Now there is a comic book with heroes like Sami-The Listener from the Sudan, Jabbar-The Powerful from Saudi Arabia, Musawwira-The Organizer from South Africa, Widad-The Loving from the Philippines, and Hadya-The Guide from the UK. These are the superheroes of the first comic strip based on Islamic archetypes, The-99, created by Naif Al-Mutawa, a clinical psychologist from Kuwait and CEO of Teshkeel Media Group, a Middle East based company its Website describes as "focused on creating, re-engineering and exploiting all forms of children’s media based on or infused with localized culture, beginning with a proprietary superhero concept." As Al-Mutawa explains in this article, the point behind The-99 is to promote dialogue where it rarely happens. "Imagine the good that can come from a frank conversation between THE 99's burqa clad hero, Batina the Hidden, and JLA's Wonder Woman the, well, the not so hidden," he says. Reminding his audience that superheroes like Spiderman and Batman were created by young Jewish men during a period of heightened anti-semitism, Al-Mutawa hopes the superheroes of The-99 will prove a proper and effective Muslim response at a time of heightened Islamophobia. I'm downloading various issues from the comic books' Website and will have some more comments on the significance of this kind of religiously-inflected contribution to global popular culture. Al-Mutawa will be presenting his latest work and leading a panel on The-99 at our upcoming conference on Islam and the Media January 7-10, 2010 at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The discussion promises to be very interesting.