Paper short abstract:

Indian superhero comics had to face the challenge of engaging with both the modern and tradition. The paper seeks to study the nature and extent of this engagement and the treatment of superheroes/heroines, their powers and geographical spaces.

Paper long abstract:

Indian superhero comics are unique as they have had to conform to the realities of the 'modern' allied with rationality and science, as well as 'tradition' where religion, morality, and ideas to do with manhood, spirituality, tantra and mantra reign supreme. This gave rise to an interesting dialectical approach in the birth of superheroes themselves where traditional legends were woven around scientific rationales culminating in the rise of superheroes who were modern men but built in the image of the perfect man - that is, maryada purusottama Ram, an incaranation of god himself. Also the powers of indigenous superheroes are uniquely Indian - divine or indigenised scientific gifts - and rarely would a superhero have powers that would be of alien origin. The tensions between tradition and modernity become obvious in the case of superheroines who would be modern independent females but also uphold moral ideals about traditional womanhood.The adaptations of the idea of god, deva, take completely new meanings hovering often on the margins of blasphemy and irreverence, with deva being treated as part of an advanced /parallel civilization/universes. The ultimate evolution of the stories take place when magic is actually treated as a science. Another area of this contestation has been the representation of space in the comics which eventhough always set in metropolitan cities is based on the template of village India, a communal whole where the alter egos of the superheroes and heroines have a very active social life.