Say hello to SPIDER-MAN INDIA

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Monday, June 21, 2004
Source: Gotham Comics

Marvel Comics and Gotham Entertainment Group have announced plans to release a new comic book series that takes one of America's most-recognized crimefighters and transplants him to become an Indian superhero.

SPIDER-MAN INDIA will be released to stores to coincide with the release of the SPIDER-MAN 2 movie. Taking the idea behind Marvel's wall-crawler and adapting him to suit his new audience, the person behind the mask in SPIDER-MAN INDIA is Pavitr Prabhakar, a young Indian boy living in Bombay. Instead of swinging around the Statue of Liberty and webbing thieves in Manhattan, Spider-Man India swings from the Gateway of India and crawls along the Taj Mahal. As well, one of Spidey's main adversaries, The Green Goblin, will also receive his own reinterpretation: for the SPIDER-MAN INDIA audience, the villain will be a Rakshasa, an Indian mythological demon.

According to the press release annoucing the comic, Gotham's comic "interweaves the local customs, culture and mystery of modern India, with an eye to making Spider-Man's mythology more relevant to this particular audience."

""We feel this is one of the most exciting and unique projects in comic history," said Sharad Devarajan, the CEO of Gotham Entertainment Group. "Unlike traditional translations of American comics, Spider-Man India will become the first-ever 'transcreation,' where we reinvent the origin of a Western property like Spider-Man so that he is an Indian boy in Mumbai and dealing with local problems and challenges."

Marvel President, Publishing, Gui Karyo added, "Marvel has continuously done its best to push the boundaries of traditional comic books and to look for new venues for our characters. Gotham is helping us to expand the Marvel brand with a truly global vision."

Marvel does plan on publishing SPIDER-MAN INDIA for North American audiences at some point in the future. The creative line-up for the comic hasn't been officially unveiled yet.

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