issue 20 // volume 44

Marvel's fake countries and
where to find them

> Six of Marvel’s weirdest fictional nations

Greg Waldock
Staff Writer

 

Sonam you want a comic about
political intrigue and patriotism.
Unfortunately, that will almost always
be hugely depressing because an
actual civil war or assassination will
eventually happen in that real-life
country, and suddenly it’s a lot less
fun to read. Marvel’s answer was to
create fictional nations based loosely
around geopolitical hotspots. Here
are a few of the more fleshed-out

ones from the comics and movies.

Wakanda

Probably the most famous and well
fleshed-out of all the fake Marvel
countries. Wakanda is a West African
nation that managed to avoid the
devastating effects of colonialism and
neo-colonialism by hiding itself away
and cutting off all communication to
the outside world. Its capital sits on a
vast mine of Vibranium, the fictional
MacGuffin mineral that Captain
America’s shield is made of. The Black
Panther is the protector and king of
this country, though poor T’Challa gets
deposed and exiled on a fairly regular
basis. Wakanda is in perpetual war
with Atlantis, because comics tend

to turn very weird, very quickly.

Latveria

The biggest of Marvel’s surprisingly
large number of fictional Eastern
European countries, Latveria is the
home country of, and ruled by, Doctor
Doom. It has been a medieval country
ever since actual medieval times,
complete with peasants in tunics,

Chairman of the Board: Furry fun

horse-drawn carriages, and roving
bands of Roma. Latveria averages
about three civil wars per decade. This
really isn’t surprising, since nobody
named Doctor Doom is going to be

a popular and benevolent leader.

Sokovia

Another fictional Eastern European
country, best known for falling out of
the sky in Age of Ultron. It’s basically

a Generic Post-Soviet Sad Place and

is never explored further—which is a
shame, because it might have the most

realistic-sounding name of them all.

Transia

One last fake Eastern European country,
this time modelled as a sort of post-
Soviet Roma nation. It’s the birthplace
of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
Magic runs deep here, and most of

the population lives around Mount
Wundagore, a witchcraft-steeped
mountain that was briefly the home of

Morgan le Fey. Yes, of Camelot. Because...

Camelot

Of course this is also a place in the
Marvel Universe. It appears first when
Doctor Doom and Iron Man get trapped
in the past and have to reluctantly work
together to escape. King Arthur, the
Knights of the Round Table, Morgan le
Fey, and Merlin all appear as cartoonish
as you would expect. Somehow Camelot
later ended up being in another
dimension, but it doesn’t matter much
because nobody read Captain Britain.

Attilan
The historic home of the Inhumans,
who are basically X-Men if the X-Men

> ‘Pina Pirata’ board game review

Ed Appleby
Senior Columnist

 

kk

his game actually has an element
that I have never seen ina
board game—pirate furries.

Pifia Pirata (2014) is a matching
card game for two to six players designed
by Donald X. Vaccarino and published
by IELLO. In the game, players try to
match cards in their hand to the card
on top of the discard pile in an attempt
to empty their hands. The player who
first empties their hand wins the round,
and the player who is the first to win a
set number of rounds wins the game.

The gameplay is similar to other
matching card games like Uno (1971) or
Crazy Eights. However, as the gameplay

progresses, certain cards come into
effect that slightly change the rules,
giving the game a bit of randomness
similar to what you would see in Fluxx
(1997). Though the game is designed
to be fast-paced, I found that certain
players tend to overanalyze their options,
leading to games slowing down—which,
in a turn-based card game with a lot
of people, can be very frustrating.
Visually, the game is great: The
anthropomorphic pirate illustrations
by Sylvain Guinebaud are very well
done and add a whimsical tone
to some very basic gameplay.
All in all, I found Pifia Pirata to be
a fun and simple game, and a good one
to play with friends in a casual setting.
I wouldn't recommend it for players
looking for a more complex, strategy-
driven game, but if you want to upgrade
from Uno then this is one for you.

were an ancient culture long sundered
from humanity. Attilan is a city-state
that spent thousands of years on an
island in the Atlantic, but over the

last two decades it has bounced to the
moon, an alien world, the Himalayas,
and finally the Hudson River in New
York City. This is the birthplace of Black

Bolt and the entire Inhuman cast.

 

 

arts // no. 7

Art of Wakanda via Marvel Comics

Atlantis

If Camelot exists, why not also Atlantis?
Here, Atlantis is ruled by Namor the
Sub-Mariner, one of the first villains
the Fantastic Four ever fought. He’s an
arrogant, megalomaniacal merman who
rules his city like Doctor Doom rules
Latveria (harshly), before being deposed
and punching his way back to the top.
Namor is also a hero, though, because
any threat to Earth is a threat to Atlantis.

Illustration by Ed Appleby