So the website called dbltap had made an article on which nationalities they want represented in Overwatch. With the upcoming Overwatch 2 we wanted to brainstorm some ideas for the proposed nationalities. For this article we will talk about what our potential Iraqi Hero for Overwatch 2 could be, their name, story, play-style, colours/costume, personality and most importantly who can Blizzard hire to voice act the role.
Name
For this potential Iraqi character we decided we need to think of a name. The easiest answer is to look at the most famous figure in Iraqi culture: Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is, in basic terms, the first ever superhero. He was Iraq's version of Herakles before Herakles was really around. The Epic of Gilgamesh is so far the oldest written story ever recorded and the oldest written text barring Hieroglyphics from Egypt. But to fit the futuristic technology side of the Overwatch universe, our Iraqi tank hero will go by Gilgamech because he will be in a mech suit much like D.Va. But who is the guy in the Mech suit? For a realistic name, we felt a name like Hussein Al-Jabiri could be appropriate. Hussein being related to the name Hassan which can mean Handsome, Beneficial and Masculine. With Al-Jabiri being derived from Al-Jabbar which can mean Giant, Powerful and Mighty would fit perfectly for this. In fact one of the scientists involve in the backstory of the Oasis map (in Iraq) has the name Youssef Al-Jabiri. So a connection can be made between our hero and this Overwatch Map.
Story
The city of Oasis was founded by 4 scientists, Ibrahim Hassoun, Anya Al-Shahrani, Youssef Al-Jabiri and Mehmet Farhat. Hussein would be a relative of Youssef who was involved in the creation of construction armours called the Gilgamech. The Gilgamech's primary function was to do heavy duty lifting and provide aid and protection to people in the construction area. At some point Moira high jacked one of the laboratories in Oasis where she conducted her illegal research that lead to her and Reaper's signature powers. Hussein could have been part of the team that help build the city. But then comes across Moira's corrupt experiments. By the time of Overwatch 2, Hussein has ransacked the lab and destroyed her data left behind believing that will be the end of it all. However after Talon brings itself public, Hussein decides to work against them for their actions in Oasis. Notably the Vishkar Corperation shows interest in Oasis, so a potential team up with them could be at hand for the sequel.
Playstyle
In the case of Hussein. We decided that his Gilgamech should play out as a tank hero with healing capabilities for the team. Not only are we taking inspiration from the legendary Gilgamesh from the Epics, but also some modern tank like superheroes from recent years. Most notably the healing tank play style will be influenced by Marvel's Lebanese American hero Fadi Fadlallah aka Amulet and Teshkeel's Nawaf Al-Bilali aka Jabbar the Powerful. Both heroes are young muscular and tall Arab lads with super human strength as their main attribute. so lets begin with how Gilgamech will play out.
Primary Fire the Gilgamech's Rocket punch. The Gilgamech's Rocket punch functions very much like DoomFists' straight punch but rather than Gilgamech lunging, the mech will blast the fist to provide a long ranged punch that stuns the enemy and can do extra damage if they are punched into a wall or collateral damage if the enemy crash into their teammates.
Secondary fire for the Gilgamech will fire an orb similar to that of Moira but coloured differently. The orb can surround a targeted enemy or an ally in a bubble but has two effects depending on who is targeted. When the orb hits the enemy an encases them in a bubble, any damage done by the enemy will heal Gilgamech and his allies. While the bubble shield is active, the enemy will also find themselves moving slower, unable to be healed by allies or a health pack and if there are hit by Gilgamech's Rocket Punch or quick melee, they will bounce away becoming a ball of death towards the enemy team if they make contact. The impact will cause the bubble to burst prematurely but the bursting of it will do extra damage to the enemy and their allies caught in the splash range whilst having a healing affect for Gilgamech's team. If the bubble surrounds one of Gilgamech's allies instead of an enemy. Any attack the encased ally take's causes them to heal momentarily. When the bubble bursts again, it causes splash damage to the enemy team and a lot of knockback whilst healing any allies including Gilgamech if they are within the splash range.
For Gilgamech's Ultimate we have the Gilgamech health rise phenomenally (Similar to Winston), and Gilgamech will be gigantic as the mech grows to a towering height. During this state the mech is covered in extra sheild that heals nearby allies close to Gilgamech (but the shield can drop fast due to being a bigger target). Gilgamech can only quick melee with back to back punches similar to the JACK robots in Tekken. Hitting the ground or walls cause shockwaves and hitting enemies send them flying (extra damage if pinned into a wall or the ground).
Gilgamech's unique ability will reference the Oasis map's lore. Gilgamech can place the surveillance drone similar to Symmetra's on any surface. In the lore, the Surveillance of Oasis allows temperature control through mist dispersing and allows predictive surveillance to prevent crime. Gilgamech can place these surveillance drones to create a mist that makes the enemy visible through walls for Gilgamech and his allies much like Hanzo's sonic arrow. The mist has a secondary side effect that makes it difficult for the enemy team to see the allies cloaked in the mist. This will fit perfectly into how Oasis works and with Gilgamech's original design being a construction and surveillance mech when the city was being built.
