Sandra Wu-san: Lady Shiva Appreciation Thread 2022

[Frontier]

I like that design. Personally I hope they retain short hair or bob hair when she becoming Jade Canary as depiction of her. Short hair help The Mistress of Martial Arts dynamic fluid close range battle while also help differentiate her from the common black long hair Female on DC Universe

She's rocking those fishnets!

[Restingvoice]

What is Shiva's ethnicity? (Link: https://dragcnlady.tumblr.com/post/1...s-up-on-tumblr)

Part 1:

In other words she's like Disney's Aladdin (or even Ra's al Ghul). Something American writers grab from all over the place and put in a blender. Aladdin has the benefit of being set in a fantasy world, at least until the first seconds of the movie where they straight up yelled that it's Arabian Night. So I guess both Disney's Aladdin and DC Comics are similar in that way.

[Captain Nostalgia]

What is Shiva's ethnicity? (Link: https://dragcnlady.tumblr.com/post/1...s-up-on-tumblr)

Part 1:

Lady Shiva’s ethnicity has never been clearly defined. The writer of the link in question provides some interesting information, but there is a lot of conjecture here, so let me clear some things up.

There are four writers who have dealt with Lady Shiva in detail (Denny O Neil, Chuck Dixon, Anderson Gabrych & Gail Simone) From what we know her ethnicity is either Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian, probably from Myanmar.

The case for Japanese ethnicity:

Denny O Neil the creator of Lady Shiva has her first appear in Richard the Dragon Kung Fu Fighter #5, (1975) whereby she seeks to kill Richard the Dragon for failing to save her sisters life from assassins.

(Richard the Dragon, Ben Turner (Bronze Tiger) and Lady Shiva are what I would dub the Kung Fu Trinity of the DCU)

Both Richard the Dragon and Ben Turner are trained by O Sensei; an old marital arts expert in Tokyo Japan, and O Sensei happens to be the godfather of Lady Shiva’s sister Carolyn Woosan.
Therefore one can assume that since O Sensei is Japanese, and is the godfather of Lady Shiva’s sister, both she and Lady Shiva must be Japanese to.

Plus in the rebooted timeline, Chuck Dixon has Richard the Dragon first lay eyes upon her in Tokyo Japan at a martial arts competition looking to scout out exceptional talent. (She is also able to read Japanese in a 1988 Question Annual)

So her ethnicity is Japanese then??? No, not so fast, because at this point she hasn’t been trained by O Sensei, and doesn’t meet him until near the end of the Kung Fu Fighter run, and Denny O Neil will change things years later.

The case for Chinese Ethnicity:

Lady Shiva starts to appear again in Denny O Neil’s the Question whereby he rewrites some of O Sensei’s origins in a three way crossover of a Detective Comics, Green Arrow & Question annual in a (1988) story entitled fables.

O Sensei remains Japanese, but instead as a soldier over in Japanese occupied Manchuria (Today’s North Eastern China) A Japanese soldier disgraces O Sensei (At this time a Japanese officer in the army) by murdering a man he has promised not to harm if he beats him in combat. As penance he agrees to live on the Chinese Mainland for the rest of his life, thereby altering the original timeline.

At this point Lady Shiva also refers to him as Sensei, and as such carries out his last wishes and aids him throughout this story arch.

This means that Lady Shiva and her sister where therefore most likely of north eastern Chinese ancestry in the original timeline. (As a sidenote, Lady Shiva meets Black Canary for the first time, and gives her quite the shiner in a friendly sparring match; aka beating her soundly. I will explain why this is important in a second)

After zero hour everyone’s timeline got rebooted again, and in various issues of Batgirl (2000- 2006) Lady Shiva’s history is rewritten primarily by Anderson Gabrych as growing up in the streets of Detroit, whereby her sister is now killed by Cain, in order to trick Lady Shiva into joining the League of Assassins. It does not specify their ethnicity, however...

In Birds of Prey Gail Simone elaborates on her origins once again. At first she appears in Hong Kong with Black Canary to visit their dying Sensei. A lot of people have stated that this is O Sensei rebooted, but I do not think this is the case.

