'Jihadi Cool'

Did I mention that these are Muslim superheroes?

A graduate of Tufts University in the United States with a triple major in clinical psychology, English literature and history, the 37-year-old Al-Mutawa also has a keen sense of symbols. Mainstream comics in the West have drawn heavily on Judeo-Christian narratives and iconography, he says. Why not create a cast of characters whose powers echo Muslim history and traditions? And because his company, Teshkeel, is the distributor of Marvel and DC comics in the Middle East, Al-Mutawa knows just where to find top writers, pencilers and inkers to make his new publications as polished as any on the market.

The core conceit of the series is that when the Mongols sacked the great city of Baghdad in A.D. 1258, their main target was its magnificent library. They "planned not only to conquer the greatest empire the world had ever known, but to eradicate its hope—its potential—thereby destroying its future," the narrator tells us in boldface block letters. "That would require more than sword and club, sinew and blood. That would require destroying the empire's true base of power … that would require destroying its knowledge."

In the final cataclysmic moments of the Abbassid caliphate the scholars used alchemy to impregnate 99 magical gems with the vast knowledge held in the library. Those "Noor Stones," as they are called, have been scattered around the world, but when they are found and matched up with the right person, they give him or her a phenomenal power akin to one of the 99 names of God: Jabbar is a Hulk-like figure of enormous strength; Noora has power over light; Darr is the inflictor of pain; Raqib is the watcher; and so on. There are about a dozen so far, of whom my favorite is Mumita, a petite, street-smart girl whose name means "the destroyer."

(Reading down a list of the 99 attributes of Allah, it's clear some will be easy to interpret as superheroes, like Musawwir, the fashioner of forms, Mutakabbir, the tremendous, and Hakim, the wise. Some may carry too much religious weight for a comic, like Rahman and Rahim, the most beneficent and most merciful. And some present intriguing challenges to the imagination. I'm looking forward to a superhero called Latif, the subtly kind.)

The essential conflict in the story is an X-Men-like rivalry between Dr. Ramzi, who wants to gather together the Noor Stones and their bearers to do good, and Mughal, who wants to gather them together for, ahem, world domination.