Val Verde has appeared in a number of films, television programs, and comics by de Souza: •
Commando (1985): the exiled dictator Arius (
Dan Hedaya) of Val Verde blackmails John Matrix (
Arnold Schwarzenegger) into assassinating the current president. The country is an 11-hour flight from Los Angeles, placing it approximately from California. •
Supercarrier (1988): in the episode "Rest and Revolution", the USS
Georgetown docks in Val Verde just as civil war breaks out. •
Die Hard 2 (1990): the former dictator of Val Verde, general Ramon Esperanza (
Franco Nero), is being extradited to the United States. •
Adventure Inc. (2003): the episode "Plague Ship of Val Verde" concerned an outbreak of a highly-communicable disease on an island off Val Verde. •
Sheena (2007-2023):
Devil's Due Publishing's contemporary reboot of the classic 1940s
comic moved the setting from Africa to Val Verde. There have also been appearances outside of de Souza's own work, linked either by shared personnel or by a direct reference. For example: • Neither of the two countries in which
Predator (1987) is set is named on-screen, but De Souza believes that the bulk of the movie takes place in Val Verde.
Predator, like
Commando, was produced by
Joel Silver and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, in
Predators (2010), Isabelle (
Alice Braga) states that the events of the original film took place in
Guatemala, though part of the film's first act takes place in another unnamed country. The
Predator novelization by
Paul Monette also places the events in Guatemala, while the unnamed country of the first act is given the name "Conta Mana."
Mark Verheiden's
Predator comics for
Dark Horse specify that the original movie took place in Colombia. • In the 2020 video game
Predator: Hunting Grounds, the events of the film are explicitly said to have taken place "over the border" in Val Verde, including in
DLC audio logs voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. •
Broforce, a 2015 video game, which has characters that parody action heroes like John Matrix from
Commando (as well as Dirty Harry, John Rambo, etc.), uses Val Verde as one of its settings. • One of the desert courses in the 2017 racing game
FlatOut 4: Total Insanity is named Val Verde. • Val Verde appears in the anime
Symphogear (2012). It is part of the backstory of Chris Yukine, where she lost her parents to war and was captured and enslaved for six years, before being rescued by the
United Nations. The fourth season,
Symphogear AXZ (2017), features the main characters visiting Val Verde as a key part of the season's plot arc, where Chris recalls her past. • The film
Jurassic Attack (2013) takes place entirely in Val Verde. • Val Verde appears in the horror film
The Theta Girl (2017). In a flashback sequence, the Papa Shogun character recalls discovering a hallucinogenic compound in the slime of an indigenous ground toad found in "this shit-hole country of Val Verde." • Val Verde appears in the TV show
NCIS ("Rendezvous", Season 14, Episode 24, 2017) as a remote part of Paraguay. • Val Verde is one of the settings of the 2018 film
Commando Ninja. • Part of
Hank Green's 2020 novel
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is set in Val Verde. • The podcast Action Boyz, a comedy podcast that focuses on action movies and stars
Jon Gabrus, Ben Rodgers, and Ryan Stanger refers to their studio as Val Verde. • In
Contra: Operation Galuga, when encountering Beowulf at the ruins, Beowulf tells the team that they had met once before, at Val Verde. • The game
Breezer takes place in Val Verde, with 'Land For Sale' signs branded as 'Val Verde Estates' ==Origin==