Earlier tonight, viewers of the member-supported PBS television channel-- a network popularly known and satirized for catering to "intellectual" types --in the United States had the chance to learn about work being done in a very different medium, in a very different place, and had the chance to see just how similar to their own culture it could be. The 99, created and published by Teshkeel Comics (a division of Teshkeel Media Group, LLC), is a super-hero comic book that originated in the centers of Islamic culture. However, the core message that is promoted by the comic and its protagonists is far more international, and distinctly multicultural.



I've often ranted to friends about how the X-Men aren't really all that multicultural; that their original membership was entirely white, with only one member that wasn't initially from to be from some undefined anglo-saxon Protestant background (oddly enough, the member who was arguably the most visibly inhuman). It wasn't until much later that founding member Bobby Drake was identified as being of partly Jewish ancestry, and it's worth noting that several of the earliest foes of the X-Men are explicitly or implicitly of foreign origin-- the Toad is British, Mastermind was visually based on a British actor, Magneto is a European Jew who has posed as Sinti, and his children Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are part Sinti, themselves</a>.

In contrast, the 99 were intentionally and explicitly created as international and multicultural. The "most popular comic book in the Middle East" (although banned in Saudi Arabia) is founded in taking a vision of Islamic-- and perhaps universal --values and sharing them with the world, much as many American heroes share their own values. The world's most recognizable superheroes include Spiderman and Superman, who have become uniquely American (although the latter hero was born from the minds of Canadian youths). With heroes from the United Arab Emirates, the US, Jordan, and ninety other countries currently planned, the scope of the comic may be broad, but none may say that it isn't a good tool for developing stories (except, perhaps, when they run out of countries).

Dr. Naif al-Mutawa is a US-trained Kuwaiti psychologist and businessman, and the "father" of Teshkeel Comics. Building off of a statement to his sister that anything he'd write "after this education," would have "to be something that has the potential of Pokémon", Dr. al-Mutawa drew a series of connections-- from the banning of Pokémon in Islamic nations, to concern over the state of the Islamic world and beliefs, to the 99 attributes of Allah, and finally back to the numbered "attributes" of Pokémon --conceiving an idea that would be the foundation of the 99. 99 attributes are embodied as the abilities and virtues of 99 heroes; but these heroes are not all from predominately Islamic nations, and Dr. Al-Mutawi states that none of the characters are explicitly described as Islamic, although a sharp eye for culture may recognize clues in costume or character.

The 99 has been criticized by conservative Islamic theologians who claim it contradicts Islamic values-- such as that it encourages belief in the power of an individual, instead of Allah --as well as the prohibitions some believers have against visual represention, the same sort of people who complained about the presence of an Islamic character in the X-Men. However, Frontline's footage included scenes of children dancing alongside cosplayers dressed as the heroes of the 99 (including facemasks somewhere between Disney themepark costumes and the more extreme Japanese convention-goers), and there is little praise greater than the widely grinning face of a reader who has just plucked a comic from the shelf.

I'm going to continue to follow the 99, and hope to pick up some issues soon. I'm especially curious how the series will handle certain countries and nationalities, especially Israel/Palestine.

More from Frontline on this topic can be found here.

DC has long had a reputation for unambiguous heroes, clear divisions between villainy and heroism. This reputation is mostly undeserved, but there is a little truth to it.

Characters on covers-- and throughout most of the interior pages --in the nineties invariably are either teeth-grittingly angry, in agony over the loss of a loved one/friend/bystander/arch-rival, wearing a mask that hides all expression, or some combination thereof. Teams always include a single massive "brick" whose only purpose is to charge into combat like a freight train, often while screaming angrily. There was a lot of anger in those comics.


See? Since he wasn't a Doctor, I assume that this Fate's anger may be traced back to getting drunk, dropping out of medical school, and letting a visually impaired tattoo artist get near his face, resulting in partial blindness.


