Desi-fying superheroes

Kamala Khan, an American-born Pakistani teenager who keeps Jersey City safe, is the first Muslim character in the Marvel universe to headline her own comic book

A range of ethnicities are finding expression in home-grown comics with archetypal characters in the superhero mould, seeped in local milieus, spanning across cities in Bihar, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and even far-flung Mizoram. The realm of comic books appears to be increasingly tilting towards representing characters from hitherto under-represented demographics. While ethnic characters have been portrayed in international comic books before, they have always been critiqued for being moulded as sidekicks rather than primary characters. Perhaps in an attempt to change perceptions, Marvel Comics created Kamala Khan, an American-born Pakistani teenager who keeps Jersey City safe. Khan, who is best known as Ms Marvel, made her debut in Captain Marvel in 2013 before becoming the first Muslim character in the Marvel universe to headline her own comic book Ms Marvel in 2014.

After being a fringe character for the first few editions, she will finally be seen joining the big leagues as part of The Avengers in volume 5 of Ms Marvel, which is coming out later this month. Marvel has even promised a volume 6 where Khan will be fighting in the Avengers Civil War. While Kamala Khan is fast on her way to becoming one of most famous comic book superheroes with a strong ethnic identity, she is not the only one of her kind.

Closer home, a range of ethnicities is finding expression in homegrown comics. Archetypal characters in the superhero mould, seeped in local milieus, spanning across cities in Bihar, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and even far-flung Mizoram are finding place in comic books and what’s more — most of them have a dedicated fan-following too. In spite of their superpowers, they are endowed with enough characteristics and idiosyncrasies that make them easy to relate to. But while that works in favour of these characters, a big challenge the creators are faced with is to not overdo the regional stereotype. Meet The desi superhero squad It’s a delightful bunch that the creators across the board have given life to. Raj Comics character, the iconic Doga has an archenemy called Bihari Bhai. While heroes and funny characters abound in comic books, the villain is equally important and here is where Doga’s archenemy Bihari Bhai steps up to the plate. “Doga kills Bihari Bhai’s younger brother, who has a gang in Mumbai and Bihari Bhai, who used to be a part of a gang in Bihar, comes to avenge his death. But first, he has to rebuild his criminal empire,” explains Sanjay Gupta, studio head of Raj Comics, who was part of the team who drew up the character.

Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel, features a typical Hyderabadi autorickshaw driver who speaks in a mix of Dakni and Telugu and whose auto can travel through time. Jai Undurti, the writer, is also working on an occult action graphic novel titled Necropolis that will feature a Hyderabadi bureaucrat called Babu. It’s expected to come out this December.

Among the sooner releases is The Bangalore Graphic Novel that is launching later this month and features private detective Hari Majestic. He lives in Bengaluru’s Majestic area and is seeped in the local milieu. Based on writer Zac O’Yeah’s earlier works, Hari Majestic will be seen in the story The Mystery of the Missing ATM, which is part of the collective. Earlier this year, Tinkle Comics introduced readers to Mapui Kwalim, a Mizo teenager whose superhero identity ‘Wingstar’ protects the fictional Mizo town of Aizwa.

All these characters are well endowed with both superpowers and quirks. Writer Sean D’Mello of Mapui, says, “Mapui is India’s first reluctant superhero. To give up every aspect of your life to become a superhero seems like a lot to ask of a 13-year-old. While she enjoys the benefits of the gadgets that her father invents, she is conflicted about the ‘saving-the-day’ side of things. Our readers like that she is conflicted like every other kid.”

While Mapui enjoys the benefits of her father’s inventions, Hyderabad Graphic Novel’s time-travelling autorickshaw driver gets kicks out of fleecing passengers in dire need of an auto. “There is a scene where a passenger is running away from a dinosaur and the auto guy is not ready to go unless he gets the demanded price,” says Jaideep Undurti, writer of Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel, adding, “We just assumed that at some point in the future, there may be time travelling autos, but the auto driver would remain unchanged.”

Long before any of these comics came into existence, Aabid Surti, National Award winning author and creator of popular comic book character Bahadur, had already created his other comic character, the interfering “uncommon man” Dabbuji, based on his father who was a Sufi priest. “He did not act like a Sufi priest or follow any particular religion,” Surti is quick to clarify, “I just made him wear the kind of robes which Sufi priests generally wear. It made him eye-catching and also made it easier for me to draw him.”

Inspiration comes from home While Surti drew inspiration from his father, Jaideep and Zac found their muses in the day-to-day city life of Hyderabad and Bengaluru. “I travel extensively by auto-rickshaws and I noticed certain things about autowallas in Hyderabad, like how they talk too much and haggle a lot,” says Jaideep, “That is how I pictured my autowalla to be when we were creating his character.”

