Austrian Superheroes

Comic book lovers have known this for a long time already: The U.S. owes ist supremacy to its superheroes such as Superman, Spiderman and Captain America. But now Austria is able to stand on its own two feet: ASH – The new Austrian Superheroes are coming!

Harald Havas is deadly serious about this business. Captain Austria is not a parody. “The Austrian Superheroes are as genuine as Spiderman or Superman.” It seems surprising that no one has thought about creating an Austrian superhero universe before. How much simpler would everything have been for us all this time? The problem with Marvel’s superheroes is that they’re always busy saving the U.S..

Harald Havas’ head had been buzzing with the idea of creating an Austrian counterpart to the American superhero comics for a long time. “My aim was to create a real superhero universe which revolves around characters with superpowers. The important difference is that my superheroes don’t live in Manhattan’s urban canyons but in the streets and squares of Vienna, Salzburg or Graz.”

Harald Havas’ project began to take shape as soon as he managed to transmit his enthusiasm to a team of graphic artists. Among those who joined Harald Havas in the creation of the first sketches for the new superheroes were Leo Koller, Thomas Aigelsreiter and Andy Paar, to name only a few. Their first designs were so popular that it took Harald Havas and his team only ten days to raise enough money to finance the creation of a miniseries via crowdfunding. Consisting of four comic book sequels, this first edition has been published this spring.

The Austrian Superheroes possess various superpowers and are well-built, but not a 100 % perfect. Captain America, the main character of the first book, is a vulnerable hero. He is a student who is not completely sure about whether or not he really wants to be a superhero. But when he suddenly runs into a monster in Blutgasse he doesn’t have a choice anymore – he simply has to use his superpowers. Captain America’s helpers are the elderly “Lady Heumarkt”, a downto-earth woman, the mysterious “Donauweibchen” and “Der Bürokrat”. “This character represents something genuinely Austrian – the officialdom,” says Havas.

It’s obvious that not even American superheroes have the power to fight that…