Marvel Comics says it is taking “disciplinary action” against one of its artists, who inserted Islamist and antisemitic references into a comic book, according to the comic news website comicbook.com.
Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf says he included in X-Men Gold #1 hidden references to the election of the governor of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta.
The vote has been one of Indonesia’s most polarizing elections, and is about much more than about choosing the city’s leader. Bitterly contested between the Chinese Christian incumbent, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, and his Muslim rivals, who won support of hard-line Islamists, it represents a choice between pluralism and increasingly fundamentalist Islam taking root in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where many religious conservatives say a non-Muslim should not hold high office.
In one scene in the book, Ardian says he drew the character Colossus with a T-shirt that says “QS 5:51” — a reference to a Quranic verse that, according to fundamentalist interpretations, prohibits Muslims from electing a Christian or Jewish leader.
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