Technically, the Son Goku who is worshipped in Taoist and Buddhist philosophy isn't exactly the spiky-haired guy who used to spend multiple hours on weekday afternoons straining to make his follicles turn blonde. But the star of Dragonball Z did, at least, begin life as a loose adaptation of the star of Chinese folk tale Journey To The West. The story that's probably now best known for its adaptations (from Dragonball to cheesy dubbed seventies TV show Monkey Magic to recent Jet-Li movie The Forbidden Kingdom) has its roots in actual mythology. Which doesn't have a whole lot in common with those goofy martial arts-centric stories, but everything to do with a monkey king on a flying cloud. The actual story of Journey To The West is that a monkey man, a pig man, a turtle man and a monk are tasked with travelling from China to India to retrieve some scared texts for the Buddha. Which, even when you divorce them of their later adaptations to other media, is still a pretty weird bunch to pay your respects to on the regular.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
