Why Marvel picked Greymouth
The comic-strip writer who included the South Island locality of Greymouth in his latest Avengers comic book hasn’t been to New Zealand.
The West Coast town is one of several sites shown being destroyed by supervillain The Challenger in a sequence in Avengers #688, the latest instalment in the Marvel Comics series.
The Challenger is trying to destroy the world with his earth-shattering superpowers as hero Quicksilver races to stop him. The locations where he wreaks havoc include Rio De Janeiro, New York, Yokohama and Greymouth.
The disaster montage was written by Jim Zub, who said he stumbled upon Greymouth while doing some research on earthquakes.
‘‘I did some research on earthquakes and noticed that the Alpine fault line ran through part of New Zealand, so I thought it would be a good hotspot for danger if the world was shaking,’’ he said.
‘‘I pulled up Google Maps and zoomed in on the west coast, looking for population centres. The name ‘Greymouth’ stood out to me and, after reading a bit about the town, I felt it would work well as a real-world location to show how dangerous things were all over the globe but also be a spot that readers wouldn’t expect.’’
Greymouth is listed as a high-risk earthquake zone by the Government. A 2013 exercise simulating a large quake along the Alpine fault found that Greymouth would suffer from severe liquefaction and deaths from falling buildings.
Greymouth’s panel in Avengers #688 could, conceivably, be an artistic interpretation of the town’s Kingsgate Hotel.
Zub said he like to include places his readers would not have heard of when he wrote superhero comics.
‘‘When I’m writing superhero stories, I try to create stories outside expected locations and surprise readers with places they may never have heard of before. I think it helps enlarge the world these heroes inhabit,’’ he said.
Stuff was the second New Zealand media organisation to make contact with Zub about the comic. ‘‘I never expected this kind of response, but I’m glad it’s created a little bit of buzz,’’ he said.