Western superheroes team with Islamic colleagues
Last Updated: Sunday, July 5, 2009 | 3:58 PM ET
CBC News
The cover of issue #2 of The 99 superhero comic series, titled No Pain, No Gain. DC Comics will be aligning its crime fighters with The 99 in a new project. (Teshkeel Media Group/Associated Press)Comic book heroes such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman will be teaming up with a set of Middle Eastern justice fighters in a new alliance between DC Comics and a Kuwaiti publishing company.
DC Comics' president Paul Levitz says the project is the first of its kind.
"It is a long-standing tradition for characters to meet others in the fictional world, and over the years a lot of the superheroes have been translated into Arabic, taking on ethnic elements. But this is a nice step forward," Levitz told The Guardian newspaper in Britain.
"The most difficult creative test is when you are working with the least precedent and when you're trying to reach an audience that has a different cultural bias and different interests."
Superman and his buddies will be uniting with The 99, superheroes already popular in the Middle East and who personify the 99 attributes of Allah.
Created by Kuwaiti-based Teshkeel Media, The 99 are ordinary people who develop special abilities after coming into contact with a mystical glass. They do not have secret identities and include five female superheroes with one, Batina, who is fully veiled.
The characters — created by five writers who have worked either with DC or Marvel — pray or read the Qur'an.
Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, the founder of Teshkeel Media, said he had hoped the comics would foster dialogue. He said plans for the new cross-cultural comic are still in the development phase but it should be published within the year.
"Are we going to have them working together from day one, or will they think the other is the enemy? … There's plenty of possibilities."
Al-Mutawa, a psychologist by day, said creating the 23 heroes in The 99 has been a tough process due to religious or cultural restrictions.
"It's difficult to have any kind of reading or comic book culture here … Certain storylines don't work and some stuff, like magic, just isn't allowed."