Gilgamech passive ability is his wall cling and climbing. Much like Hanzo the Gilgamech can climb walls just by moving towards them or can cling if the player stops moving during the climb. Combine this with the surveillance drones mist. Gilgamech can be completely cloaked from the enemy and easily can the drop on them. The drones can be destroyed if an enemy damages it enough, but they can be difficult to spot unless a character like Sombra can locate them with her hacking ability or a character like Moira whose orb can automatic damage nearby targets.
For Quick Melee, the Gilgamech will have a punch but it works differently to other quick melees in that holding or mashing the button will have Gilgamesh use both fists to repeatedly throw rapid fire punches back to back against the opponent.
Costume Colours
We feel for the colours for Hussein's Gilgamech they can be based off multiple important things to Iraqi culture.
One being the Blue and White colours of the Nazar, an eye shaped amulet intended to protect from the Evil Eye. This concept fits the surveillance and protection side of the Gilgamech's design and this colour scheme was used for Marvel's Lebanese American Hero Fadi Falallah so we will give some credit for that inspiration too. Also imagine his surveillance drones looking like large blue and white eyeballs. Sound cool right?
His other colours can include red and white the colours of Nawaf Al-Bilali aka Al-Jabbar's costume from the 99 who is another hulking strong arab young hero. Red and White are also colours used on the Iraqi flag.
Another reference to the Iraqi flag can be a green and black (the other two pan arab colours on the Iraqi flag) for Gilgamech's more military colour scheme though it can comparable to Lebanese American Simon Baz aka Green Lantern.
Another superhero reference can have Black and Yellow to reference Black Adam who is from Egypt.
Black and White to reference Marvel's Gilgamesh or Green and Gold to reference the upcoming MCU version in Marvel's The Eternals and finally a vague one can be a Purple and Red colour scheme based off Kamal El Alaoui a presumably North African Arab mutant from the X-Men comics who is also a hulking giant with the ability for his skin to mimic any material he touches granting him armour and super strength.
Alternate Costumes
For alternate costumes again we look into the Epics of Gilgamesh for some inspiration. His initial Gilgamech armour will be inspired by the main character of the Epics. His other costmes can take inspiration from Enkidu the wildman and best friend of Gilgamesh maybe with a Red and Yellow Asiatic Lion motif.
Utnapishtim the builder of the Preserver of Life (the Ark) from the Mesopotamian Deluge myth. Utnapishtim is said to be Gilgamesh's ancestor and was awarded immortality for his role in the deluge. Gilgamesh sought him out for immortality, a costume base on this character could range from a Naval Officer like the Lascars (some of the first Yemenis in the UK arrived as Lascars in places like Cardiff) to reference Utnapishtim's role as an ark builder and sailor.
Other potential costumes with an animal motif can include the Asiatic Lion or the Caspian Tiger both felines's being native to Western Asia with some statues of Gilgamesh showing him wrestling a lion or tiger like creature possibly representing Enkidu or the Forest Guardian. In fact this guardian of the Cedar Forest in the Epic of Gilgamesh was Humbaba/Huwawa a giant monster with the appearance of a humanoid Lion, horns of a bulls and a tail with a snake head could also be another inspiration for a costume, if the Caspain Tiger is used for a costume the colour scheme can shift for Orange and Black.
There was also the Bull of Heaven sent to obstruct Gilgamesh and Enkidu in their journeys and finally the Sumerian goddess Ishtar even threaten to raise every person that ever died to kill devour the living (I.E Zombie Apocalypse) which could give us an interesting Halloween inspired costume idea with the Mech being a sarcophagus looking armour and Hussein inside dressed also a re-animated corpse.
Finally Gilgamech can have a few occupational based costumes like construction worker referencing his role in building his city. A security or police to reference the Oasis stage's strict surveillance equipment. A wrestler since the legendary Gilgamesh was said to be wrestler and many Arab American wrestler put on a villainous Heel personality that Hussein could play up for fun. Finally a Boxer costume can be a good way to reference that the oldest records of fist fighting/pugilism comes from ancient paintings in Iraq and it would fit the rocket punches of Gilgamech.
