Comics fans might best know Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa as the Maker of Amadeus Cho — one of the saucy heroes in the Marvel universe , andas the Totally Awesome Hulk , one of its most prominent Asiatic American superheroes . Now the duette are back together for a new serial publication , and a fresh Asiatic hero to receive into the plication .
For Boom Studios ’ new four - part miniseries Mech Cadet Yu , longtime collaborators Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa are reunited alongside colorist Triona Farrell and letterer Simon Bowland to say the tarradiddle of Stanford Yu — a young son work alongside his father as a janitor at a high - tech honorary society for pilots destine to bond with a mathematical group of interstellar mecha who ’ve come up to Earth to aid defend it from an imminent alien intrusion . course , hijinks ensue , and suddenly Stanford finds himself building a surprising resonance with a mech that ’s prefer to adhere with him instead of one of the myriad extremely trained kids at his academy .
Aside from being a news report about giant robots beating the prig out of equally jumbo aliens , Mech Cadet Yu — exhort by a tarradiddle Pak and Miyazawa earlier wrote for a brusk anthology serial revolving around Asian heroes in writing style fable — is a story about underdog and find a place in the world around you , even if that place is outdoors of the station that society in the beginning pegged you for . delay out our interview with Pak below , as well as a preview of the first issue , which sees Stanford encounter his future automaton partner for the first time .
io9 : What can you say us about Stanford Yu and where we find him at the start of Mech Cadet Yu ?
Greg Pak : Stanford Yu is our underdog hero , a janitor ’s kid who works at the Sky Corps Academy in Los Robos , Arizona . He ’s mother it coming and going — the elect kids sneer at him and his mom scolds him for feel dingy for himself . He do it he ’s at the bottom of the hierarchy at this elite schoolhouse , with zero luck to be one of the chosen kids who adhere with a giant robot when the mechs arrive once every four old age . But he ’s a fixer with a heart of atomic number 79 , always quick to scrounge and animate thing rather than give them away . And when he meets a jumbo golem who ’s something of an underdog himself , suddenly anything becomes possible .
io9 : Mech Cadet Yu has history in a past collaborationism of yours and Takeshi ’s , the “ Los Robos , Arizona ” story you worked on for Shattered . What inspired the two of you to return to this story , and why now ?
Pak : We always get laid we wanted to tell a bigger story — I’ve mystify an precis with at least 12 offspring of material . And then during one conventionality a couple years ago , Boom Studios editor in chief Cameron Chittock enclose himself and require if I had anything that might be a burst . I pitched him the account as “ Harry Potter meets Pacific Rim , ” and his eyes just get off up . And here we are !
io9 : What do you think it is about the melodic theme of jumbo robots that makes them such a compelling idea for skill fiction ?
Pak : As a kid , I loved any story in which a minor made protagonist with some variety of animal or teras . I think there ’s something hugely compelling about that situation for a fry . Kids are small and relatively weak , and their encounters with grownup and other tike are often fraught with fury or threats of violence . So , I think there ’s something really powerful for kids about this fantasy of make friends with something that ’s very , very strong . And what ’s stronger than a 40 - foot - grandiloquent gargantuan robot ?
io9 : Would you say Mech Cadet Yu is inspired by any particular take on giant golem , or did you intentionally desire to tell a story that counteract the kind of mecha stories people are familiar with ?
Pak : I write and directed a movie called Robot Stories about 15 year ago that was made up of four different short stories about love , expiry , family unit , and robots . I ’ve had different stories with all dissimilar sort of automaton and artificial intelligence activity in my point for age . With Mech Cadet Yu , I was n’t setting out to pay homage to or profane anything , necessarily . I just had this idea of a story that ’s almost a form of fable , in which occult giant robots from outer distance descend upon a specific blot in the desert to bond with kids . And then the idea came into my head that the military would require to get in on this and control it , so they build a military honorary society on the situation to prepare shaver for this bonding summons . And then of course of instruction there would be alien monsters that our heroes would eventually have to fight , and the existence get together from there .
io9 : The link between a pilot and their mecha is often a key part of these gargantuan automaton tales . What can you tell us about how Stanford bind with his robot associate in the series ?
