Middle East


Middle East
Category:	Region
Continent:	Asia
Locale:	Asia/Africa
Points of interest:	Afghanistan; Azaran; Egypt; Israel; Kahndaq; Kuwait; Syria; Turkey

The Middle East (or, formerly more common, the Near East) is a region that spans southwestern Asia and northern Africa. Mistakenly and only in the last five to seven years some have added Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India to the list of Middle Eastern countries. However, those three countries are located in South Asia not the Middle East.

The Middle East played a small yet vital role in the 1967 film Yongary, Monster from the Deep. In the film a bomb is detonated in the Middle East which awakens Yongary, an ancient reptilian monster who begins creating earthquakes and moving towards South Korea. ^[1]

The fictional country known as Azaran was also located in the Middle East. Azaran was a pivotal setting in the The Andromeda Breakthrough television series, itself a sequel to the short-lived 1961 series A for Andromeda.

The fictional country of Baradhi was located in the Middle East, possibly in or near the country of Turkey. The city was considered lost and forgotten, though it had a small community of people. The leader of the city was Chartham, who hailed from a long line of telepaths. They worshipped a god they called Noah, who was apparently an extraterrestrial from the Land of Light, much like the modern hero Ultraman. Baradhi was raided by a giant insect monster called Antlar, who destroyed the city's main temple. (Ultraman: The Blue Stone of Baradhi)

In the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman, OSI agent Jaime Sommers was sent to an unidentified Persian Gulf country where she had to go undercover as a tutor to the Crown Prince, a young boy named Ishmael. The true purpose of her mission was to prevent an assassination attempt against Shah Ali Ben Gazim by the country's Prime Minister. ^[2]

In DC Comics, the fictional country of Qurac is located in the Middle East. Qurac is intended as an analog of Iraq and has been presented as one of the world leaders in state-sponsored terrorism. Classically, the leader of Qurac is President Hurrambi Marlo. Qurac has been featured in titles relating to Superman, the Teen Titans and the Suicide Squad.

The Image Comics character Hassan Kussein is a terrorist from the Middle East, whose organization, the Holy Unification, occupied territories in Israel and Cairo, Egypt. The international response unit Youngblood tracked him down to his desert bunker where team member Psi-Fire killed him by making his head explode. ^[3]