1. Even when DC reboots timeline they tend to keep old memories and events from previous timelines intact (Ie; Jason Todd) and when Black Canary first meets O Sensei back in 1988 she has no idea who he is.
2. Lady Shiva states to Black Canary that she has had many sensei’s, meaning that the O Sensei of Manchuria timeline may still be in play, though Simone was most likely setting things up for her South East Asian origins.

Finally as the poster noted she does speak Cantonese here, but so to does Black Canary.

The case for South East Asian ethnicity:

The first hint that Lady Shiva may be of South East Asian origins comes in an issue of the Richard the Dragon’s mini series (2004) written by Chuck Dixon, whereby he Connor Hawke and Eddie Fyers have been captured by Lady Shiva and flown to Asia. Connor Hawke states that they think they are in Burma, Eddie Fyers Laos and Richard the Dragon simply states that they are in Shiva land.

This is followed up by Gail Simone in a Birds of Prey issue (2006) whereby Black Canary agrees to allow herself to travel to South East Asia to be trained by Shiva’s marital arts mentor, a cruel woman named the Mother. It doesn’t state the countries name, but you get the feeling it’s a warlord run place like Myanmar (formerly Burma) One gets the sense that Lady Shiva was trained here at a very young age, as her dolls were used against her to harm her.

There you go, take your pick, it’s open to interpretation at this point and time.

[Frontier]

I guess that also means Cass' ethnicity beyond being half-Asian is a mystery as well...

[Primal Slayer]

The fact that we went 8 years of Arrow with no Lady Shiva still astounds me.

Flashaback to her on Birds of Prey

[Captain Nostalgia]

I guess that also means Cass' ethnicity beyond being half-Asian is a mystery as well...

Pretty much, until a writer elaborates further on Lady Shiva's origin, or they decide to reboot the timeline and change Cass's origin.

[Frontier]

The fact that we went 8 years of Arrow with no Lady Shiva still astounds me.

Flashaback to her on Birds of Prey

We're probably lucky she wasn't on Arrow or Gotham, really.

[John Venus]

That show had NO budget.

Yep. But their casting for Oracle and Harley Quinn was on point though and about the only good redeeming aspect of it.

The fact that we went 8 years of Arrow with no Lady Shiva still astounds me.

Flashaback to her on Birds of Prey

Probably a blessing in disguise.

Look at how they massacred Black Canary.

Lady Shiva’s ethnicity has never been clearly defined. The writer of the link in question provides some interesting information, but there is a lot of conjecture here, so let me clear some things up.

There are four writers who have dealt with Lady Shiva in detail (Denny O Neil, Chuck Dixon, Anderson Gabrych & Gail Simone) From what we know her ethnicity is either Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian, probably from Myanmar.

The case for Japanese ethnicity:

Denny O Neil the creator of Lady Shiva has her first appear in Richard the Dragon Kung Fu Fighter #5, (1975) whereby she seeks to kill Richard the Dragon for failing to save her sisters life from assassins.

(Richard the Dragon, Ben Turner (Bronze Tiger) and Lady Shiva are what I would dub the Kung Fu Trinity of the DCU)

Both Richard the Dragon and Ben Turner are trained by O Sensei; an old marital arts expert in Tokyo Japan, and O Sensei happens to be the godfather of Lady Shiva’s sister Carolyn Woosan.
Therefore one can assume that since O Sensei is Japanese, and is the godfather of Lady Shiva’s sister, both she and Lady Shiva must be Japanese to.

Plus in the rebooted timeline, Chuck Dixon has Richard the Dragon first lay eyes upon her in Tokyo Japan at a martial arts competition looking to scout out exceptional talent. (She is also able to read Japanese in a 1988 Question Annual)

So her ethnicity is Japanese then??? No, not so fast, because at this point she hasn’t been trained by O Sensei, and doesn’t meet him until near the end of the Kung Fu Fighter run, and Denny O Neil will change things years later.

The case for Chinese Ethnicity:

Lady Shiva starts to appear again in Denny O Neil’s the Question whereby he rewrites some of O Sensei’s origins in a three way crossover of a Detective Comics, Green Arrow & Question annual in a (1988) story entitled fables.

