From Morrison's Mind: Oolong Island and Egg-Fu

Evil super science squad on Oolong Island was my favorite storyline in 52. Morrison's attempt to "fix" Egg-Fu was also an important part of it. So lets see what DC later did with the island and Egg-Fu.

Let's start with a history lesson. What is Oolong Island and who is Egg-Fu? Both debuted in Kanigher's WW run (#157-158). Basically it is an island on which evil Chinese plot to destroy America, or something like that. You might have heard that it was stereotypical racist propaganda, but I'm not very sensitive about such things. Sadly even ignoring all that it is terrible story with Dianna and Steve having some insane scenes.

Not surprising that everyone at DC ignored it till Morrison had an idea to "fix it". Egg-Fu became Chang Tzu and instead of ridiculous he looked a bit more demonic. Did it work? Opinions might vary, but it certainly wasn't a smash hit rework that maybe Morrison and DC hoped for. Anyway, as 52 weekly was winding down Rucka and Winnick did their CheckOut crossover with Chang Tzu being revealed as the big bad.

Turns out that he went into some kinda of an incubation after his "death" and is now in his third form. First one obviously being WW's silver age villain, second 52 weekly. I guess it is nice continuity clean up if you want to pretend that "everything happened". And yeah, some of the action takes place Oolong Island. But how is the story itself? Look, I know that Rucka has many fans, but I find his writing mediocre at best and Winnick is even worse so end result, for me, was terrible. 

Chang Tzu escapes and later would have only brief cameo in WW #600 for WW/Powergirl team-up. It is is nice short story that you probably have read anyway if you are interested in Conner's Power Girl run. But I'm not so for me Chang Tzu's story pretty much starts and ends in 52 weekly and I'm okay with that.

But what about the island? Most significant story is 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen. I wasn't a fan of Black Adam story in 52 and I think that Johns dumbed down Horsemen concept significantly, entire world war thing was stupid in my opinion. So anyway, Giffen tries to salvage it and I think it mostly works with end result being somewhere in the middle between Morrison's and Johns' versions.

As an added bonus it put Veronica Cale in an interesting position and led to Doom Patrol relaunch with them being based on the island. Unfortunately relaunched Doom Patrol was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Giffen didn't do much with Cale or the island itself. Some Doom Patrol related stuff was very good, some was flat. People often mention that Flashpoint ended this run early, but it wasn't selling well and 22 issues are, I think, enough to have a solid run.

Besides that there were some short visits to the island over the years, but most of them didn't mean much and story beats could have happened on another location just as well. One notable exception is DC Super Friends #24 by Fisch and Brizuela. It is not a serious or "meaningful" work, but in spirit it is probably closest to what Morrison did.

So to sum it up: 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen and DC Super Friends #24 are worth getting. Giffen's Doom Patrol is a mixed bag. Everything else? Ignore.