For Zac, the Majestic area of Bengaluru holds a special place in his heart. “The place was stuck in my mind so strongly that wherever I went in the world and got bored of the place — it could even be places like Los Angeles or Shanghai — I’d think, ‘wish I were in Majestic’,” he says.

For Sean and the Wingstar team, the reasoning behind creating a Mizo teenager is steeped in both practicality and sentiment. “For Mapui, most of her adventures happen in open areas and forests. Geographically, the Northeast seemed like the right setting for that kind of thing,” Sean explains, adding that he always wanted to write about a kid superhero, so creating Mapui was a dream come true for him. Roadblocks Bihari Bhai may be having some trouble with creating an empire of crime in Mumbai with Doga hounding his steps, but, according to Sanjay, creating his character held no special challenges. “The character was pretty easy to draw up. We took your typical bad guy image and merged it with the image of a Bihari man. So he wears white kurta-pajama and carries a gamchha,” he says. Mapui, on the other hand, was as reluctant to be brought to life on paper, as she is to be a superhero. “I am from the South, so when told that the character is from the Northeast, I realised I had a lot of research ahead of me. I did not have a clear idea of what people from Mizoram dress like, what their hairstyles are like or anything like that,” Vineet Nair, Mapui artist explains. “Not just that, I also had to do research on the topography of the place. Like, there are some fight sequences in the forest, so I looked up and found that you mainly have bamboo forests there and that’s how it was illustrated. This was also the first superhero comic that I am a part of, so coming up with her costume design and superhero poses was a challenge.” For Zac O’Yeah, creator of Hari Majestic, the hurdles were more personal. “It is difficult to write about people who are not like yourself,” he says. “I thought if I write a detective story set in India it can only be a relevant book if an Indian, like my wife who is an Indian writer, or Harsho who is an Indian cartoon artist, can read it and nod in recognition and think that this kind of plot could only happen here. My first Mr Majestic! novel took me four years to write.” Don’t overdo stereotypes Explaining Tinkle’s recipe, Sean says, “When we say, a character hails from a place, we don’t say he or she fights for the issues of only that place. We know that our readers are spread across the country, so we can’t have every character being based out of Mumbai because people would not connect to that. We are trying to make sure that our characters are from all over the country. None of these characters have any stereotypes at all, because they aren’t people who are fundamentally set there. Every character, because of their adventures, has to travel across the country. Also, because the places they hail from are largely fictional, there is no stereotyping them either. Mapui, for instance, is not the face of Mizoram. She is just someone who has Mizo friends, wears clothes typical to the region and lives in a typical hillside home.”

Zac thinks differently though. “Stereotyping will always be a part of all forms of art and fiction, and I think, especially in cartoons, to make it seem typical to a particular place, it’ll become some form of caricature. That is not necessarily bad — it gives an artistic vision of a place,” he says. “For instance, I grew up in Sweden before I became Indian. I would love reading stories about Swedes and their bizarre behaviour written by foreign visitors to the country, and it wouldn’t matter if the writer got it slightly wrong at times,” he adds.

Surti offers a straightforward solution, “In the old Bollywood films, we would have one Madrasi character, one Muslim character and they were all stereotypes. So, these films didn’t portray reality. One should avoid that while creating comic book characters. They have to be real characters — not cardboard copies of some preconceived notion.”

Zac sums it up, saying, “The acid test is really whether one can go beyond the too obvious stereotypes and make something that makes readers nod in recognition and think ‘this is exactly like the real thing’.” What do readers think While Dabbuji’s fame and cult following, which includes the likes of Amitabh Bachchan and Osho, speaks volumes about its reach, the newer characters are only beginning to gather a fan base. “The Majestic stories have become rather popular and sell a lot in Bengaluru bookshops. So an opportunity to try them out in a graphic novel format is quite exciting,” says Zac, who adds that a movie is also in the works. “I'm going to be on the front row and throw samosas at the screen,” he says with a laugh.

Vineet recalls how some readers from Mizoram pinged him on Facebook to congratulate him on Mapui. “Mapui is the first superhero from Mizoram, so they really liked the fact that they got such a positive representation.”

Sanjay Gupta, on the other hand wants to delve deeper into the ‘Bihari Bhai’ track before he starts counting his chickens. “Doga has a lot of enemies and this track, which started in 2005, has only begun to take shape. So I can’t exactly tell you what people think of him till I explore his character further.”