Back in the ’90s, younger Mr Bizry’s parents owned Videoland. Think Blockbuster Video’s baby bro.
 

So naturally, he grew up watching movies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes the same movie for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
 

Videoland meant unlimited movies. For Mr Bizry, this was paradise. For his siblings... character building.
 

Poor Mazen, Mimi and Mirna didn’t choose the superhero life. It was chosen for them by their baby brother Muhammad.

He loved movie quotes, impressions and dramatic re-enactments. His siblings loved when it was his bedtime. 
 

Fast-forward to older Mr Bizry... not old old. Let’s not offend him this early in the story.
 

In 2019, (the calm before the COVID storm)... he walked into a bookstore (not naming names 👀) looking for relevant, inspiring books for his beloved kids, Aishah and Umar.

And yep, you guessed it.
He couldn’t find anything superhero-ish that they could really relate to.

So instead of ranting on social media about why we don’t have something... he thought, how about we make something?

And then it hit him.

Islam already had the original heroes.

And the best part?

They weren’t born from screens. They were real.
 

And that’s where the famous line was born:

“Before the Avengers, We Had the Messengers.”
 

That should’ve been Endgame right there (mind the pun).
 

It wasn’t.
 

Unfortunately, Mr Bizry had access to more ideas.
 

The next was: Let’s create awareness.
 

So he did.
 

He delivered countless khutbahs about how before Superman, we had Sulayman عليه السلام, and before Wolverine healed himself, we had ‘Eesaa عليه السلام healing someone else.
 

The khutbah was so well received that he was asked to deliver it several more times.

(Apologies to anyone who accidentally attended the reruns.)
 

Normal people would have stopped there.
Mr Bizry is apparently not one of those people.

He had another idea:
 

Let’s publish a children’s book.
 

So he did.
 

In 2020, his first children’s book, There’s a Sea Monster in My Bathtub, was published on Amazon Kindle.
 

And the book did extremely well...

...at one single launch story night in Carnes Hill.

That’s about it.

Yep.
 

It flopped.
 

But Mr Bizry wasn’t going to let that become his kryptonite. (Sorry. We had to use that somewhere.)
 

Another idea entered the chat:
 

“Kids love comic-book heroes... why don’t we turn the book into a COMIC?”

Actually...

“Why stop at one?”
 

So he enrolled in an online comic-writing course with Adam Beechen, a DC Comics writer, and wrote a four-part comic series:

Before the Avengers, We Had the Messengers.
 

At this point, the idea had stopped being an idea and started developing a budget.
 

Only one small problem.

Comics need comic artists.

Good comic artists.
 

So he jumped onto Freelancer and found Gaston Muyano, a specialist comic illustrator.

Super artist. But super rates to match😅.
 

So naturally, Mr Bizry had another idea.
 

What if the Muslim community helped fund the comic and, as a thank-you, we released it FREE online for the Ummah?
 

So he did.
 

In early 2026, enough funds were raised to illustrate the entire first book.

Mission accomplished. Book 1 is officially in the illustration stage, walhamdulillaah.
 

Surely he would stop now.
 

Dear reader, he did not.

...

Unfortunately for me writing this, and you reading it, Mr Bizry’s brain kept ticking.
 

He said to himself:

“Why stop at a comic book?”
(Of course he did.)
 

“What if this became an entire...
 

UNIVERSE?!”
 

Alhamdulillah he stopped at “universe” and didn’t say “multiverse.”

(Although yes, he definitely thought it.)
 

Comic books — stories kids can read.
 

Pop nasheeds — stories kids can hear.
 

And eventually, in-shaa-Allah... stories kids can watch with:​

‘Before the Avengers, We Had the Messengers’: The Movie.

With your help, plenty of Laylatul-Qadr du‘aas, and probably a few fundraising dinners in Bankstown...in-shaa-Allah, we’ll get there.

How did one trip to a nameless bookstore get this out of hand?
 

We’re still trying to work that out.