New Zealand Joins The Marvel Universe

Last week saw the release of the "Marvel Atlas" (#1 of 2 for those keeping count). It's your typical text-heavy guide to each country, as it fits in with Marvel continuity. Similar to publications like "The Marvel Universe", it's the kind of thing that's a cool idea and fun to flick through, but not something you'd ever sit down and read cover to cover. I normally wouldn't bother, but well, it had my country in it, so I thought it could be good for a laugh. I give you New Zealand in the Marvel universe:

Hey look, we actually have some mutants. Weeeeee.

First up, the map. Actually not a bad effort, they got the location right, except for Auckland which they missed by a hundred kilometers or so, but atleast it's close. I've seen much worse in supposedly "serious" international publications.

Pohangina is a bloody odd choice to base a character from, it's a tiny rural town. I've been there many years ago, but I'd be surprised if the average NZer could tell you where it is, or that it even exists. I wonder if someone from Marvel had actually been there, or if they just pulled it from a list of place names.

Vital statistics time:

Pretty spot on. Just please note with the armed forces, try not to attack us via the air. We have no combat aircraft anymore, and would really appreciate not being made to look stupid. Well, we do technically still have the combat aircraft, but they're shrink wrapped and in storage while we wait for permission from the US government to sell them...

*cough*

Oh hey look, some international relations, how are those going?

Nothing to complain about there. Marvel had to get a bit more factual for us because there isn't really much relevant stuff happening with us in the Marvel Universe.

This part has me a bit perplexed:

"Prominent Citizens", and all they could come up with was the Prime Minister?! Really? Isn't that a bit, ummm, boring? How about any of these:

• The All Blacks. The most recognisable team in world rugby.
• Sir Ed Hillary. First person to climb Mt Everest. That's pretty superhuman, right?
• Peter Jackson. He makes movies, you may've heard of him.
• Lucy Lawless. Don't pretend you didn't love Xena.
• Rachel Hunter. We export hot women too.

I could probably go on, but I'll stop there. If you don't know anything about our PM, trust me, you're not missing anything.

Atleast under "Domestic Crime" they went for the drug angle, which isn't really that much of a problem anyway. I mean, that's not nearly as embarrassing as our child abuse statisics, or that we're a world leader in teen suicide (maybe that doesn't fall under "crime". Lucky they didn't have a "Things That Are Crap About This Place" section).

History lesson time:

Just note from that last line about "In recent years...", that "recent" means "the last 15 years". 15 loooong years. Somebody just sort it out already.

Would've been nice if they'd mentioned a few other things, like us being the first country to let women vote. That's kinda important, right? Or how we're the best rugby team in the world, so long as you don't mention the world cup that we haven't won in 20 years... *grumble*

I still can't get over that "Prominent Citizens" bit. Helen Clark is actually in Marvel continuity now...

*shakes head*