Demonstrating the bit about masks is the sixth person to use the name Manhunter in the DC universe, Chase Lawler. Note the vicious, McFarlane-esque mask; the excessively broad epaulettes that prevent him from raising his arms above his shoulders. His fringed cape is long enough that he should be constantly tripping on it, or at the very least his foes should be able to grab ahold of it. The comedic musculature is another sore note- his feet are almost invisible below his overdeveloped calves, and his arms seem stunted and rigid.


Of course, none of the above couldn't have happened if it wasn't for this little gem of a storyline. Didn't any of the artists from that decade stop to look at a model? Fabric just doesn't do the things they show it doing....

I freaking love the Blue Beetle, and I freaking love the Blue Beetle.

The second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, was one of the first comics characters I ever obsessed over. He was also a second-string Steve Ditko creation desperately trying to be a first class hero. To me, Ted was a techie nerd who spent most of his time being the foil to Booster Gold's jock grandstanding, and making sure he didn't screw up too badly (a role that Booster usually seems to be incapable of operating without) the Penny to his Inspector Gadget.

You can understand that I was saddened when DC shot him through the head.

When DC brought in the third Beetle (no, not George Harrison. Wrong spelling), I decided to pick up his new title series...

...I don't plan on putting it down any time soon.



Jaime Reyes is a rarity in comics: a hispanic superhero who doesn't give sensible readers aneurysms. He's also an interesting, and complex character. He's not as astonishingly intelligent as most heroes (a solid B+ student), but he's a dutiful son and sibling, and a good kid in general. Circumstances have led to him having his parents and closest friends in on his identity, and he at one point seeks parental permission to leave the house late at night perform heroic acts. Jaime has a lot of mysteries to unravel and conflicts to deal with, but some of the more interesting aspects of the comic relate to where he lives, and what he believes in.

See, Jaime's a resident of El Paso, Texas. El Paso isn't a coastal city, unlike most of the places DC comics take place in. It's nearer to the border of another country than any other US city with a superhero, which may come to be important; news commentators suggested that one of Jaime's appearances at a border crossing suggested a personal policy on immigration, and speculated about the political leanings of the new hero.

He's also Catholic, which you might miss if you aren't. If you pick up an issue, take a glance at the family's house: a crucifix often finds its way into the background.

Among superheroes, it's pretty rare that any kind of religion is stated, and the blanket assumption even among the writers is that a hero without a previously described religion will be Protestant. Religious characters, especially Catholic ones, are often either sincerely devout or horrifically lapsed; Jaime has yet to be portrayed as either, making him again a rarity. It's also pretty rare that a hispanic superhero will be believable, and it's even rarer that they're actually interesting.

Maybe this will redeem the fact that the writer had a part in the Catwoman movie.

That's a big maybe, though.

One of the things that always bugs me about US superhero comics is that it always comes out seeming like there's a hundred American superheroes to every superhero who lives anywhere else, and more than three quarters of that hundred are from the northeast coast. Now, I get the reasons why. Superhero comics grew up in NY; Marvel artists openly placed their stories in the Big Apple, basing notable locations on local architecture. As for DC, those with a literary mind might recall that Gotham is another name for New York; Metropolis is most frequently portrayed as being along the eastern seaboard, as well. The Marvel series Runaways features frequent jokes about the general lack of heroes on the West Coast, and the past has seen a single hero taking on the protection of almost the entire southern hemisphere in the DC universe.

Comics have a long, awkward history when it comes to portraying people outside the creator's own culture. Will Eisner's famed hero the Spirit was often accompianied by Ebony White; early X-Men comics (perhaps ironically, considering that team's reputation for diversity) painted European characters as villains in having the heroes face against The Toad (British), and Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (Roma). In part, this is due simply to the expectations of the core market for comics at the time, and the expectations of the comics creators of what their audience wanted to see. It is also likely due to the origins of the comics creators themselves; Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, the aforementioned Eisner, and many other now acclaimed creators began their lives as the children or descendants of Ashkenazi immigrants to the United States and Canada. Raised with the same stories of the differences between their home and "the Old Country" that so many other first generation Americans faced, but without the actual experience of having lived in those lands, many comics creators incorporated Europe-- indeed, all parts of the world --as a half-remembered fantasy world of Gypsies and vampires.

