In the wake of Superman and Batman’s astronomical success, comics publishers in the early 1940s tried every sort of variation and combination of do-gooder they could imagine—including a Muslim superhero from Algeria. Like so many of these characters, he was eventually forgotten and ultimately consigned to the public domain. That is where in 2015, over 70 years since his last adventure, I found Kismet, Man of Fate.
The swashbuckling Algerian cut quite a figure: Bare-chested, cape-adorned, gloved, with a jaunty fez, and flapping jodhpurs under his boots. However, besides a solid right hook and a moral mission to take down Nazis wherever he found them, little was ever revealed about the character. In a way, that worked in my favour. If I was going to bring him back, I could imagine—or re-imagine him—however I liked.
My background as a researcher and writer of comics (the skewed versions of Greek myths in my Mortal Coils series, an inverted version of Exodus in The Lone and Levels Sands) would obviously serve me well. Working with a team of creators on art and lettering, we could make for Kismet the comics series he always deserved. This was shortly after the shootings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, at a time when Islamophobia was at an all-time high in Western media.
Kismet wasn’t the only Muslim superhero; Marvel Comics had recently launched a new Ms. Marvel, Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan, to great acclaim. (In fact, the character has gone on to star in her own Disney+ series and in the upcoming The Marvels major motion picture.) But, for me as a comics creator and scholar on the medium, bringing back the first Muslim superhero in comics felt entirely overdue. And badly needed.
Kismet would also, finally, have a civilian identity (Khalil Qisma), a backstory (former Barberousse prison guard), and a tragic past (a lost family). In a bit of Captain America-esque plot device, I could whisk him to our present to face the Alt-Right, the rise of Trump, and the hostile American climate. After making his return in the Broken Frontier Anthology through fan-funded Kickstarter, he would go on to star in his own title for the first time, the graphic novel Kismet, Man of Fate: Boston Strong.
I brought Kismet to Boston as the city was struggling with an unrest reflected nationwide. The Boston Marathon Bombing was only a few years prior, and the ripple effects of Charlotteville’s “Unite the Right” rally was bringing further such demonstrations to my hometown. It felt very much like the right time to take this international character and land him in the middle of a familiar struggle. After all, Algeria had its own turmoil with French colonisation in the years following Kismet’s first publication, and having a Muslim character espouse the superheroic virtues of truth and justice against the MAGA tide struck me as a positive, progressive, and peaceful narrative for the time.
The response domestically was enthusiastic and supportive; the reaction overseas was…nothing. Silence. An American take on an Algerian superhero (even one first published here in the U.S.) seemingly proved uninteresting to a Middle Eastern audience. Of course, superheroes as a genre did not have the same popularity here as there, and the comics industry had much more of an underground, independent tone in Egypt and the UAE than the mainstream narratives popularised by Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
In addition, superheroes also faced a unique challenge in some of the Islamic-majority nations. One of the biggest success stories, a superteam called The 99 from Teshkeel Comics in Kuwait, had been charged with blasphemy in 2014*. A Saudi Arabian fatwa was issued against the series — which had its own animated TV show and theme park in Jahra — even though it had previously been reviewed by sharia scholars. The creative property went dormant for several years, although there have been some recent rumblings of an eventual return. I made a note, as we continued our new series, to make an effort at further promoting Kismet to this distant audience, as well.
However, like so many projects and real-world lives, the global pandemic disrupted Kismet’s publishing plan, a second volume aimed at corruption in Washington, D.C. and agendas to “drain the swamp.” Still, reinventing this classic character for a modern context has remained wholly worthwhile, and his 70-year hiatus shows he can bounce back at any time. As with the best superheroes, there’s always the opportunity for Kismet to face off against the next generation of fascism and bigotry. The “never-ending battle” continues!
*The National on Sunday, April 26, 2014