Review: 孫悟空 (Monkey)
Category: Heroes
Author: Chaos
Rating: 96%
Sun Wukong, otherwise known as Monkey, is an anthropomorphic monkey with magic powers. He is most notable for his exploits alongside the river demon Sandy and the pig spirit Pigsy, as the trio escorted the monk Tripitaka westward. Sun was originally born out of a stone egg, which was laid by chaos itself. He has too many powers to easily list, but they include incredible growth, strength, transformation, elemental manipulation, and effective flight. He is immortal, and also bears the title of ‘buddha’, since he has achieved enlightenment.
I love Sun Wukong. He’s got amazing powers, but better than that, he has a great attitude. When he became the leader of the monkeys, he awarded himself the title ‘handsome monkey king’, with a self-love which rivals that of Charlie Sheen. That’s just great- monkey is a great guy, and he’s smart enough to know it. People don’t realise how important self-affirmation is: Socrates famously admitted that all he knew was that he did not know enough, and he was put to death. There’s no shame in self-promotion, and Wukong is wise enough to know that. Anyway, whether he was handsome or not, he was also smart enough to hang around with a huge pig-man the whole time. That works wonders for your comparative attractiveness.
Monkey wasn’t ashamed to have a ridiculous number of spurious powers. Some superheroes keep to a handful of powers at most; Monkey has so many you couldn’t even remember them all. He also, unlike most superheroes, spends most of his time using these powers for selfish material gain. When he’s not doing that, he’s trying to force more people to acknowledge how great he is- like that time when he demanded that he be named ‘Great Sage equal of Heaven’. This was essentially the same plan that Lucifer had, but Sun Wukong was such a pain in heaven’s arse that they eventually gave in and let him have the title. Did Sun behave himself after that? No, he used his newfound authority to steal all the peaches from heaven’s garden. Why? Because he liked peaches. Duh.
However, Monkey did- under duress- lead the monk Tripitaka through 81 separate calamities, so that he could deliver his scrolls to the Western Buddha. During that time he fought evil spirits, solved mysteries, killed spider people, and went to a snow-viewing party. He served the forces of good, but he never forgot to make time for himself. Because of this, he managed to achieve enlightenment, as well as being the coolest monkey in the whole history of time. Unlike most superheroes, Monkey had no love interest. In the long run, it only saved him time, effort and money, so that’s another point to Wukong.
He’s so great that China celebrates his honour for a full day every year- the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month. The problem is, though, that since China is so obviously evil, the chances are the world in general will need defending from hem sooner or later. I'm not saying that Monkey would favour his home country unfairly, I'm just saying that he'd be unlikely to shut down a country who pay him homage on a yearly basis. The moral? Globalise Wukong day. You know it makes sense.
I can’t think of anything else to tell you; if you’re not already convinced that Monkey is the greatest hero who ever lived, then I don’t know what else you're looking for. In times of need, the world can certainly-unless he has something more interesting to do- rely on Wukong: when it comes to heroics, he’s awe-sun.