Both DC and Marvel have made substantial efforts recently, although I can't speak to the validity of most of their characters, it's worth examining a few.

MARVEL: THE ARABIAN KNIGHT
In my last post, I briefly mentioned the Arabian Knight, a lamentable Marvel character armed with a magical golden scimitar, flying carpet, and a magic sash. Yes, he had a magic sash. Don't repeat that word too often, or it'll lose all meaning and you'll go crazy. Shirtless and wearing a turban that I'm fairly sure was never drawn in the right style, "Abdul Qamar" was the iconic hero of his nation/region, just as Captain America represented the US in superheroic form, or Union Jack the U.K.

Of course, comics being what they were and are, a crossover is inevitable; the archetypal Saudi hero had to meet the archetypal Israeli heroine. In the "Contest of Champions", Arabian Knight is forced not only to cooperate with Sabra, but to battle beside her, a prospect he finds lamentable. When he refers to her as "a Jewess", even the neocon alchoholic arms dealer Iron Man (how can he qualify as a superhero? HOW?) calls his bluff, pointing out that Abdul's real problem isn't that Sabra is... well, a sabra, but that she's female. So, clearly the real problem between these two isn't that their respective countries-- which they openly represent --hate each other, but that the Arabian Knight is sexist. clearly.

Sabra's been through too many costume revisions to count, but all you need to know to find her is to look for the superhero wearing white, blue, and a tiny Magen David somewhere on her person.

Abdul Qamar would eventually die ignominiously, briefly replaced by an even less-notable second Arabian Knight. However, the pages of Union Jack vol. 3 introduced a new heir to the legacy, Navid Hashim:



I'll admit I'm biased when it comes to this incarnation; he's one of the most attractive men in the Marvel Universe. While he too bickers with Sabra, and his views of her are informed by conservative beliefs about the role of women, his characterization seems more informed by genuine research into international politics and relations. Hashim is loyal to his country, a dedicated fighter against terrorist extremists; while he still carries the scimitar and sash of his predecessor, the carpet has been unraveled and fashioned into a more modern, sensible (although still magical) military uniform. Just the same, he hasn't been around very long; we'll have to wait and see how he compares.

Let's talk revamps.

A lot of times, someone will come along and say that they have a better idea of how to present an established comics character. This is often a response to falling sales or a perceived lack of interest. Sometimes, this affects a major, notable hero...


...and then we remember that there's a reason why DC has employees devoted to maintaining Superman's character. Of course, sometimes a design change is part of a major plot point:



Other times, this is done to breathe life into an otherwise uninteresting character, especially one that might not meet up to the standards of contemporary society, like Marvel's Arabian Knight, who has gone from this--


--to this.


Other times, nobody's really quite sure. A character or group of characters may keep the same art style and personality for years, even decades without changing. Why, imagine what might happen if someone was to come along and completely change the style of a comic which has been recognized for a distinctive style for more than fifty years? What if you took something that had become an inextricable part of Americana, a way of recalling a Rockwell-esque fantasy US that never existed, and turned it into something new and fresh?



*shudders*

Does anyone remember this post, and how freaked out I was about how Captain Marvel looked? Well....



...he isn't looking any better just yet.

Neil Gaiman made himself famous as a comics writer with DC, producing such notable series as The Sandman and the Books of Magic under the Vertigo imprint, he even returned Brother Power from comics limbo. These stories of magic and cosmic forces, geared towards a more mature audience than most of DC's content, made a solid impression that remains to this day. His character Death became an icon even among those who did not read comics, her pale gothic style and frail beauty appealing to many a Poe-like youth.

So, I paid attention when he published a Marvel comic...


