SPIDER-MAN INDIA #1

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Tuesday, November 23, 2004

After the deaths of his parents, Pavitr Prabhakar has moved in with his Uncle Bhim and Aunt Maya and begun attending school at the expensive Heritage International. Problem is, his traditional (and poor) clothing doesn't fit in the rest of the Westernized students at the school. The only one who's kind to him is the gorgeous Meera Jain, and as much as he aspires to be an actor in a Bollywood romance, he can't put two words together in front of her. But when a spirit appears to him to warn him of the emergence of a great evil avatar on Earth and to give him the powers of the spider, Pavitr discovers he has more than school problems to deal with, and that with great power... well, you know the rest.

To Western audiences, I have a feeling that SPIDER-MAN INDIA is going to be deeply disappointing at worst and merely an interesting variant on a well-known theme at best. Plot-wise, the story follows the same major beats, albeit to a lesser degree, as the original AMAZING FANTASY story, except for three major exceptions: the appearance of India's own Mary Jane Watson, the introduction of the Indian version of the Green Goblin, and the reasons for Pavitr's powers. The first exception makes decent sense: Peter Parker's very first romantic interest was Liz Allen, and why saddle a developing storyline with a character you know isn't going to contribute anything in the end (apart from marrying your best friend who eventually becomes your worst enemy)? Providing Pavitr with Meera Jain as a sympathetic foil from the very start might well end up being this book's saving grace. The second exception also makes good sense: it's no secret that the Green Goblin is Spidey's most iconic foe, and since there are so many demons, monsters, and what have you in the Indian tradition, it only makes sense to have this Green Goblin emerge as a result of Osborne's sorry, Oberoi's - obsession with an ancient amulet of power.

The third exception? Well, if you accept the second one, you somewhat have to accept the third, even though it's the most problematic one of all. Pavitr is given the powers of Spider-Man as a direct result of the Green Goblin's emergence in Mumbai, and from the beginning of the book we're led to believe that this is his destiny. It's a move similar to that which JMS' run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has done namely, that the very nature of Peter Parker's personality and background made him ideally suited to be underneath that radioactive spider and to gain the powers he has. Here, however, the whole thing has more of a messianic quality, and an as-yet unexplained one, at that. It's just as frustrating when Pavitr finds the Spider-Man suit, already prepared for him, at the top of one of Mumbai's highest buildings. Looks like the webbing is built in already, too and this is a departure that makes a hash of the idea that Pavitr is so amazingly intelligent that he needs to go to a decent school. Peter Parker's brilliance is depicted in all those early stories and indeed, in contemporary ones by the fact that he's the one who not only creates his own suit but invents the webbing, the web-shooters... Here, Pavitr's intelligence is barely depicted at all. Everything he has stems from the actions of a deux ex machina, not from his own conscious decisions to use the powers he has with responsibility.

The other major factor that makes this book a bit of a let-down is the sheer pacing of the thing. The writers feel the need to hit all the major bullet points of Spidey's origin or at least, the ones that haven't been changed out of all recognition at a speed that leaves the reader with little time to respond to them. Uncle Bhim's death at the hands of criminals that Pavitr ignores (since, of course, you knew that was going to happen, didn't you?) is savagely condensed, leading me to think that the writers were counting on our memory of our emotional response to the original death to carry this one along. Pavitr's reaction to the death is given more time than his lack of actions that lead to it, in fact one of the few improvements on the original AMAZING FANTASY story, which gives only two panels over to that reaction but it still leaves us with the belief that so much more has been left out just so that moment can be reached by the end of this issue.

As for how it'll play in Mumbai... if they haven't read any of the original stories, this may end up a hit. My knowledge of Indian culture is rustier nowadays than it used to be, but the book has an air of authenticity that should serve it well with an Indian audience. The growing clash of Eastern and Western cultures that defines everyday life in contemporary India a clash that can be seen in all its glory in the brilliant movie MONSOON WEDDING - is also depicted here in Pavitr's experiences at school, and if the writers develop that as fully as Uncle Stan and Uncle Steve developed Peter Parker's high school experiences back in the original series, they'll have a character that even Indian teenagers (and likely many Indian adults) can sympathize with. How they eventually handle the provenance of Pavitr's powers will also be a deciding factor in how well the book sells in India. In America, however, this series is riding only on the novelty factor and we all know how long that lasts in comic books.

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