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Pavitr Prabhakar’s big-screen debut in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verseis a defining moment for India’s pop-culture eco-system that’s been nearly two decades in the making.
In 2004, in collaboration with Marvel, I created and co-wrote the comic seriesSpider-Man: Indiawith my co-creators, Suresh Seetharaman and acclaimed Indian artist Jeevan J. Kang.
As a kid growing up in New Jersey, my escape came through comics. I escaped through both the Western superheroes of Stan Lee’s stories and Indian comics given to me by overseas relatives who told tales of powerful gods and goddesses with superhuman abilities. For me, the synthesis of these worlds into my identity was seamless. The embodiment of that worldview was captured in Spider-Man: India.
While there has since been a multiverse of great Spider-Man reimaginings done recently, in 2004, reimagining an icon such as Spider-Man was still a very rare occurrence. In our story, the teenage character of Peter Parker was transformed into an Indian student, Pavitr Prabhakar who lived in Mumbai.
The guiding essence of our series strived to remain true to Stan Lee’s great, and now iconic phrase, “With great power, there must also come, great responsibility!” That quote is at the heart of Spider-Man mythology and embodies everything the character, in any incarnation, needs to stand for.
Though the changes went beyond the superficial, just like in the western version, we wanted to make our Pavitr an outcast from the other students at school. We chose to play on the larger social allegory of having our Pavitr be a village boy who comes to Mumbai on a scholarship but feels out of touch with the high-paced lifestyles of Mumbai’s city elite.
Also, unlike the Western version who gets his power from a radioactive spider, our version of Spider-Man gained his abilities from a mystic allowing him to unlock a deeper connection to the interconnected “web” of the universe — playing on the Indian themes of myth and spirituality over the western themes of radiation and science.
In the same way Americans for years saw Spider-Man swinging from NYC Skyscrapers, Indian readers were, for the first time, watching Spider-Man interacting with the many environments of India. The goal was to make an international hero also feel like a local hero.
A New Catalyst for Indian Creativity
The big screen debut of Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse is a new catalyst — beyond comic books — thanks in part to its rank as the highest grossing animated box office film in India. This is largely, I believe, due to Pavitr’s recognition by Hollywood of India’s creative and consumer superpowers.
With over 650 million people under the age of 25, the youth of India are not only transforming their country’s entertainment landscape but also the world’s.
The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?
In the same way the West has created superheroes or Japan and Korea have exported their original storytelling styles of anime, manga and manhwa to the world, India has the potential to become one of the biggest creative pop-culture exporters in the years ahead. The next Steven Spielberg, Stan Lee or Hayao Miyazaki is sitting somewhere there ready to inspire the world with their story.
India is a culture with some of the most mythic and rich storytelling the world has ever known, and we are now at the birth of an exciting new wave of original comics and animation. Original stories like our recent Shadow Tiger superhero comics, or our Disney+Hotstar mythology series, The Legend of Hanuman are reaching millions of people across India and helping build a fandom unprecedented beforehand.
How Storytellers Can Show Their True Selves
The modern superhero speaks to a universal psyche firmly established in people across the world, through centuries of mythological and religious stories depicting our gods and heroes with supernatural abilities. They are the modern myths of our time. The fables through which we can reconcile the changing world before us with the ancient wisdoms behind us.
For aspiring storytellers, I would highly encourage you to explore telling your story through comics, graphic novels or webtoons. For me, comics have always been one of the purest visual storytelling mediums — like a movie with an unlimited budget, a place where imagination reigns supreme and you can create a whole universe in a single panel — or destroy one in the next.
Many years after working on Spider-Man: India, I had the chance to team up with the legend himself, when Stan Lee and I collaborated to create the superheroChakra The Invincible, a graphic novel about Raju Rai, who gets bonded to a technology suit that allows him to unlock the ancient eastern power of the chakras.
Throughout that experience, I learned some valuable lessons from the master. Relatable problems, such as bullies at school, having trouble paying the rent and a crush on someone who doesn’t even notice you were the key to audiences caring about the person under the mask. His stories concentrate as much on the superhero’s private life as they do on fighting the bad guys. That humanity counterbalances all their powers and abilities and allows us to identify with them in a deeper way.
Over the last two decades, my mission has been to recruit, train and showcase India’s amazing artists, writers, creators and disruptors at our studio with one defining mission — to help transform the perception of India in animation and comics from ‘outsourcer’ to ‘the source’ — to create new heroes and characters that spark the imaginations of audiences all across India and the world. That’s the goal of our company and the personal driving mission of my life.
Twenty years ago, I imagined a Spider-Man who would take off his mask and be an Indian underneath. Today, I am thrilled audiences around the world are finally experiencing Pavitr Prabhakar adventures.
The rise of the Indian superhero has just begun.
