Slashdot Mirror
Spider-Man in India
Lord Omlette writes "I'm really surprised no one else has mentioned this, but Spider-Man is getting redone in India! As an Indian-American, I'm quite excited. (Let's get it out of the way: even our comic book heroes are being outsourced, wtf!) The manga version of Star Wars was pretty good, but off the top of my head I can't think of any other comic books that were redone for a completely different culture. Anyone?"
Explain to me why we're re-doing comics for other locales? Can't they make their own comics?
That said, its pretty much a non-issue. There have been several alternate spider-man styles over the years (most recently the on-going Ultimate line), so its not like this is anything special.
The only thing I find really that stupid is that they're going to have to completely reinvent all the relevant characters to fit this 'new' spider man, so what is the point? Why not just make a new super hero?*
*: obviously, the Ultimate line isn't vulnerable to the same criticism, because the entire point of it is to provide an alternate take on a hero that is already popular. Spider Man, however, isn't popular in India.
"Stumble before you crawl"
For ages, due to censorship law in Turkey, the locals who want to watch American import have to make do with the next best thing, local remakes. If you can find it on sale online, it's well worth the effort to find the Turkish remake of Star Wars. Same story, no effect budgets...
During WWII, Canadian publishers revamped several US comic books, creating a Canadian spin.
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Dare I mention... the Spider Man Live Action show that aired in Japan (think Power Ranger-ish show with Spider Man... He's got his own giant robot if memory serves.)
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I think it's better that this sort of thing adapts to regional tastes. Sesame St. is available in many different languages, for example. You should never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. The HSBC bank have a good series of ads going in the press that emphasise this point. There's one that shows three footballs, one Australian [labelled 'Football (Australia)'], one soccer ball [labelled 'Football (England)'], and an American football [labelled 'Football (America).]'
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I don't disagree, but I don't think they're actually trying to start an ongoing comic book franchise. They just want to print a limited series of them to help promote the Spiderman 2 movie. The original Spiderman movie was a huge success in India for a Hollywood movie, so apparently the character already does have some appeal for many Indians.
"The manga version of Star Wars was pretty good, but off the top of my head I can't think of any other comic books that were redone for a completely different culture. Anyone?" Well, all sorts of japanese media has been redone for America. Remember Power Rangers? The whole plot was completley different for the US and Japan versions. In fact, they just used fight scenes and such from the Japanese version of the series, and created a series with a new, completley different plot. Actually, I recall the Japanese version being better (Being relativley young, I remember watching it). Also, anime can sometimes be redone. Following along the lines of young, child fads and franchises, the Pokemon movies had seperate plots. And the series was reformatted to be more US friendly I think. So, while I'm sure the US has done it's share of "outsourcing" of it's pop culture, we're readapting other culture's pop culture to be more US friendly. [ Reply to This ]
but most of these comments really toe the border into racism. Yeah, i understand that many people in the slashdot community have lost jobs to india, and i realize that there are many that are comic purists (for whatever that's supposedly worth). But honestly.
The reason they don't "come up with their own heroes" is because the US comic companies would sue the new artists out of business in an afternoon.
Why can't you guys be happy that someone else is going to enjoy a character you like? Or do you guys just really get off more by pissing in someone else's coffee?
Maybe in this culture Spider Man will actually have some extra limbs. Like Vishnu
Supposedly the remake is based more on myth and magic as opposed to science and technology. Maybe this one will burrow and make traps like a wolf spider instead. Who knows? I'm interested to see the variation.
Marvel attempted to release the Spiderman and X-Men manga a couple years ago, but were cancelled fairly quickly due to lack of interest by American readers.
Oh yeah, that reminds me of this. Best superman spinoff ever. I love the hammer and sickle instead of his S!
When I read in the summary that he was going to be an Indian-American I naturally assumed that he would still be in N.Y.
Since the actual article says this story will take place in India, the real question is what makes him so American? Is this another example of the phoenomia where Americans call black people from around the world African American (even if they are neither African nor American)?
If his first enemy would be Monkey Man.
More here....
New Delhi residents fear 'Monkey Man'
New India's 'monkey man' branded imaginary
India's Monkey Man and the Politics of Mass Hysteria
Police suspect 'monkey man' is alien or remote-controlled robot
There was a manga Spidey not too long ago. It dealt with a student named Komori Yu who gets bitten by a spider and yada yada. Some things are similar to the American comic; others are not.
In the 70s there was a tokusatsu program starring Spidey. Again, he was Japanese. This version was given his costume and powers by aliens, I think, and drove a giant robot. Weird.
So... it's been done before.
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BZZT, wrong, outside of West Shinjuku, Tokyo lacks bedrock, which is necessary for skyscrapers. The rest of the city is mushy land, and the building codes specify an 8-story max, to avoid earthquake tragedies.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!