Sami Basri, Norm Rapmund, Marcus To, Scott Williams, Trung Le Nguyen, Kevin Wada, Amy Chu, Aniz Adam Ansari, Alyssa Wong, Alexandre Tefenkgi, Cliff Chiang, Pornsak Pichetshote, Sean Chen, Sumit Kumar, Jen Bartel, Minh Lê, Philip Tan, Gene Luen Yang, Francis Manapul, Sarah Kuhn, Jae Lee, Audrey Mok, Bernard Chang, Victoria Ying, Mariko Tamaki, Jim Cheung, Ram V

5.0

My Lana Condor fancast as Cassandra Cain

4.5

The opening letter by Jeff Yang pretty much describes my relationship with comic book superheroes—if I looked closely enough, Bruce Wayne was Bruce Nguyen, Dick Grayson was Dick Wei Shen, and Selina Kyle was Selina Kai-Le. I had to imagine myself and my cultures in characters that could pass as us, but I knew in my heart they would never say or act explicitly like someone like me. So when DC announced that they would be releasing an Own Voices Asian issue of their superheroes, I was elated. It's a long time coming, but better late than never. There are so few Asian superheroes that I'm aware of, let alone from DC. I was even more excited because some of my favorite creatives were featured like Gene Luen Yang, Mariko Tamaki, and Greg Pak. Here are my ratings for each story:

- "Sounds" by Mariko Tamaki and Marcus To: 4.5/5
- "Dress Code" by Minh Le and Trung Le Nguyen: 5/5 (this one made me cry; tw racism)
- "Hawke & Kong" by Greg Pak and Sumit Kumar: 5/5
- "Special Delivery" by Aniz Adam Ansari and Sami Basri: 1.5/5 (DC needs to do away with the League of Assassins; it's such a racist and gross stereotype and I'm tired of seeing Asians get beat on in comic books/media)
- "Masks" by Ram V and Audrey Mok: 5/5
- "What's In The Box?" by Dustin Nguyen: 4/5
- "Family Dinner" by Alyssa Wong and Sean Chen: 4/5
- "Kawaii Kalamity" by Sarah Kuhn and Victoria Ying: 3/5
- "Festival of Heroes" by Amy Chu and Marcio Takara: 5/5 (tw racism, islamophobia, white terrorism)
- "Perceptible" by Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi: 4/5
- "The Monkey Prince Hates Superheroes" by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang: 5/5

One of my main gripes with this issue (besides "Special Delivery"), is that out of 5 of the mixed race Asian characters, ALL of them had a white parent