Pak : I do n’t want to thwart too much , but Stanford and his automaton are both underdog . When you read the first issue , I think it ’ll be clear-cut why they were meant for each other .
io9 : You ’ve described the series in the past tense as being mostly set up in a world like our own … with giant golem and space aliens as the added machine . What draw you to that clangour of the uncanny and average for this history , rather of leaning into the scifi elements more ?
Pak : The emotional core of this story is this scrappy , underdog kid fighting to find a billet in this elect academy that does n’t really seem to require him . That struggle of a young person to find a berth where he can belong and serve felt like a very real , very universal chronicle , and I wanted to make that feel as genuine and honest as potential . From the beginning , I always saw it as happening in a creation very much like our own where just about everything would be recognizable except the giant robots themselves . That just felt like the best way to get the most emotional impact possible .
I ’m also a big fan of taking one uncomplicated thought and seeing how it change the world rather than cram too many elements into a story and changing up everything just for the heck of it . As a writer , one of my vice is having too many ideas — I wanted to try out everything . But with Mech Cadet Yu I tried to be disciplined and stay focused and really explore how the world would change with just this one handsome difference .
io9 : What ’s it been like get together with Takeshi again for this serial ? I would imagine you ’re a well - oiled partnership at this tip given your past work .
Pak : Oh , valet de chambre , I dead have it off working with Tak . He reads me like a book and I just love all the emotional nuance and diaphanous fun he brings to every panel and every Sir Frederick Handley Page . He ’s also so , so good at puff everyday people — particularly youthful people — and making them feel three dimensional , emotionally complex , and unbelievably relatable . And he dead loves giant automaton . I never thought of doing this Christian Bible with anyone but him .
I ’d also screw to plug colorist Triona Farrell and letterer Simon Bowland , who are doing beautiful work on the serial , and our editors Cameron Chittock and Eric Harburn , who are facilitate us make the book as sound as it possibly can be .
io9 : speak of your previous collaborations , our readers probably know you both as the creators of Amadeus Cho over at Marvel , who ’s become one of their most outstanding Asian American characters lately . Having create another Asiatic American hoagy in Stanford , what are your thought on the Department of State of Asian American representation in comics at the present moment ? How of import was it to you to further that histrionics in Mech Cadet Yu ?
Pak : I turn up at a time when there were only the barest handful of non - stereotypic Asian American characters in mainstream television shows , movies , or comedian . So ever since my early short films in the nineties as an NYU picture show student , I ’ve done my best to cast all my cinema and Holy Scripture diversely — with a certain special interest in getting Asian American character out into the world . sept would sometimes ask me why I ’d cast certain movie with Asiatic American actors , and I ’d aboveboard say it was because that ’s the way the story come into my head , so why not contrive it that way ?
I ’m enormously proud to have co - create Amadeus with Tak back in the day and am thrilled by how far he ’s get along over the years . But of course of action , I want more . have a few Asian American characters as guide out there is rattling . But the tangible succus comes when you have many , many different Asiatic Americans in all different form of role . diverseness within multifariousness is where the really interesting thing happen , where you’re able to get into deep nuances of different experiences . In Totally Awesome Hulk , we got to do a hugely fun story a few month ago that starred six dissimilar Asian American superheroes , which I think was the bad team up of Asiatic American heroes in mainstream superhero comics ever . And that afford the door to exploring some inscrutable points of soldering and conflict between these character , the kinds of nuances that would n’t be possible to search without that form of diversity within diversity . It ’s jolly exciting to be making comic at a time when that sort of affair is potential .
With Mech Cadet Yu , I love that we ’ve get five different Asiatic Americans in unlike cardinal roles — in a diversity of different ages , societal position , socioeconomic backgrounds , and temperament . Life is complicated and complex . It ’s a blast working on stories that reflect that realness .
Mech Cadet Yu # 1 hits shelves tomorrow , August 2 .
Greg Pak
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