White Heron is a superhero webcomic written by Krazy Krow under the pseudonyms LindsayXian and Sara Parks, illustrated by Fernando Furukawa, and published on WEBTOONS and the Spinnerette website beginning in 2018.
Initially billed as a prequel to Spinnerette, White Heron is an alternate-universe spinoff set in 1982 and chronicles the adventures of Kim Jeong, a teenaged supersoldier with time-manipulation powers who defects from North Korea and joins the South Korean military's 707th unit under the command of Captain Park, eventually becoming the eponymous superheroine.
Unlike Spinnerette, which started as a tongue-in-cheek parody of Spider-Man and retains its comedic roots, White Heron is a serious military drama with superhero trappings and is light on the comedic elements. In 2023, an attempt was made to secure funding on Kickstarter for White Heron to be published as a graphic novel, though it did not meet its goals.
Links: WEBTOONS
, Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3, Issue 4
White Heron contains examples of the following tropes:
- Alternate Continuity: White Heron is set in an alternate timeline from Krazy Krow's other shared-universe webcomics Krakow and Spinnerette.
- Asian Fox Spirit: Corporeal Chae prefers to go by her nickname Kumiho, after the Korean version of the multi-tailed fox-spirits. When Park Seong nervously asks if she actually is one, she quips that she enjoys eating her enemies' livers to scare him—though Captain Park reveals that the nickname actually comes from her taste for chicken livers.
- Badass Normal: Captain Park—who in Spinnerette is Marilyn Seong's elderly butler—easily overpowers Kim Jeong in a sparring match while trash-talking her... at least until he lets her tap into a bit of super-speed.
- Boom, Headshot!: Kumiho headshots a pair of traitorous guards using a .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun as a sniper rifle.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: While the bulkiest of the team's members, Ozawa is a featherweight when it comes to alcohol—after only one glass of bear, he is horrified to learn that owning a Bible is illegal in North Korea and promptly gifts Kim Jeong his copy, then immediately passes out.
- Cover-Blowing Superpower: When North Korean agents bomb a dam to flood Hwacheon, Kim Jeong is forced to blow her cover to save the citizens, earning herself the moniker of White Heron in the process.
- Culture Clash: Kim Jeong is awestruck by all the amenities available in South Korea, having never even seen a vending machine before, and she assumes that Pepsi is an American Super Serum.
- Darker and Edgier: As opposed to the supernatural harem comedy of Krakow or the superhero spoof of Spinnerette, White Heron is a largely serious military drama that features gratuitous violence.
- Date Peepers: When Captain Park learns that Kumiho let Park Seong take Kim Jeong on a tour of Seoul, he tails after them like an overprotective dad.
- Death Faked for You: Captain Park tries to pull this at the end of Chapter 3 by faking Kim Jeong's death so that she can live a normal civilian life instead of being exploited by the military for her superpowers, but it doesn't last more than a couple of weeks before she's forced to blow her cover.
- Defector from Decadence: What inspired Kim Jeong to defect from North Korea was a South Korean manhwa her brother swiped from a South Korean military base. When he got caught and was punished by being publicly beaten and transferred to Research and Development, Jeong's loyalty continued to fracture until she assumes that Hyun had killed her brother to create the Omega Serum from his organs.
- Femme Fatale Spy: Agent Byul is a busty red-haired secret agent who wears a slinky dress under her military coat, and when Jeong asks how she gets her top-secret intel she smiles sultrily, winks, and asks how Jeong thinks she got it.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: White Heron attempts this when interrogating a captured spy, after the concept is explained to her by Park Seong. When Captain Park's threats of seeing the spy hang fail to get him to talk, Jeong volunteers to take over. The spy is unimpressed at first, mockingly asking if Heron is going to have sex with him in exchange for his intel... until she smashes the steel interrogation room table like it's made of wet cardboard and threatens to do the same to him unless he talks.
- Head Crushing: In Chapter 3, Captain Park delivers a Finishing Stomp to the treasonous interrogator's head, crushing it like a grape.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: In Chapter 4, Captain Park attempts this by signing himself and the other members of the 707th unit up as members of the Civic Defence Force stationed in Hwacheon, though Kumiho compains that her new hat isn't as cool looking as her black beret.
- Innocent Bigot: Jeong is initially leery of working with Americans due to being raised on North Korean propaganda, and accuses them of being perverts when they make her dress in a skintight leotard to test her powers.
- Military Superhero: Kim Jeong was part of a North Korean supersoldier program before she defected, only to be co-opted by the South Koran military as a supersoldier of their own, with her white bodysuit and red cape being used as propaganda for the war effort.
