Arab and South Asian superheroes are fighting crime and breaking stereotypes

Iraqi-American comedian Abdallah Jasim’s new comic Crestar and The Knight Stallion is available now

Crestar and The Knight Stallion is a new take on the superhero genre combining humour and the immigrant experience in the US. Photo: Abdallah Jasim

Sure, it's a superhero's duty to save the world. But what if they have a curfew?

That is the premise of Crestar and The Knight Stallion, the recently released comic book series by Iraqi-American comedian Abdallah Jasim, co-created with South Asian-American director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad.

“Imagine you can fly and leap from building to building, you have super-strength and save people on a daily basis,” Jasim tells The National.

“But you have to be back home by 6pm because you live with your Arab mum and she's a little scarier than the scariest villain you're about to fight.”

Jasim, who lives in Michigan, goes on to explain that Crestar and The Knight Stallion is a unique take on the superhero genre combining epic scenes and comedy, set within the migrant communities of Arabs and South Asians in America.

This combination of elements comes naturally to Jasim and his style of comedy. With more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, Jasim often goes viral with his impersonations and observations of Arab and western culture.

With the first issue now available to purchase online and published by Chaos Quill Comics, Crestar and The Knight Stallion is set in Detroit where Iraqi-American Ali works at a petrol station and lives with his strict mother.

She is obsessed with marrying Ali off, while he dreams of a bigger future. One night he finds himself in a sticky situation as he attempts to stop criminals who were stealing a car. When he survives the violent accident, his potential for superhuman powers is discovered by the already established Crestar, a South Asian-American superhero.

Their newfound partnership sees them working together to fight crime in Detroit, learn what it means to be real superheroes and navigate the cultural traditions of the Arab and South Asian communities.

“The problem with today's content and movies, when they create Arab or Desi characters, it's always kind of whitewashed,” Jasim says.

“We wanted to change that idea. We wanted to create a story that is relatable to everybody, not just Arabs or Indians, everyone can see this story and understand it.”

One of the ways to create a relatable story, albeit one steeped in Jasim’s own experience as an Iraqi-American, was to create characters with depth and humour.

There is clear irony in the character of the Knight Stallion, a powerful superhero who is afraid of his mother and her traditional expectations of him. This dichotomy is something Jasim believes is both aspirational and relatable to a wide range of audiences.

The same applies for other characters in the story, such as his partner Crestar. The Batman-like figure is an incredibly skilled fighter, who uses his own advanced technology to fight crime. However, as soon as he sees a girl his social anxiety gets the better of him.

As a comedian, Jasim recognises the fine line between laughing with characters or turning them into caricatures that reiterate negative stereotypes.

“When it comes to the Middle East, India or Pakistan, when people create content about those places, it's always a parody. It's never serious,” he says.

“What we're trying to do here is not make fun of the cultures but showcase the cultures in a funny way. We want to bring that out to the world through these characters, honestly.”

A comic with viral video roots

The Crestar and The Knight Stallion comic was initially born out of a viral video.

Three years ago, Jasim was approached by Ahmad, who had directed the English language action horror Jinn (2014) and the Bollywood film Perfect Mismatch (2009).

Ahmad saw potential for a collaboration between himself and Jasim, and the pair initially envisioned Crestar and The Knight Stallion as a live action TV series.

They spent months working on a script, imagining and writing out this very specific superhero world and creating the characters and their backstories. Based on the script, Jasim and Ahmad created an hour-long pilot for the series in which Jasim played the Knight Stallion and Ahmad played Crestar.

When the trailer for the pilot was released it went viral, gaining more than a million views across several social media platforms.

While the creative duo were approached by several entertainment companies, they felt it was important to build their superhero world in a more in-depth way and grow a strong and dedicated audience before creating a live action show.

Since they were dealing with the world of superheroes, it made sense for them to start at the home of all superheroes – comics.

“If we wanted to create a whole [television] season with our story, it would cost several million dollars,” Jasim says.

“We realised with a comic book we can actually create the universe that we want and then create the actual live action right after.”

While the duo work on upcoming issues of the comic, which will be released every month and will soon include an audio version, Jasim is looking forward to seeing people’s reactions to their take on the superhero genre.

“Once people see the comic and how fresh and new this take is on superheroes, it's going to be the start of a really exciting adventure,” he says.

“We'll see what happens but there’s definitely no limit with this.”

To buy the first issue of Crestar and The Knight Stallion visit www.goldenapplecomics.com