Panels from Chu F Hing’s Green Turtle.

Propaganda Trope: The enemy does not value life. While it is true that the Japanese military stressed fighting to the last man and had certain suicide mission units, this is not actually specific to the Japanese the American army had a similar fight to the last rhetoric, and there were militaries in Europe considering their own variety of suicide pilots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo

The Green Turtle never shows his face in the comic. The main theory that I’ve heard for this (unsubstantiated) is that Chu would have liked to make The Green Turtle the first Chinese American super hero comic, but would not have been allowed to at the time. So instead of making him white Chu made his race a secret. Instead of showing his face the green turtle expresses himself through his shadow, which takes the form of a giant turtle with a face. (grain of salt: Wikipedia says that “In China, the tortoise was also called the Black warrior, standing as a symbol of power, tenacity, and longevity, as well as that of north and winter” a symbol that might have have felt inspiring during Japanese occupation of China. it’s possible that is what Chu is referencing with his character, but honestly it could just be a coincidence.)

 

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