O Sensei remains Japanese, but instead as a soldier over in Japanese occupied Manchuria (Today’s North Eastern China) A Japanese soldier disgraces O Sensei (At this time a Japanese officer in the army) by murdering a man he has promised not to harm if he beats him in combat. As penance he agrees to live on the Chinese Mainland for the rest of his life, thereby altering the original timeline.

At this point Lady Shiva also refers to him as Sensei, and as such carries out his last wishes and aids him throughout this story arch.

This means that Lady Shiva and her sister where therefore most likely of north eastern Chinese ancestry in the original timeline. (As a sidenote, Lady Shiva meets Black Canary for the first time, and gives her quite the shiner in a friendly sparring match; aka beating her soundly. I will explain why this is important in a second)

After zero hour everyone’s timeline got rebooted again, and in various issues of Batgirl (2000- 2006) Lady Shiva’s history is rewritten primarily by Anderson Gabrych as growing up in the streets of Detroit, whereby her sister is now killed by Cain, in order to trick Lady Shiva into joining the League of Assassins. It does not specify their ethnicity, however...

In Birds of Prey Gail Simone elaborates on her origins once again. At first she appears in Hong Kong with Black Canary to visit their dying Sensei. A lot of people have stated that this is O Sensei rebooted, but I do not think this is the case.

1. Even when DC reboots timeline they tend to keep old memories and events from previous timelines intact (Ie; Jason Todd) and when Black Canary first meets O Sensei back in 1988 she has no idea who he is.
2. Lady Shiva states to Black Canary that she has had many sensei’s, meaning that the O Sensei of Manchuria timeline may still be in play, though Simone was most likely setting things up for her South East Asian origins.

Finally as the poster noted she does speak Cantonese here, but so to does Black Canary.

The case for South East Asian ethnicity:

The first hint that Lady Shiva may be of South East Asian origins comes in an issue of the Richard the Dragon’s mini series (2004) written by Chuck Dixon, whereby he Connor Hawke and Eddie Fyers have been captured by Lady Shiva and flown to Asia. Connor Hawke states that they think they are in Burma, Eddie Fyers Laos and Richard the Dragon simply states that they are in Shiva land.

This is followed up by Gail Simone in a Birds of Prey issue (2006) whereby Black Canary agrees to allow herself to travel to South East Asia to be trained by Shiva’s marital arts mentor, a cruel woman named the Mother. It doesn’t state the countries name, but you get the feeling it’s a warlord run place like Myanmar (formerly Burma) One gets the sense that Lady Shiva was trained here at a very young age, as her dolls were used against her to harm her.

There you go, take your pick, it’s open to interpretation at this point and time.

::crackles knuckles::

Allow me to consolidate all of that.

-Sandra and her sister are born in China. They're orphans who are at one point adopted by the O'Sensei.

-Carolyn spent most of her time with the O'Sensei whilst Sandra moved on from one master to the other, including the 'Mother' from Simone's BOP run. Sandra's worldly travels includes India which is where she is exposed to Hinduism and although she is not a practitioner of Shiva.

-As teenagers, Carolyn and Sandra move to Detroit, USA. Carolyn and Sandra are scouted by David Cain.

-Cain frames Richard Dragon for the death of Carolyn which sends Sandra down the path of becoming Lady Shiva. It also leads her to give birth to Cass Cain.

The rest of her stories play out as they did in the published comics.

[Captain Nostalgia]

::crackles knuckles::

Allow me to consolidate all of that.

-Sandra and her sister are born in China. They're orphans who are at one point adopted by the O'Sensei.

-Carolyn spent most of her time with the O'Sensei whilst Sandra moved on from one master to the other, including the 'Mother' from Simone's BOP run. Sandra's worldly travels includes India which is where she is exposed to Hinduism and although she is not a practitioner of Shiva.

-As teenagers, Carolyn and Sandra move to Detroit, USA. Carolyn and Sandra are scouted by David Cain.

-Cain frames Richard Dragon for the death of Carolyn which sends Sandra down the path of becoming Lady Shiva. It also leads her to give birth to Cass Cain.

