Tiago de Moraes Brings Brazil’s RADIUS Universe to a Global Audience | Comic Crusaders Podcast #781

There are plenty of futuristic superhero stories out there, but RADIUS immediately separates itself by asking a much nastier question: what happens when people willingly trade their freedom for comfort?

Brazilian creator Tiago de Moraes das Chagas joins me on the Comic Crusaders Podcast, alongside his friend and interpreter Valdéres Barbarelli, to introduce us to a universe Tiago first imagined back in 1996. RADIUS takes place in Metropolitan Marília in the year 3121, where dictator Major Pimã controls a society through technology, psychological conditioning and the promise of stability. Citizens believe they are free while actively participating in the very system controlling them.

At the center is Lukas Xagas, a practitioner and instructor of Hukeira, a fighting style blending Brazilian capoeira with Indigenous huka-huka wrestling. Captured and experimented on by the regime, Lukas is transformed into Radius, an energy-powered living weapon whose containment suit prevents his abilities from destroying him. He doesn’t become a hero because he dreamed of wearing a costume. He becomes one because somebody tried to turn him into a tool.

That Brazilian identity runs through the entire project. Tiago draws on Indigenous mythology, modernism, national identity and concepts tied to works such as Macunaíma, while using science fiction to explore control, inequality and the gradual loss of autonomy. The book even cites ideas surrounding the “happy slave,” where people believe themselves free while voluntarily cooperating with systems controlling them.

Then there’s Pituco. Inspired by Tiago’s real rescue dog, Pituco becomes the emotional anchor of RADIUS, representing empathy, companionship and humanity inside a world designed to suppress all three. Following the real Pituco’s death in 2024, the character also became an act of remembrance and legacy for his creator.

RADIUS already spans three published volumes forming its first major arc, with the first establishing the world and Radius’ origin, the second expanding the conflict and giving Pituco a larger emotional role, and the third bringing that opening storyline to a conclusion while leaving room for the universe to expand.

Now, thirty years after the idea began, Tiago is preparing RADIUS for its next chapter and a much wider international audience.

Check out our conversation as we talk Brazilian superheroes, dystopian sci-fi, cultural identity, freedom, Pituco, independent publishing and what it takes to keep one fictional universe alive in your imagination for three decades.

Follow RADIUS

https://www.instagram.com/radiushero/

https://radiushero.com.br/

THE CRUSADE NEVER ENDS! WEPA!