BROTHER POWER

Real Name: Achmed Korba

Identity/Class: Human mutate; Viet Namese citizen (see comments)

Occupation: Former cult leader, restaurant owner, smuggler, and spy

Group Membership: Co-leader of the Legion of Light

Affiliations: Partner of Sister Sun, pawn of the Man-Beast/Hate-Monger

Enemies: Razorback, Spider-Man, Flash Thompson

Known Relatives: Sha Shan (former wife)

Aliases: "Mister Clean" (derogatory nickname from Mary Jane Watson)

Base of Operations: currently unknown:
formerly Manhattan, New York;
California and several other locations in the USA;
Viet Nam (see comments)

First Appearance:
(Achmed Korba) Spectacular Spider-Man II#4 (March, 1977)
(Brother Power) Spectacular Spider-Man II#12 (November, 1977)

Powers/Abilities: As Brother Power, Korba possessed superhuman (Class 10?) strength and durability. When in contact with Sha Shan/Sister Sun, he could fire powerful bursts of energy from his chest. Later, his dependence on Sister Sun was removed, and he could fire energy blasts on his own. His helmet enabled him to send and receive thoughts to and from the Man-Beast.

Height: 6' 4" Weight: 225 lbs.

History:
(Spectacular Spider-Man II#12 (fb) / 13(fb)) - Achmed Korba ran a restaurant in Saigon, which was believed to have served as a front for smuggling and espionage activities. On an in-country smuggling expedition, he observed the landing of a seeming meteorite, which actually turned out to be the Man-Beast, arriving on Earth. The Man-Beast convinced Korba to serve him in a plot, in exchange for power. At the same time, to prevent Korba from turning on him, the Man-Beast limited his powers so that they could only be used in conjunction with one of purity and innocence.

Korba chose Sha Shan as his partner and, as part of an agreement with her father, his wife. As Brother Power and Sister Sun, the two formed the Legion of Light, a mission to spread light and love--although its true purpose was to gather followers who could then be manipulated as pawns of the Man-Beast. The two relocated to the USA, where he used funds from his previous career to start another restaurant, which insured him a financial base from which to spread the word and make converts to their Legion of Light.

After this, always using a restaurant as a base, the movement went from major city to major city, building and growing, eventually moving to Manhattan.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#3-BTS) - Flash Thompson, who had met Sha Shan during a military action sometime before, saw her working as waitress. He ran up to greet her, but she fled from him, and Flash was thrown out of the restaurant for creating a disturbance.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#4) - Peter Parker tried to check out the restaurant again and see what the deal with "Sha Shan" was , but Korba told him the place was closed, that no one by that name worked there, and that he should look elsewhere.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#5) - Flash and Mary Jane Watson tried the restaurant again, and again Korba insisted that no Sha Shan worked there.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#7) - As Flash passed by the restaurant again, he saw Sha Shan as she raised the blind in her room. Korba watched Thompson from within the restaurant.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#8) - Flash sneaked into Sha Shan's room and confronted her, but Korba arrived, and revealed that the two were married, and told him to leave them alone.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#12) - During a Legion of Light rally at Central Park, Flash recognized Sha Shan's voice and realized she was Sister Sun. Korba forced Sha Shan to link hands with him, and they blasted Thompson unconscious. This brought out the involvement of Spider-Man, who recognized the link between the two and separated them. Korba briefly matched strength against Spider-Man, but when the police showed up, he denounced Flash and Spidey as attacking a peaceful demonstration, which Sha Shan reluctantly corroborated, and Spidey fled with Flash. Later, Flash returned to Sha Shan's apartment to learn the truth, and Korba attacked him. Spider-Man, who had been following Flash, saved him again, but was blasted out of the apartment by the combined power of Brother Power and Sister Sun.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#13) - Spider-Man joined forces with Razorback, who had come to investigate his sister's involvement in the Legion of Light, but Korba fled with Sha Shan. Razorback, had placed a tracer on their car, and he drove Spidey and Flash to follow them back to the Legion's base, a Croton-on-the-Hudson estate north of the city. There Korba challenged his master, the Man-Beast--posing as the Hate-Monger for his own ends--and was struck down for his insolence. The Man-Beast knew of the heroes tracking them and set a trap, which allowed Brother Power, Sister Sun, and the Legion of Light to capture all three interlopers.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#14) - The Man-Beast set a bomb to destroy his estate, hoping both to kill the invaders, and to blame them for the bombing itself. However, they escaped, of course, and followed the Legion of Light to their rally in the Yonkers Coliseum. This was to be the point from which the Man-Beast took control over the gathered followers, forming an army from which he would take over the world. The heroes infiltrated the rally, but were attacked by the "Hate-Monger"--who revealed himself as the Man-Beast, and led his mind-controlled minions in the Legion of Light against them.

(Spectacular Spider-Man II#15) - Spidey and Razorback fought against the Man-Beast, who collapsed a ceiling on them, which shook the crowd in the rally above. While Sister Sun tried to convince those present to remain calm and evacuate safely, Brother Power urged them to seek out their enemies who had infiltrated them, and to destroy them. As the Man-Beast spread his power over the crowd, forcing those easily swain to violence, Sister Sun stood up and implored them to stop fighting and to turn from the path of darkness. Recognizing her betrayal, the Man-Beast removed the limitation from Korba, allowing to use his power on his own, and he attacked Sister Sun. Korba attempted to blast her into submission, but while she used her own energies to prevent being injured, she refused to use her power to attack, hoping to reach him with her heart instead. Spider-Man succeeded in overpowering the Man-Beast, and Korba overloaded his own power and was incapacitated in the subsequent explosion.

Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema.

Sha Shan said that Korba destroyed himself, but the panel before just showed him being knocked aside by an explosion. I'd consider his death unconfirmed...as if being dead really meant anything in the Marvel Universe...

The discussion of events in the real world are often topical, meaning that their exact time period cannot be fit into Marvel's sliding timescale, which keeps moving further forward. The history of Sha Shan, Brother Power, and even Flash Thompson were originally tied into the Viet Nam war/conflict. However, they certainly cannot have been involved in that conflict, spanning a maximum range of 1965-1975, and still be considered characters in their mid-twenties in the modern era.
    Rather than ignore or erase such storylines, Marvel usually tries to adapt or adjust them to fit. For example, it is now established that the Fantastic Four's first mission was not actually to the moon, as first written, but rather to another galaxy. By the same token, Flash participated in a military action in an Asian nation, and his actions as seen in the comic book did occur, however, he was not involved in the Viet Nam conflict. The activities could still have occurred in Viet Nam, or perhaps they could have taken place in the fictional parallel nation of Sin Cong.

Spectacular Spider-Man II#4 references Korba as the same guy that had thrown them out of the restaurant in the previous issue. It was not the same guy we saw in issue#3, but Korba was the owner of the restaurant, so he may have just been off-panel.

Sometimes Sha Shan is spelled with a hyphen and other times not, so take your pick.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

The Legion of Light has no known connection to:

Sister Sun, Sha Shan, has no known connection to:

The Man-Beast, who used the identity of the Hate-Monger, has no known connection to:

 

Sister Sun

Sha Shan was the daughter of a Viet Namese priest. When the Man-Beast came to Earth, her father learned of his plans. Knowing he could do nothing to stop the Man-Beast at this time, he manipulated events so that Sha Shan would be chosen as the balance to Korba, so that she could use her inner light against them when the time was right. Her father surrendered his title as the Guardian of Light to Sha Shan, and passed his power on to her. Though it broke her heart, Sha Shan obeyed her father's bidding, and she married Korba, and then fled to the USA with him after her temple was destroyed by a bombing mission.

Sha Shan joined with Korba, becoming the Sister Sun to his Brother Power, and they formed the Legion of Light. Sha Shan did her best to stay true to the perceived mission of the Legion, the spreading of light and love, all the while biding her time until she might have a chance to oppose the mission. She went along with him until the rally at the Yonker's Coliseum, where she used passive resistance to distract his fury from the heroes and the other innocents and pawns present.

After that she went on to marry and eventually divorce Flash, but that's beyond the scope of this profile. Maybe she'll get an Appendix profile herself, around 2011.

There is no evidence that Sha Shan retained her energy powers after the break-up of the Legion of Light, but there's also nothing to say the opposite, either.

--(Sha Shan) Amazing Spider-Man I#108; (Sister Sun) Spectacular Spider-Man II#12
(AmzSpdm#108, 109, SpecSpdm#13(fb), 12(fb), 3-5, 7,8, 12-15 -->Sha Shan

Legion of Light

Membership: Brother Power, Bobby Sue Hollis, Man-Beast/Hate-Monger, Sister Sun, numerous unnamed

Seeking the path of peace, love, and the light promised by some unseen mystic mentor, many people from across the country were pulled into this cult. The followers spurned all worldly possessions, turning them all over to the movement when they joined, as material things would be of no use when the day of the mentor came. Their mentor turned out to be the Man-Beast, who used his mental powers to enslave the semi-brainwashed and easily manipulated members, turning them into a force for conquest. The plans were resisted by Razorback, Spider-Man, Flash Thompson, and even Sister Sun. Another member, Bobby Sue Hollis, the sister of Razorback, confronted the Man-Beast after learning his true identity and plans, and her distraction provided Spider-Man the means to defeat the Man-Beast.

Following the defeat of the Man-Beast, most of the group dispersed. Some of them, like Bobby Sue, felt that the light and purity they had been seeking was still out there somewhere, and went to look for it.

--Spectacular Spider-Man II#12 (12(fb), 12-15

 

 

 

 

 

images: (without ads)
Spectacular Spider-Man II#12, Cover (Brother Power & Sister Sun main image)
  #4, p8, pan4 (Achmed Korba)
  #12, p5, pan2 (Brother Power & Sister Sun)
  #15, p11, pan3 (Legion of Light)

Other appearances:
Spectacular Spider-Man II#5 (April, 1977) - Archie Goodwin (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Mike Esposito (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Spectacular Spider-Man II#7-8 (June-July, 1977) - Archie Goodwin (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Jim Mooney (#7) & Mike Esposito (#8) (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Spectacular Spider-Man II#12-15 (November, 1977 - February, 1978) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Mike Esposito, John Tartaglione (#14) & Ernie Chan (#15), Archie Goodwin (editor)

Last updated: 04/30/04

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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