Sharia-compliant super-heroes:

They are fighting for truth, justice and the Islamic way and are heading for your living room — prepare to say salaam to the world’s first Muslim superheroes.

Despite the ample wrongs waiting to be righted across the Middle East, Superman, Spider-Man and Batman mainly fight evil in America. When the East has featured as a setting for superhero antics — as in the recent film Iron Man — it has tended to be as a source of villainy.

That is about to change, courtesy of The 99, a Sharia-compliant version of the X-Men that has taken the Arab world by storm and has its sights set on the West.

Its mission: to instil old-fashioned Islamic values in Christian, Jewish and atheist children.

Islam, while being unable to hide its contempt for Western civilisation, is keen to adapt many of its fruits – sometimes the most banal specimens.