DC is stepping up to celebrate the Lunar New Year in February 2022 with a special gold-trimmed lucky red envelope for readers. Select copies of DC's upcoming Monkey Prince #1 will be inserted into custom-printed Lunar New Year envelopes and distributed for sale as variant covers. DC has shared with us what these envelopes will look like.
The envelope's front will bear a Monkey Prince illustration by series artist Bernard Chang, printed in gold. The back will have the following text:
"Chúc mừng năm mới!" the envelope's back inscription reads. "Happy Lunar New Year! We hope 2022 will bring you peace, prosperity, and good fortune! From your friends at DC Comics"
'Chúc mừng năm mới' is Vietnamese for 'Happy new year,' and used frequently in celebrating the Lunar New Year.
Red envelopes (known as 紅包, hóngbāo) are a traditional gift given (and received) every Lunar New Year. Customarily a gift (or just plain cash) is inside the envelope, but for many, the importance is in the envelope itself - as red symbolizes prosperity and good luck in Chinese and other East Asian cultures.
This is apropos as DC is moving to embrace Asian culture with the recent DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration anthology and this new Monkey Prince series.
DC's Monkey Prince is based on the Asian mythological character the Monkey King, made famous for the story 'Journey to the West.' In DC lore, the Monkey Prince (real name Marcus Sun) is the son of the fabled Monkey King (real name Sun Wukong) - and tongue-in-cheek, he things he's better than pretty much anything - from his father to the Justice League.
And he might be right.
Monkey Prince #1 goes on sale February 1 - just in time for the Lunar New Year in 2022.
The early adventures of Monkey Prince reveals he hates superheroes - read all about it.
