With scores of superhero films due for release, from Spiderman, to Batgirl, Thor and Black Panther, and a global comic book market predicted to grow to $12 billion a year by 2028, we go behind the mask of these larger than life characters, to look at the role Superheroes play in different societies and cultures around the world, and ask, do we need them more than ever today?

Canadian Chinese actor Simu Liu discusses becoming the first Asian superhero in a Marvel Universe film, Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. He tells reporter Anna Bailey how his path to acting wasn’t always easy or a career his parents originally approved of, as penned in his new memoir We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story.

Pakistani illustrator, comic artist and writer Umair Najeeb Khan discusses his new comic book generation of heroes, the Paak Legion, with Tina Daheley. It includes Samaa, born with the ability to manipulate the wind, Afsoon, the Protector of the Mountains and Haajar, a mother of three, fighting crime on the streets of Lahore. Growing up in Pakistan, he couldn’t see himself represented in this world, so he designed a set of Pakistani superheroes of his own.

And reporter Paul Waters visits the Superheroes, Orphans & Origins exhibition of comic art at London’s Foundling Museum and talks to comic artists Woodrow Phoenix and Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom about their work exploring the psyche of superheroes.

Producers: Andrea Kidd and Simon Richardson

(Photo: Simu Liu in Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. Credit: Marvel Studios)