Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang’s new series, Monkey Prince, arrives on February 1 with a first-of-its-kind Lucky Red Envelope Foil variant.
The lucky red envelopes (or hongbao) are synonymous with Lunar New Year, and traditionally contain gifts of money to ensure prosperity throughout the year.
Inside Yang and Chang;s envelope, one can find the story of the son of nomadic henchpeople, Marcus Sun, as his family makes a stop in Gotham City, where “…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!
Yang says that it is a thrill for him to be able to incorporate Chinese mythology into the superhero genre, as there is “…a lot of overlap between the Monkey King and the American superhero genre. They both are heroes, they’re battling for the fate of the world, they’re both dressed up in fancy, colorful costumes, and they both have these fantastical, superhuman powers. It felt good to bridge that gap between those two loves—American superheroes and the legend of the Monkey King.”
Chang remembers when his father introduced him to the Monkey King, based on his early love of superheroes, and he”…would read to me a few pages each night, and I would go to sleep dreaming about these amazing and fantastical adventures.”
Look for the Monkey Prince at your local comic shop on February 1 and check out the lucky variant, as well as a preview page from the first issue below.
