ABSTRACT
This chapter explores graphic novels which in a sense reverse the theme: their Northern patriotic heroes cross the border into the South, entering enemy land as spies, or 'scouts' as they are dubbed. Before pursuing this theme as it is played out through the characters of North Korean undercover agents, it examines a recurring enemy, the US imperialist. The chapter examines how the 2000s undercover agent war stories involve the reader through an aesthetic of excess, subversion and hyperreality – a process of staging patriot bodies, minds and discourse beyond enemy lines – and defines the typology of the wartime homeland hero and of the foreign antagonist. The heroes disguise themselves as all kinds of enemies: South Korean soldiers, military officers and intelligence personnel; the daughter of a South Korean industrialist and a translator; a small-scale industrialist miner and restaurant owner.