The rest of her stories play out as they did in the published comics.

Thanks, good attempt, unfortunately it's very difficult to merge the original timeline, with the post zero hour one.....though not impossible (I will try)

The Problem:

(The difficulty is this. In Birds of Prey Gypsy yells at Lady Shiva for destroying two dolls that meant something to people. Lady Shiva's response is that she doesn't like dolls because when she was young they were used against her. Referring to her training with "the Mother" in a South East Asian country.

During this time Black Canary is training with "the Mother" in South East Asia, when she threatens to leave; the Mother tells her that a little 5 year old girl called "Sin" will therefore be forced to take her place, giving one an idea of what age Lady Shiva started her training with her. (I'm guessing about the age)

In Batgirl issue #73 the picture shows that Lady Shiva and her sister are in Detroit at around the age of 7 or 8 by the picture.

The Attempt:

Lady Shiva and her sister are adopted by O Sensei in China (either North East China, or if you want to go with Gail Simone’s Sensei, than Hong Kong)

Now I will add my own stuff; Perhaps as young children Lady Shiva is abducted by evil forces (Maybe Ra's al Ghul) and taken to the “Mother” to be trained in lethal martial arts? We will assume her sister remains with O Sensei.

O Sensei comes to rescue Lady Shiva from the “Mother” and knowing that they are in great danger, he shuttles Shiva & her sister off to Detroit with a new family thinking they will be safe there.

Unfortunately their martial arts skills eventually results in them gaining the attention of David Cain who kills Lady Shiva’s sister in order to dupe her into joining the League of Assassins. They have a baby together that gives birth to Cassandra Cain.

From that point onward Lady Shiva returns to O Sensei to be further trained, and she eventually helps fulfill his final wish with the help of Batman, Green Arrow and the Question. (We will assume the Sensei in Hong Kong who trained both her and Black Canary is a different Sensei)

Everything else plays out like the comics.

[John Venus]

You can simplify that even further. Shiva and Carolyn were orphans. At some point, Shiva was taken in by Mother whilst Carolyn was taken in by the O'Sensei.

Shiva being Shiva managed to escape and reunite with Carolyn. They trained together under O'Sensei for a while before moving to America. Shiva and Carolyn could have also constantly been on the move. Carolyn also had a Japanese uncle pre Crisis, so you could probably say that Shiva and Carolyn have dual Japanese and Chinese citizenship. But IRL, you can't have both a Chinese and Japanese citizen, you have to pick one and it's probable that Shiva and Carolyn chose to keep their Chinese passport. Then their rich Japanese uncle helped them move to America.

If I had to make any changes to canon, it would be the whole 'Cain murders Carolyn then sleeps with Shiva' afterwards aspect. Carolyn dies as she did Pre Crisis but Cain was watching from afar and testing both sisters. He frames Richard Dragon so that Shiva would go after him thus unlocking Shiva's full potential. Then Cass's origin plays out as it did with Shiva agreeing to give Cain a child in exchange for access to more skills.

[Aahz]

Lady Shiva’s ethnicity has never been clearly defined. The writer of the link in question provides some interesting information, but there is a lot of conjecture here, so let me clear some things up.

There are four writers who have dealt with Lady Shiva in detail (Denny O Neil, Chuck Dixon, Anderson Gabrych & Gail Simone) From what we know her ethnicity is either Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian, probably from Myanmar.

To make it even more confusing one of her character profiles (that was also posted here in the first post of this thread) says that she was "eurasian", so likely only half asian, which would mean that Cass is of mostly european decent...

The timeline goes anyway completly out of the window when you include Cass. Since the original Richard Dragon Series is from the Bronze Age (when Dick was in collage), which doesn't work with Cass being 16-17 when she was introduced.

That age makes is even pretty unlikely that Cass was born after Bruce was trained by Cain.

[Captain Nostalgia]

You can simplify that even further. Shiva and Carolyn were orphans. At some point, Shiva was taken in by Mother whilst Carolyn was taken in by the O'Sensei.

