If you’re a comic book fan – and an Indian comic book fan – you would already have had heated discussions bemoaning the fact that there are no real Indian superheroes in the American market.
In fact, ever since the inception of their comic books in October 1939 (with The Human Torch), Marvel has created characters of various ethnicities but are yet to portray an Indian character. Over the years, the comic book giant has illustrated Black Panther (African), Sunfire (Asian) and Captain Britain (European and British).
But when it came to portraying an Indian, the characters were simply stereotyped. Marvel gave them turbans, curly-toed shoes and the persona of a common man – one who never mutated to become a superhero.
So why have Indian superheroes been missing from Marvel’s list? We’ll get to that in a bit. But first, did you know that there was once an Indian superhero – a solitary peace offering from Marvel – many years ago?
Marvel’s First Indian Superhero Emerges
A six-and-a-half decade dry patch ended way back in 2004, when Marvel finally tried to court Indian readers with a character called Pavitr Prabhakar – an Indian version of Peter Parker a.k.a Spiderman. The euphoria didn’t last long though, as after four issues the series was discontinued and the character disappeared into thin air.
Of Bizarre Names, Dhotis and Curly-toed Shoes
Ask anyone who Spiderman is, and he’ll immediately rattle off Peter Parker’s life story – the tale of the teen who got bit by a spider and mutated to become everyone’s beloved superhero. Comic book nerds will even go so far as to tell you about Miles Morales – a non-white Spiderman, who managed to hold his own in the comic book universe.
So why was Pavitr Prabhakar shown the door after just four issues? We have a couple of theories – but our strongest suspicion is that he was booted for being a carbon copy of the original character.
Take a look at the bizarre naming pattern in the comics and you’ll know what we mean. The first letter of his name and surname are ‘P’ and ‘P’ – the same as Peter Parker. Similar eccentricities governed the naming of the other characters. Thus, Spiderman’s girlfriend Mary Jane became Meera Jain, his Aunt May became Aunty Maya, while Uncle Ben and best friend Harry Osborne had to resign themselves to Uncle Bheem and Hari Oberoi.
The poor villains suffered just as bad a fate – Norman Osborne (The Green Goblin), one of Spiderman’s main villains, was Nalin Oberoi. Even Eddie Brock who becomes the Venom (another one of Spiderman’s villains) was named Aadi!
Prabhakar wore the same costume as Parker did for the top half, but this is where the similarity ends. Clearly unable to resist the temptation of stereotyping an Indian character, Marvel gave him – for the bottom half – a dhoti! Forget the fact that the dhoti is now an almost archaic item of clothing worn only by some politicians and villagers – shouldn’t Marvel geniuses have at least been struck by the impossibility of flying up walls in a dhoti?
If that were the end of it! Mr Prabhakar was also given curly-toed shoes and a pair of kundals (earrings) from the Mahabharata era. Which meant that instead of looking like the fit and agile Spiderman, he looked like a buffoon trying to stop the bad guys in “Aamchi Mumbai”.
Did Chacha Choudhary Contribute to the Demise of the Indian Spiderman?
At the time that Marvel launched its Indian Spiderman, comic book nerds on this side of the planet were still hung up on Chacha Choudhary and Nagraj. In fact, one only knew three superheroes to begin with – Superman, Batman and Spiderman (thanks to DD National’s repeated airing). Even characters like Captain America and Iron Man weren’t known – so how could one expect to know Pavitr Prabhakar, a nondescript entity?
You have to remember that at the time, original Marvel comics were available only in select stores in metro cities and even there, a nerd wouldn’t know where to look. No Flipkart and Amazon existed to offer special discounts – and each of these books cost about Rs 1,000.
When one could buy a Chacha Choudhary or Nagraj digest for only Rs 75 or Rs 100, why would one take the pain of locating and then spending a grand on a bad rehash of the American Spiderman?
A disinterested American market, an uninformed Indian market and a pathetic, badly named rip-off – all of these contributed to the shutting down of the Pavitr Prabhakar comics for good.
Possibly, they’ve done their research and an Indian superhero either wouldn’t sell or they’re not confident enough that they could portray such characters accurately enough, in line with their heritage, to satisfy readers.
– Phil Hampton, a comic book marketing expert to Bloomberg in 2013
We’re not sure if that was Marvel’s rationale in 2004, but we’re still wallowing in disappointment and holding out hope for an actual, respectable Indian superhero to join the ranks of Captain America and Black Widow. And soon.
(Shibaji Roychoudhury was named after someone who wanted to conquer and inspire. Unfortunately, he is far too ambitious for that. Based out of Delhi, he is a comic book fanatic and owns over 4,000 Marvel and DC superhero comics.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)