Arabian Superheros
From
NorthJersey who got this from the Washington Post.
Arab superheroes leap pyramids in a single bound
He's a mild-mannered philosophy professor who wears button-down shirts, lives in a drab, anonymous apartment and pronounces maxims such as "There is no glory without virtue" and "Free will pushes toward creativity." But beneath the meek and pedantic exterior lies a buff, masked fighter in tights who is endowed with supernatural strength and a mission to "fight evil until the end of time."
Holy banality! Not another self-effacing Everyman who is actually a powerhouse, the stuff of comic book creations ranging from Batman to Spider-Man through Superman to Zorro! No, this is new - at least for the Middle East.
The professor is Zein, a.k.a. the Last Pharaoh, billed as the first Arab superhero in a year-old line of comics. It's time, his creators say, to move beyond Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, those Westerners laboring in Metropolis and Gotham City. Bring on Amgad Darweesh, Zein's alter ego, who is 14,000 years old and lives in Origin City, which, with its pyramids, museums, traffic and random chaos, looks a lot like Cairo.
And the Mullahs will probably excoriate this as an influence from the Great Satan. (western culture) Are they that out of touch? Kids need heroes and these are far and few between over there...
Posted by DaveH at February 28, 2005 11:03 AM