Comic effect: ‘Invincible’ Kim

Despite chronic hunger in North Korea, leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to build an “invincible” military in response to what he calls the hostile policies of the United States. Like the teenaged superhero in the US comic book of the same name, Kim had a powerful father and assumed his unusual powers early in life - after the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011. But the net result of his decade-long rule has been enduring hardship and suffering for his countrymen, and an entrenched position as an international pariah.