- The Mole: The South Korean government's interrogator is revealed to be a North Korean spy, injecting himself with Omega Serum and giving Kim Jeong the Sadistic Choice of killing the 707th's troops—to whom she just spilled North Korea's military secrets—or having her arms and legs chopped off and being taken back in a suitcase. Jeong decides to Take a Third Option and triggers the bunker's countermeasures to incapacitate the interrogator long enough for the serum to wear off, with Captain Park summarily executing him for treason.
- Monstrous Humanoid:
- Lieutenant Dalgyal of the North Korean Metahuman Special Forces is a metahuman supersoldier who looks like an alien out of Dragon Ball Z—with pointed ears, no nose, no hair at all, and a third eye on his forehead.
- One of the metahuman supersoldiers who debuts in Issue #4 can transform into an amphibious humanoid monster with a tail, a feline face, and needle-sharp fangs... and has a taste for human flesh to go with it.
- Mood-Swinger: Director Cho goes from furiously berating Captain Park for disobeying her orders to keep Kim Jeong's existence a secret to smirking while noting that once the South Korean President gets over his fury that the 707th tried to keep Jeong a secret he was thrilled that South Korea finally has a superhero of its very own, before snapping at him to not screw up again.
- Multinational Team: In Chapter 5, Director Cho assigns PFC Park Seong and SPC Ozawa—the former an American of Korean descent and the latter third-generation Hawaiian of Japanese descent—to work with the team.
- My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: When Park Seong and Ozawa dress her in a skintight leotard to test the limits of her powers, Jeong calls them perverts and lies her powers will let her know if they're ogling her by sensing the flow of their blood to any part of their body.
- Not Quite Dead: Jeong believes her twin brother Pak to be dead as a result of General Hyun's horrific experiments to replicate and weaponize their powers, but it's revealed that he's still alive... barely, having been reduced to a seemingly-comatose dessicated husk with Prematurely Grey-Haired suspended in a vitrine.
- Politically Incorrect Hero:
- Kim Jeong is initially prejudiced against Americans due to North Korean propaganda, though Kumiho assures her that she has nothing to be afraid of.
- Park Seong's nickname, the Kimchi Cowboy, was given to him by American troops stationed in South Korea. Kumiho notes that it's more than a little racist, but Park doesn't mind.
- After learning that Park Seong has taken Kim Jeong on a sightseeing tour of Seoul, Captain Park is horrified and berates Kumiho for playing cupid before going into overprotective surrogate dad mode, saying American men only have one thing on their minds.
- Power at a Price: Kim Jeong's powers work by altering her personal flow of time to give her superhuman strength, speed, and durability... though overusing it comes at the cost of a backlash effect that leaves her effectively frozen in time from anywhere for a few hours to potentially years.
- Sensual Spandex: When Park Seong and Ozawa have her dress in a skintight white leotard, Kim Jeong complains about how skintight it is, calls them perverts, and says her powers will let her know if they're getting any "strange ideas". Later, when her measurements are being taken for her White Heron costume, she complains about how form-fitting it's going to be and the tailor remarks that any loose fabric would risk a Wardrobe Malfunction, but adds a cape to somewhat preserve her modesty.
- Shipper on Deck: Kumiho quickly notices that Park Seong and Kim Jeong are crushing on each other and goes out of her way to pair them off by suggesting Seong take Jeong on a tour of Seoul, calling herself "Cupid with a .50 caliber arrow". When Captain Park finds out, he's less than amused and acts like an overprotective dad whose teenaged daughter has snuck out on a date.
- Super Serum: General Hyun vivisected Kim Jeong's brother, Kim Pak, to produce the Omega Serum—which temporarily gives those injected with it similar time-warping abilities to the siblings.
- Super-Soldier: Kim Jeong and her brother Kim Pak were inducted into the North Korean Metahuman Special Forces under General Hyun alongside Lieutenant Warthog, Lieutenant Dalgyal, and others.
- Super-Speed: Kim Jeong's time-bubble powers let her run fast enough to move horizontally on walls and even run on water.
- Super-Strength: Kim Jeong's time-bubble powers let her life massive weights single-handedly with barely any effort.
- You Fight Like a Cow: While sparring with Kim Jeong, Captain Park does not hold back when criticizing her fighting technique... or lack thereof.Captain Park: Sloppy! Is that how they train soldiers in the DPRK? I can see how that fat old man almost beat you! You broadcast your every move, you're too reliant on your super speed.
