Vo Binh Dai

VO BINH DAI

Real Name: Vo Binh Dai

Class: Human

Occupation: PAVN soldier, farmer

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: unnamed grandfather, unnamed parents, unnamed siblings (deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: South Vietnam, formerly Nam Phong, North Vietnam, 1960s era

First Appearance: Other Side #1 (December, 2006)

Powers: Vo Binh Dai was a competent soldier armed with a rifle and hand grenades. Dai was brave to the point of being reckless.

History: (Other Side #1, 2) - <1967> During the Vietnam War a recruiter for the People’s Army of Vietnam arrived in Vo Bing Dai’s village, looking to recruit young men for the combat in South Vietnam. Dai volunteered, and his parents were proud of him, telling him that if he had to die, he should die gloriously. His father gave him his most prized possession, a gold watch he’d once taken off a French soldier. On the march to the south Dai’s commander pointed out a ruined mansion from Vietnam’s phase as a French colony, and he told his men they’d conquer the American invaders as surely as they had the French. Dai sensed ghosts that had died violently and had not been properly put to rest. He found a small Buddhist shrine, prayed and left offerings for the restless dead. Dai heard stories from his fellow soldiers about numerous atrocities committed by the Americans, and had nightmares about the Americans, wearing monstrous Hindu masks slaughtering villages and murdering him and his comrades. Dai’s training was complete, and a train took him the rest of the way to South Vietnam. He marveled at the beauty of his country, and prayed to the Buddha that if he died defending it his sacrifice would not be in vain. Dai’s unit passed by several villages, with the villagers giving them food and weapons and praising them for their heroism, making Dai feel invincible. Over weeks of marching Dai saw some of his fellow soldiers die of dysentery and malaria, but vowed that he would stay strong and stay alive. He dug a grave for one of his comrades when a tiger dragged the body off. He pursued it to a wrecked Buddhist temple and was confronted by several tigers surrounding him. He raised his gun, swearing that his fallen comrade would not become another restless ghost wandering the jungle. The tigers slunk back into the jungle, and Dai believed his prayers to the Buddha had been answered. A week later Dai and his comrades met their latest guide, a woman who’d been scarred and savaged by the Americans. She told them the chemicals the Americans had dropped were causing babies to be beorn deformed, and she’d started seeing unnatural things in the jungle. She told the soldiers they were on a road to damnation and while several of Dai’s comrades wanted to turn back he kept them in line, believing they were divine retribution and would be unharmed.

(Other Side #3, 4) - Many of Dai’s comrades died in a bombing on the Strategic Trail, and his comrade Xuan pleaded for them all to turn around and go home, but the survivors refused. Their guide died in the bombing, and Dai’s unit was soon lost. They came across a village the VC had taken over, and the VC slaughtered the villagers, calling them traitors. Dai reflected that the stories of heroic warfare his father had told him were not reflected in Vietnam’s current conflict. The war got worse for Dai, with constant bombings forcing his comrades to travel only by night and sleep in tunnels during the day. Soon Dai could no longer sleep, haunted by the screams of his dying comrades and the explosions of bombs falling overhead. He began having visions of dead soldiers rising up and pursuing him, and wondered if he, himself was already dead. Dai’s comrades came across the Khe Sanh military base, where the VC had the American base surrounded. An attack helicopter fired on Dai’s comrades and the VC, and Dai had a vision where it transformed into a dragon. Bullets whizzed by him, but he stood his ground before the copter, declaring himself mightier than dragons, and brought it down with a hand grenade. A Marine unit responded, and among the Marines was Pvt. Bill Everette, a young man who was haunted by visions of the dead similar to those Dai was having. The enemy forces engaged in a firefight, and Bill ran around telling everyone to cease fire because a butterfly, which he thought was speaking to him, was in danger of being hit in the crossfire. Sgt. Bayer grabbed him, telling him to get down, and Bayer was fatally hit in the neck by enemy fire. When the firefight was over Dai passed out, and had a vision of an enormous god cradling him, telling him his war was not over. Dai and his comrades found shelter with a People’s Army regiment in Quang Tri. Dai was sick with malaria, and had fever dreams of being surrounded by corpses as far as the eye could see. He thought about what his life could have been if he hadn’t volunteered to go to war. Dai had dreams of farming as his father and grandfather had before him, of starting a family and teaching his children the lessons of Gautama Buddha. He saw his village razed by a dragon, his family slaughtered by the Americans. He woke to People’s Army soldiers talking about how the war would be the death of them all. Xuan finally deserted, and Dai said he did not care. Even if the government lied to them about the war, he didn’t fight for the government, he fought for his family and his ancestral homeland.

(Other Side #5) - Bill Everette, now completely shell-shocked, waited in the trenches for the VC to overrun Khe Sanh and kill him. Dai and the People’s Army made an assault on the base, and as soldiers on both sides were brought down Dai and Everette locked eyes. Bill shot Dai, who crumpled into the barbed wire, dead. His last thoughts were of his pride in being a soldier and farm rin this life, and wondering what he’d be in the next. Bill found Dai’s journal and the pocketwatch his father had given Dai before going off to war. Bill desperately wished he could read the journal so he’d understand why Dai had to die, and why Bill had to be the one to kill him. He had a vision of a fire pit opening beneath him and the dead soldiers that haunted him trying to drag him to Hell. Bill was wounded in combat before the war ended, and was brought back home to Alabama. Home no longer felt like home, and his family no longer recognized the young man that had gone off to war. Bill spent almost all his time sitting alone in his room in the dark, his only company being the ghost of Vo Binh Dai.

Comments: Created by Jason Aaron & Cameron Stewart.

In The Other Side a U.S. Marine is shown reading 1960s’ DC Comics, indicating that the series might well take place on Earth-Prime.