Meet Wave, the first Filipina Marvel Superhero, in a photo posted on Yu’s Instagram.
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Leinil Francis Yu, a Cebuano artist who is now based in Manila, is making waves online for doing the visuals of Wave, the first Filipina Marvel Superhero.
Yu said that his 20-year love for drawing led him to do the visuals for Wave.
He also took inspiration from other comics that he has read, from movies that he has watched and video games that he has played.
“I played a lot of scinfi shooter games so I’m quite familiar with tech and weaponry. Videogaming has it’s perks, guys” Yu said.
Just this weekend, Yu made a name for himself when Greg Pak, an American director and writer, tweeted the look of the newest Marvel comic character, Wave, where he acknowledged Yu’s work on its visuals.
“I was first picked up by Whilce Portacio’s studio. After a year of training in his studio along with my colleagues like Gerry Alanguilan, he (Portacio) sent my stuff over to Marvel Comics and immediately (I) got started on Wolverine (years back).”
This year, he was picked by Pak to do the visuals for Wave.
“She (Wave) was conceptualized on paper by writer Greg Pak and I came in for the visuals with Marvel’s direction and blessing,” Yu told Cebu Daily News Digital.
Wave is a Cebuana Marvel character, who will make a debut in May for the comic series “War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas” where she will be defending Asia from Malekith, a cursed fictional character appearing in Marvel Comics.
Yu joked that he is saddened that someone else thought of making a Cebuana Superhero character for Marvel Comics before he could.
“Sadly it wasn’t my idea to make Wave Cebuana, Naunhan ko,” joked Yu.
“I would looove to take credit for that as I was born in Cebu, but it was Greg’s idea. He does his research.”
When asked to describe Wave, Yu said that “she’s very new so I can’t say much about her yet.”
“She was conceived by Marvel and Greg Pak in the script and I was later brought in for the visuals and design. My peg was a whole body swim suit and that she is water and tech based, maybe with goggles.”
The Cebuano artist has been working with Marvel for 17 years and has been doing some of Marvel’s illustrations and some costume changes for some characters./ dcb