Superheroes have always been the object of our obsessed fantasy but they also have impacted cultures since their inception.
Every superhero belonging to a distinct and definitive culture has brought in facets that are closely attributed to culture of a certain people and ever growing. Be it Superman, who came in with his so called distinctive and colured clothing and exuberant optimism of the USA back in the 1930′, to my favorite, Batman, representing the darker, Gothic and uncertain times when he was created reflecting the cultural mood of the US during World War II.
Not only US superhero or fantasy characters have also created their own cultural brand identity as icons. There are others like Harry Potter or even in India superheroes like Shaktimaan or Krrish.
The journey of superheroes is forever changing. As the socio-cultural system ever changes, superheroes adapt too, as did Captain America, reflecting the new American hope in today’s world; though he had been in comics since World War II or ,the nordic god of Thunder, who is now an American movie franchise of Marvel studios. Truly worth the superheroes weight.
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Hi Mitrajit. Interesting post! I’d like to know more about Indan superheroes. I never heard of the ones you wrote before.
Indian Superheroes have been mainly mythological such as Krishna or Shiva whom we worship as the creator & destroyer respectively.There are Legendary Indian superheroes such as Arjun very similar to Green Arrow of DC COMICS or Indra the exact of Thor.
As for Indian comics there have been comic strips on characters such as Dhruv the Commander,Nagraj one who can take the shape of poisnous snakes.Infact western superheroes have been too adapted for Indian audience as like Phantom or Spiderman.
Whereas for Indian superheroes like Krrish,Shaktimaan they have been inspired by Indian Mythology as Shaktimaan was a Television superhero who had 5 elements of nature that gave him strength & Krrish represents the name of Krishna as he got superpowers from an Alien that his father had encountered.
Recently another Bollywood superstar came up with a more modern version of High Tech & High Budget Super Hero Movie of RA.ONE which is a new acronym for demonic super hero or anti hero Raavan whom another Mythological superhero of India Shri Ram defeated to bring back her abducted wife.In short Indian Superheroes have all been inspired from Mythology
Wow! Very interesting. Thanks Mitrajit for explaining all this.
Very interesting! Because of your article, I just found Krrish 3 on YouTube and loved it! Although I didn’t understand the dialogue, I found it very entertaining. Superheroes are fun to watch in any language.
Thank you so much for your kind comments….