Spider-Man: India spins a Web-Slinging adventure with the Web-Head of another universe, and it deserves a great deal more recognition. Originally published in 2004 into 2005, Spider-Man: India‘s title is very self-explanatory, with the Wall-Crawler re-imagined as Mumbai teenager Pavitr Prabhakar, who lives with his Uncle Bhim and Auntie Maya while harboring romantic feelings for Meera Jain and craving something more out of life, such as becoming a Bollywood movie star. Pavitr ends up getting his wish when his is granted to powers of the spider and becomes Mumbai’s superhero protector Spider-Man, right as a villainous threat of immense proportions arises.
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Spider-Man: India is a classic case of taking an established and popular character and re-working their backstory into something completely fresh, with Pavitr Prabhakar subsequently returning in the Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon comic book stories. That makes it all the more baffling that Spider-Man: India has never quite broken out as big as other alternate universe Spidey stories. With that said, Pavitr Prabhakar’s big-screen debut in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse may have the first step in changing that.
Spider-Man: India Gives The Web-Head (& The Green Goblin) A Supernatural Origin Story
Apart from transporting the Wall-Crawler to India and re-imagining him into Pavitr Prabhakar, Spider-Man: India puts a whole new spin on how both Spidey and the Green Goblin acquire their superhuman powers. In Spider-Man: India, Norman Osborn is re-imagined as Nalin Oberoi, a Mumbai crime boss who comes into possession of an ancient amulet which unleashes a demonic entity and transforms him into the book’s version of the Green Goblin. This is a huge reworking from the sci-fi origins of the Green Goblin’s powers and personality in the comics, and Spidey himself gains his abilities in a similar fashion.
Following Nalin’s transformation, Pavitr is granted the abilities of a spider by a wise yogi, tasking the young Pavitr with stopping Nalin before he unleashes more demons into the world. That’s a major switch from the radioactive spider bite that gave Peter Parker his arachnid powers, but like Nalin’s origin, it perfectly fits the tone established in Spider-Man: India. Deeply rooted in India’s culture of Hinduism and spirituality, Spider-Man: India‘s re-invention of Spidey and the Green Goblin is a wholly captivating one indeed.
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Spider-Man: India Is A Comic Book Visual Feast
Flipping through the pages of Spider-Man: India, one of the graphic novel’s greatest attributes immediately jumps off the page. To put it simply, Spider-Man: India is a visually enthralling, astonishingly captivating comic book. Artist Jeevan Kang and colorists Gotham Studios Asia bring the book’s vision of the vibrant metropolis of Mumbai to life in gorgeous, colorful art bathed in seemingly perpetual sunsets, but they don’t stop there. With supernatural versions of Spider-Man and the Green Goblin on hand and Hindu elements to integrate into the story, Spider-Man: India captures all three with phenomenal and impactful artwork on each page.
Spidey and the Green Goblin’s looks themselves are fittingly re-designed, with the the Green Gobin himself changed into an outright goblin. Spider-Man: India also treats the reader to an unusual abundance of one or two-page action shots of Spidey swooping through the city and battling the Goblin and other villains to stop a demonic invasion. The artwork of comic books is an essential component of comic book storytelling, and here too does Spider-Man: India bring nothing but pure Web-Slinging flair to its re-imaging of Spidey as a teenager in India chosen to become a superhero. Spider-Man: India truly is an instance where a comic book’s artwork alone makes it a worth read and new chapter into Spidey’s Wall-Crawling adventures.
Pavitr Prabhakar Cemented His Legacy in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
With Peter Parker as the mainline Spider-Man and Miles Morales as his 21st century successor, it would be easy to assume that Pavitr Prabhakar wouldn’t be making it to the big-screen any time soon. But, of course, the multiverse – or, more specifically, the Spider-Verse – is the ultimate rebuttal to any such limitations being placed on comic book stories being adapted to movies or TV. 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse took the multiverse story of its 2018 predecessor Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and turned it up to 1000, introducing the Spider-Society consisting of hundreds of Spider-People from throughout the multiverse, including none other than Pavitr Prabhakar.
Voiced by Karan Soni, Across the Spider-Verse‘s Pavitr builds upon his origin story in Spider-Man: India, the teenage Web-Head a fully confidant, skilled superhero who teams up with Miles Morales (Shamiek Moore), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfled), and Hobie Brown (Daniel Kaluuya) to put a stop to the multiverse-spanning crime spree of The Spot (Jason Schwartzmann). Pavitr’s costume also gets an update in Across the Spider-Verse to reflect his cool persona as his universe’s Spidey, while the visual splendor of the movie is gloriously on par with that of Spider-Man: India.
With Pavitr set to return in the forthcoming Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse, he seems to be gradually catching up with Miles and Gwen as non-Peter Parker Web-Heads with an ever growing scale of popularity. While Pavitr seems poised to become more and more of a break-out character in his Spider-Verse adventures, it all began for him the multiverse one-off tale of Spider-Man: India, a visually astounding and narratively engrossing alternate universe tale that every Spider-Man fan should give a read if they haven’t already.
