The 99 is one of the bridges between the East and the West I have ever seen. It's a comic book that spreads the idea of cooperation and understanding.
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Comic books are great fun. Plenty of colours and shapes, superheroes and villains, the fight between good and evil... All those elements are very attractive and because of that they represent the ideal learning channel. While following the adventure of their heroes, the children may learn the difference about good and bad, selfishness and cooperation, or strength and weakness. That also means that it is easy to sell an idea to children through the comic book, and it's easy to sell a bad one. Like it or not, the parents should choose the comic books carefully and pass to their children those that teach good universal values. It is not hard task, for I assume that we all know the difference between good and bad.
While surfing, I encountered the web page the99.org. It is a website about comic books, heroes and it attracted me. But when I realized that it's about Islamic superheroes. The first thought was "It can't be. What Islamic hero does? Fighting the west? Guarding Islamic countries from the western invasion?"
And then I realized that I was wrong. Regardless of having friends from different countries, of different background and cultures, somehow I accepted the widespread thinking about Arab countries. Luckily, the website of 99 was an eye-opener. Not in a religious sense, for I'm not a man of religion, but in a cultural sense.
The 99 is series of comic book about superheroes that come from different cultures and as any superhero they have different abilities. Dr. Ramzi Razem gathered a team to fight for a better world. If you encounter names like Noor, Bari or Jabbar, you'll know that they are from the 99 team.
There are many good thing about The 99, but I'l like to emphasize the two of them. Firstly, The 99 is not a religious comic book. There are 99 virtues as a base of this comic book is based but that's it. If you don't know for those 99 virtues you don't know that The 99 was created in an Arabic country. The team propagates common values that can be found in every corner of this planet. They don't teach that other religion is bad, that other countries are evil, that there's only on truth. On the contrary, their actions are based on universal truth and good.
Secondly, The 99 is one of the bridges between the East and the West that I have ever seen. In the days where American culture is prevailing with its all good and bad sides, it is refreshing to see wonderful comic book that comes from another country. To be precise, I think that American design can be wonderful and there are some works that are not design, they are art. But, it can be seen that America is trying to conquer other market be brute force and the messages are very shallow and superficial. Just look at the movies and you'll see what I mean.
The creator of The 99 is Naif Al-Mutawa, clinical psychologist who published children’s books before he got the idea about Islamic superheroes. Fabian Nicieza is co-writer, and he is best-known for his work on top-selling Marvel titles. This is obviously a winning combination that resulted in Marvel-like comic book full with virtues and totally different from, say, usual superheroes.
The 99 is very nice surprise, a comic book series full of good ideas suitable for every corner of the world. And not just that, The 99 paint a totally different and much more pleasant picture about Islam. ■
While surfing, I encountered the web page the99.org. It is a website about comic books, heroes and it attracted me. But when I realized that it's about Islamic superheroes. The first thought was "It can't be. What Islamic hero does? Fighting the west? Guarding Islamic countries from the western invasion?" 
Secondly, The 99 is one of the bridges between the East and the West that I have ever seen. In the days where American culture is prevailing with its all good and bad sides, it is refreshing to see wonderful comic book that comes from another country. To be precise, I think that American design can be wonderful and there are some works that are not design, they are art. But, it can be seen that America is trying to conquer other market be brute force and the messages are very shallow and superficial. Just look at the movies and you'll see what I mean.