Posted on 08/12/2008 3:06:39 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Like other kids the world over, Middle Eastern children have long fantasized about superheroes battling injustice in American cities or fighting beasts in Japan. Five years ago, they got some champions of their own to cheer on when Kuwait-born businessman Naif Al-Mutawa created a new breed of superheroes endowed with Muslim traits and virtues. Now Mutawa is on an even greater mission: taking those same Islamic characters around the world.
The 99, a comic-book series based on characters that each personify one of the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God, met early resistance in places like Saudi Arabia. Local authorities worried that the series might mock Islam. But after Mutawa guaranteed that he would remain respectful of religion and won backing from a major Islamic bank, the series took off around the Gulf. Initially given away for free with Arabic versions of Marvel comics (the license for which Mutawa owns in the region), The 99 is now a stand-alone success, with some 500,000 copies given away and sold across the region in the past two years.
Now Mutawa wants to spread the word farther. The first of six planned theme parks based on The 99 will open in Kuwait this October, and Mutawa hopes that an animated television show will hit airwaves around the world by late 2010. Working with writers such as Fabian Nicieza, who wrote for the Power Rangers and X-Men comics, and a group of managers including an exRolling Stone publisher and Marvel's former marketing chief, Mutawa believes The 99 can succeed in non-Islamic markets. "Our characters are appealing to kids across the world," he says. "We have been able to sell licenses to India, Bangladesh, France, Spain, the U.K., the United States and Canada."
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Headlopper Man, Honor-Killer, 7th Century Centurion, Splodeydope, Goatman & Vulture............
hmmm, lemme see... able to stone his sister (while bound),faster than a terrorist running from the guy wearing the "lucky vest", head harder than woodpecker lips...
Already done on that old "The Tick" cartoon with "The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_in_The_Tick
Hey look! Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s...Kaboom! Ka-boom, a visitor from another mindset fights for ruthlessness injustice and the sharia way!
"Captain JIHAD!!!" ?
You took that first one right out of my fingertips. Should have been faster!
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