Nisei and Santa Barbara comic hero

[Maka]

I have never heard of Tsunami. Have you?

http://www.examiner.com/x-51953-Santa-B ... ast-one---

The hero? Well, at first she was a villain, and maybe you couldn't blame her. She was called Tsunami, a.k.a Miya Shimada, a Japanese-American "nisei" who was a young adult during the heyday of World War II.

All-Star Squadron was a book that reimagined WWII as if DC Comics' pulp- and super-heroes had been around to fight against the forces of the Third Reich. Tsunami, whose powers mainly centered around the control of water, was fighting on the side of the Japanese when the Squadron (and the comics readership) first encountered her. She'd been swayed to the side of her ancestral homeland due to the racial prejudice she'd been subjected to in the states. The character exemplified Roy Thomas' style to a "T" -- rather than just coming up with some blank villain in a suit for Hawkman and Robotman to punch, Tsunami had internal conflict and nuance.

Eventually she saw the U.S. side of things, joining the All-Star Squadron in the title Young All-Stars, alongside young heroes and heroines that a casual or non-comics fan will certainly never have heard of (Neptune Perkins, anyone? He's sort of like Aquaman if Aquaman had even fewer superpowers). Tsunami even stayed loyal to the Allies after discovering her Santa Barbara-based family and fellow Japanese Americans had been sent to an internment camp, though her emotions were certainly mixed and she remained outspoken about the injustice.

Peace, maka