If you had asked me a month ago whether Hawaii had any superheroes, I might’ve shaken my head, but then I found this comic book in the five for a dollar bin when I took my kid to the local comic book shop, Emerald City Comics:
I bought it and read it, fascinated by this story arc of Superboy having local Hawaii roots, which came well over a decade after my time as a comic book reader. After filling my head with the likes of Derrida, Kristeva, and de Lauretis, I was starting my professional career as a full-time college teacher when this issue was published.
However, reading this comic book brought back memories of Captain Honolulu, who hosted a cartoon show in the islands back in the 1960s. When I was growing up, kids would form rings with their thumbs and index finger, invert their hands and place the rings across their eyes like a mask, Captain Honolulu style. It made it hard to climb on the play equipment with no free hands during recess, but we had lots of fun pretending to be Captain Honolulu.
Then I remembered Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s 1993 song, “Maui: Hawaiian Sup’pa Man,” and indeed to many of us growing up in the islands Maui took on super heroic proportions, even if not on the colorful pages of the comic books at the local drug stores. However, now my kid can watch a cartoon rendering of Maui alongside Moana in the animated feature, Moana.
So I guess I might have been wrong. Hawaii does have some superheroes.
Unnatural Sight 