South Africa has a new defender in the recently launched comic series Kwezi.

Created by South African artist Loyiso Mkize, Kwezi uses the classic idea of a young hero coming of age while dealing with his own insecurities and braggadocios. Whereas DC Comics heroes operate in fictional cities such as Gotham and Metropolis, Kwezi is based in Gold City, a stand-in for Johannesburg, South Africa.

Self-aware and nuanced, Kwezi would fit inline with Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker's Invincible in terms of a teen hero and the theme of responsibilities of family, friends and civilization.

Mkize has been creating comics professionally since 2009, and is one of the main artists of one of the most popular comics in the world: the African sports comic Supa Strikas, which has a circulation of more than a million copies monthly (but isn't distributedin  in the United States).

Mkize has self-published three issues of Kwezi since beginning last year, with plans to complete the story after 12-issues. The first issue is available to read online. Here's a sample of the covers to the first three issues, as well as pages from Kwezi #3:

[gallery link="file" ids="210074,210075,210072,210076,210077"]