Personality
Hussein will be considerably friendly and if not a bit boisterous. Having similarities to a young Reinhardt, he is heroic at heart and relishes in a job well done. Many of his quotes may reference "building" strong bridges and giving "constructive" criticism to his allies. Get it? because his mech was originally a construction mech. He tends to drop his sweet heroic side and become a little more callous when he interacts with Reaper and Moira for their involvement in the underground lab and illegal experiments in his beloved city, he shows some of this towards other Talon members. He will express a slight disgust and rivalry with Doomfist due to Hussein love for Wrestling and Boxing and his disappointment that Doomfist is now the head of a terrorist group one of which Hussein has a hatred of. He will show a more friendly interaction with Symmetra due to the Vishkar Corperation intentions to fund some project in Oasis but Hussein is unaware of this which may add to his interaction with Lucio who dislike Vishkar for similar reason Hussein would with Talon.
Hussein's victory poses can include one of him flexing in his Gilgamech armour. One where he is spinning one of his drones on the mech fingers like a basketball. Finally one of them can include him pointing one finger up at the sky with his arm extended higher.
Potential Play of the Game animations can include him climbing up a wall and dropping in with the three point landing (aka the superhero landing). Another idea can be the mech entering its giant form whilst setting up a drone on the wall (we see him from the Drone's POV) with him smiling as if he is taking a selfy through his own surveillance drone. Finally the third PotG animation can include the Gilgamech performing multiple rapid fire punches before blasting the two arms as rockets towards the camera.
Finally his dance. We felt that Hussein could easily do a variation of the Dabke, a style of Levantine dance mostly practiced in many Arab countries. It is essentially a form of line dancing and circle dancing done in a group. A specific style found in Iraq is the Chobi dance. It is mostly associated with Iraqi Assyrians but we feel Hussein can easily still represent Iraq as a whole with this dance as a part of it. This style compared to other Dabke styles has more pronounced leg elevation and swaying. Each legs swiftly kicks to the air and repeats. Arms sway forwards and backwards. Here's a little video example below.
Voice Actors
Overwatch is known to try and cast voice actors with the correct accent and language skills for some of their characters. If we can have a say in who Blizzard could cast for this potential Iraqi character. We have a few Iraqi descended actors that can pull it off. Take a look.
British Iraqi martial artist and actor. He is best known for his role as a scholar Sied in Predator: Dark Age, Nabeel Aziz in Bound, Agent Amari in Street Fighter: Resurrection, Suleiman Faidhi in Letters from Baghdad, Judah in Jesus: His Life and also made a small cameo in the Aladdin film as one of the Prisoners. While many of his roles have been minimal, he is no stranger to using an Iraqi accent or speaking Arabic doing these for roles like Sied, Agent Amari and Suleiman Faidhi to name a few examples.
Iraqi born American actor is best known for Prince Tariq in Dream: Inspired by a True Story, Mr Adbul Khan in Breaking Tradition, Merrick in More Beautiful for Having Been Broken, General Savas Demir and will be appearing in upcoming role as Mousa in Marzipan. Since he was born and raised Iraq until 1991 when he came to the US. He is a natural choice to speak Arabic with the Iraqi accent without even trying.
Born in Iran to Iraqi parents then raised predominantly in Australia. Osamah Sami is a multi talented Iraqi Australian actor. His best known role was the Titular character Ali in Ali's Wedding, which was the Winner of the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at Sydney Film Festival, and won The Age Critics Prize for Best Australian Film. His screenplay earned him an Australian Academy (AACTA) Award, an Australian Writers Guild Award, an Australian Film Critics Association Award, and a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Screenplay. He also appeared in several other acting roles such as Sharif Doumani in Kick, Sami in Two Refugees and a Blonde, Hadji Adhib in Jack Irish, Nadim in Journey and will be appearing as Majid in the upcoming film The Furnace. Being a fluent speaker in English and Arabic along with French, Persian and Spanish. His voice has a lot to offer.
Danish Iraqi actor Dar Salim is best known for his role as Qotho the brother of Jason Momoa's Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones, he also appears as Azzam in The Devil's Double, Zaid in Darkland and plays the titular character Jamil in Go With Peace Jamil. He has made many TV appearances as Amir Dwian in Borgen, Peter in Bron/Broen, Bo Skytte in Dicte: Crime Reporter, Dar in Jerks, CC in Warrior, Abbas El Fassi in Spring Tide, Jamal Al Othman in Ofaero and Milad in Deliver Us. With a long list of credits and likely well known from his time on Game of Thrones, he would be great choice for a potential Iraqi character.
Iraqi born Welsh actor known for using his deep baritone voice for bad guy roles. He could reinterpret that same tone of voice into a more heroic deep toned voice instead for this role. He is best known for roles such as Merek in Being Human, Majid in Inside Men, the Uncle in Captive and Roof in Sprint Breaker. His more recent roles include Hooka in Mosul and City of a Million Soldiers. As well as Omar in Baghdad Central. Being another bilingual actor that can speak Arabic and English with an Iraqi accent, we reckon he also should get a shot on this if Blizzard was to introduce an Iraqi actor.
What do you reckon? should Overwatch 2 introduce an Iraqi hero based on this concept?
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