He concocts his schemes on Oolong Island, which is somehow not the stupidest sentence I will type today. On his island hideaway — which we later learn is off the coast of North Korea — he builds rockets and blows up anyone who tries to spy on him. Despite being a weird giant egg man with a pun for a name, Egg Fu is respected/sanctioned by at least some faction of the Chinese government, as he has a whole army at his disposal. (If you really feel the need to see the character in his true, uh, “glory,” go here. Warning for all of the racism.) Egg Fu also meets a destructive end, as he is crushed to death by Wonder Woman’s lasso. Omelets for everyone! Anyway, that’s it for me. I’m hungry. I’m gonna go fry some eggs. And yet, Egg Fu got to come back. Wondy (and Steve Trevor, because she can’t do anything by herself in this era) go in search of a missing atomic submarine, only to find that Egg Fu has taken it. Or rather, Egg Fu the Fifth. The original, it turns out, was indeed destroyed by Wonder Woman, but “not before other Egg Fu’s [sic] had been hatched.” This raises so many questions. Is there a Mrs. Egg Fu, or do giant eggs reproduce asexually? What does an egg hatch from — a larger egg? What happened to Egg Fu Two, Three, and Four? Were they delicious? Anyway, Wonder Woman destroys Egg Fu V by dancing at him until the vibrations break him to pieces. 52 was a weekly, year-long series involving many disparate subplots that slowly combined as the weeks wore on. One of those subplots involved the unexplained disappearance of many of the world’s mad scientists, including Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men. Issue 25 revealed that Egg Fu was behind the kidnappings. (Astute readers could have figured that out two issues earlier, when Dr. Will Magnus woke up to find himself on Oolong Island.) He also describes himself as a “mutant flesh-machine,” so perhaps he’s not a literal egg after all. He escapes capture this time, and that’s the last of his serious appearances. After this, he was parodied a few times in Ambush Bug and Wonder Woman, but his revival doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere. There was also a time when Egg Fu was “revealed” to be a giant computer from Apokolips bent on stealing people’s souls or something? But that never went beyond Wonder Woman #128-129. What really scrambles my eggs about this whole mess is that this could have been a fun idea. If you look at my profiles of King Tut and Big Wheel, you’ll see that I’m a huge fan of stupid villains. The sillier, the better, I say. And a giant egg that wants to take over the world is about as silly as you can possibly get. But no! They had to slather him in negative stereotypes to the point where he was all but unsalvageable. I give the myriad creators of 52 credit for trying, but he just comes off as a bargain-basement version of Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.. Worse, it gave the writers of “CheckOut” an excuse to make him a whole new kind of gross, so this was a net zero as far as I’m concerned. The assignment, of course, should be “mock him to death.” Just have him throw a bunch of increasingly over-the-top weapons at our heroes, who then roast him so hard he throws a tantrum and cracks to pieces. Something fun! And can we please find a character design that isn’t disgusting? There has to be some middle ground between “ugly stereotype” and “just plain ugly,” no? Want to meet more overlooked villains? Check out my profiles on King Tut, the Matador, Peek-a-Boo, Man-Killer, Mad Mod, Big Wheel, KGBeast, and the Living Monolith!
