Thursday, September 07, 2006

Obscure superhero of the week: Katana

Katana seems to be a 1980s attempt by Americans to create a Japanese comic book character, in retrospect a dubious coals-to-Newcastle enterprise. According to the Wikipedia page, her character was part of a group recruited by Batman during a time when he had quit the Justice League, with which he is traditionally associated -- thus the name of the new group, the Outsiders.

Katana's costume, which seems to take its inspiration from the WWII-era Japanese battle flag (now known as the Japanese naval ensign), emphasizes her right tit. If you look carefully she seems to retain her left tit, so it's not some amazon thing, just a strange design choice. In another version, her costume is modeled after that of a traditional samauri warrior, with the color yellow unfortunately predominating.

If you read the fine print you see that Katana (which means what?) has no actual super (or "metahuman") powers but has a magic sword. Hmm, that would come in handy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A katana is a sword, as far as I know!