Shiva being Shiva managed to escape and reunite with Carolyn. They trained together under O'Sensei for a while before moving to America. Shiva and Carolyn could have also constantly been on the move. Carolyn also had a Japanese uncle pre Crisis, so you could probably say that Shiva and Carolyn have dual Japanese and Chinese citizenship. But IRL, you can't have both a Chinese and Japanese citizen, you have to pick one and it's probable that Shiva and Carolyn chose to keep their Chinese passport. Then their rich Japanese uncle helped them move to America.

If I had to make any changes to canon, it would be the whole 'Cain murders Carolyn then sleeps with Shiva' afterwards aspect. Carolyn dies as she did Pre Crisis but Cain was watching from afar and testing both sisters. He frames Richard Dragon so that Shiva would go after him thus unlocking Shiva's full potential. Then Cass's origin plays out as it did with Shiva agreeing to give Cain a child in exchange for access to more skills.

Good summary. I like how you’ve been able to reduce it to a few sentences for clarity.

If I could change things I would probably do away with her being trained in South East Asia, as I usually equate that as being the historic home for kickboxing, whereby China and Japan are home to most of the popular martial arts disciplines (Karate/Kung Fu) that we think of in the west.

Provided it doesn’t bend reality too much with South East Asian cultural family structures, I’m not opposed to having her trained by a cruel matriarchal mother, because it would help explain why Lady Shiva, unlike Richard Dragon & Ben Turner (Bronze Tiger) feels no remorse in killing someone. Social pathologies usually start as a result of trauma at a young age, so now that I think about it....it wouldn’t make sense for her to turn out so cruel if she was trained under the loving tutelage of O Sensei.

Also in the original 1970’s timeline, Lady Shiva doesn’t know who O Sensei is until Richard the Dragon and her go to rescue him, it’s only later that Denny O Neil changes things so that he becomes her Sensei.....so I guess it’s a question of when?

Sigh, I still think it’s hard to merge the timelines, hopefully one day a writer comes along and tells a really good Lady Shiva origin.

To make it even more confusing one of her character profiles (that was also posted here in the first post of this thread) says that she was "eurasian", so likely only half asian, which would mean that Cass is of mostly european decent...
The timeline goes anyway completly out of the window when you include Cass. Since the original Richard Dragon Series is from the Bronze Age (when Dick was in collage), which doesn't work with Cass being 16-17 when she was introduced.
That age makes is even pretty unlikely that Cass was born after Bruce was trained by Cain.

Good eye. That comes from the early 90’s updated Who’s Who I believe.

I’ve read mostly everything featuring Lady Shiva and I’ve never come across anything that stated her heritage is partly European or from an Eurasian country (Kazakhstan ect), so I’m not sure as to why it would state Eurasian?

The problem with Lady Shiva (despite having a niche fanbase) is that she’s never been a major character at DC, and therefore, consequently has a disjointed timeline in terms of her origin.

Until a writer comes along and solidifies her backstory, we can only speculate on her ethnic heritage, most likely Chinese, but possibly Japanese or South East Asian (Myanmar) as well.

[John Venus]

-Yeah, I would move the 'Mother' stuff to another location. Maybe some remote village in China or maybe Shiva was adopted by Mother in Nanda Prabat whilst Carolyn was adopted by the O'Sensei at the same time at the same place. They separated and later they reunited and moved to USA.

-I think Pre Crisis Shiva, Dragon and Tiger were younger but older Post Crisis. Shiva was old enough for Batman to consider that she might be the mother of Jason Todd. That's years before Cass was introduced. ::insert Asian don't raisin meme here:: You could easily move the Kung Fu Master events to earlier in the time line.

[Aahz]

or maybe Shiva was adopted by Mother in Nanda Prabat

Nanda Parbat has (almost) nothing to do with the League of Assassins. It is City of Rama Kushna.

The only connection is that the Sensei (who is different character than the O-Sensei) was for years possesd by Jonah (who was kind of the predecessor of Deadman in the service of Rama Kushna) who used his Society of Assassins to get revenge on Rama Kushna.

And I think Society of Assassins was originally a seperate concept from the League of Assassins, the two just somehow merged.