Whistle-blower Edward Snowden becomes a comic-book hero

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden is appearing on the pages of a comic book in a new graphic biography promising to reveal "the man behind the headlines".

was created by Marvel Comics' writer Valerie D'Orazio. The story is narrated by one Virgil Hall, a "scholar of the weird, the unexplained, the hidden and the suppressed", who will take readers through the issue, "looking at the story and the story behind the story", said D'Orazio.

The book, published by Bluewater Productions, was scheduled for publication yesterday.

An extract explains how "in May 2013, Edward Joseph Snowden carried out one of the biggest leaks of classified information in US history ... revealing an elaborate internet and phone surveillance programme conducted by the United States and British governments", writes D'Orazio. "He is one of the most wanted men on the planet ... just who is Edward Snowden?"

Another shows Glenn Greenwald, then a writer for , meeting Snowden in Hong Kong for the first time.

"Snowden told Greenwald that he could be identified by the Rubik's cube he held in his hand. Commented Greenwald after seeing his informant for the first time: 'I had expected a 60-year-old grizzled veteran, someone in the higher echelons of the intelligence service. I thought: 'This is going to be a wasted trip'," writes D'Orazio, taking her cue from journalist Ewan MacAskill's report of the meeting.