...the second time around. When I first picked up an issue of Marvel 1602 and flipped through it, I quickly put it back on the shelf. I was in a hurry, and it didn't look that interesting. More than a year later, I checked out the trade paperback, and realized my mistake. It's an easy one to make: at the outset, 1602 doesn't look that interesting. There are many pages which seem to simply be random characters in period dress conversing. However, a closer look reveals something very interesting. You see, when Mr. Gaiman finally wrote a story with Marvel characters, he didn't just put his own distinctive spin on them. He didn't only write their dialogue with the innate wit of the UK comics writers.

He took those characters, and he put them 400 years back in time.

There are many delights in examining how superheroes and mutants might develop in the 17th century, from the Queen's agent Sir Nicholas Fury, to the handsome and brilliant Count Otto von Doom of Latveria. However, a personal favorite is Sir Nicholas's assistant Peter Parquah, a brilliant young man (though a poor climber) who keeps almost being bitten by unusual spiders...

I'd been hearing good things about Frank Miller's 300, an account of the Battle of Thermopylae in comics form. Now, there are a few things i've come to expect based on Miller's other work- particularly the Dark Knight Returns (a gritty tale of a possible future which did much to dispel the character that Batman had recently acquired in popular media), and the now famous Sin City series.

I did not find what i expected. Yes, there was much of the Mars energy that dominates Miller's other works, so full of muscular men, slender women, and 90s-style comics ultra-violence. I've often been uncomfortable with the over-sexualized way Miller presents women, to say nothing of the sheer pointless brutality of some of his work (the worst of this is most likely The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Please, don't get me started on that one.)

However much i may be uncomfortable with some of Miller's themes, his tastes and style... i can't say he's a bad comics artist. He is an excellent artist, one of the best. He's the sort of artist you hate to love, who you wish would do something else; even though you know that the artist has the final say, you still want something else.

300 is something else, and it's brilliant in every meaning of the word.

Miller's strong Martian themes are suited very well to the telling of this event in history, if only because these are Spartans. I have little doubt that Miller put some of himself into the character of the soldier-storyteller Dilios, and indeed every other man in this book, Spartan and otherwise.

Above all else, I am astonished at the sexuality and beauty of many of the men in this book. From the nude athleticism of the Spartans and their king Leonidas, to the rich garb of Xerxes and his swarming armies, one might very easily miss the two pages of a writhing feminine form.

I must admit, I have some difficulty forming an unbiased criticism of this book. But then, I grew up on D'Aulaires', and this is Sparta.

Most superheroes have secret identities, and nearly all of them have some kind of home. However, it's a lucky few who have a lair.

While the idea of a secret hideaway where a character can remain safe from any potential threats seems more in keeping with the superstitious and cowardly character of criminals, there are some good reasons for a hero to keep a lair. For those who have a secret identity, the lair is a place you can relax without changing out of costume (or into it). Sometimes this security is achieved through being removed a great distance from threats, or being accessible only to the hero. Other times, it is cleverly hidden, often behind secret passages. Some are in plain sight, but are protected from intrusion by the abilities of the heroes themselves (Westchester isn't exactly the middle of nowhere in the Arctic). A few aren't even secret, and may even be famous within the world of the heroes.

How a hero finds their lair is an important factor. Golden Age heroes often inherited or simply laid claim to their private domains, demonstrating the same authority and high birth that permeated every other aspect of their background. Later heroes may outright purchase lairs and refit them to suit their needs, while others go so far as to put an enemy's former lair to good use.

However, what truly makes a lair is not simply being a place to recover, meet with other heroes, or monitor emergencies worldwide. It is something more, as Nightwing notes:



A lair is a testament to the hero's ability. If they are the latest in a long line of heroes, it may serve as a memorial to the accomplishments of their predecessors. Most frequently, they hold trophies and mementos from past adventures, or tributes to fallen friends and family members. In essence, a lair is comic book continuity given form.

...no wonder they get blown up so often.

...

why do I have a copy of Extremely Youngblood? I couldn't stand Youngblood, or Image Comics, for that matter.

I mean, really:


WHY?