REVIEW: ‘Spider-Man: India,’ Issue #1

Spider-Man: India #1 is an unfortunately very generic start to a new chapter in the life of Pavitr Prabhakar, aka The Spider-Man of his universe. Published by Marvel Comics, the story is written by Nikesh Shukla with pencils by Abhishek Malsuni, ink by Scott Hanna, colors by Neeraj Menon, and letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna.

We all know by now that Spider-Man India has all the potential in the world to be an exciting character since his recent outing in Across the Spider-Verse. But reading Spider-Man: India #1, you’d hardly know it. The comic starts off awkwardly with a weird conversation between Pativr, Peter Parker, and Miles Morales, where they keep referring to each other by first name in conversation. I get that we need to establish who everyone is somehow, but in the midst of an otherwise actually interesting conversation about how one can cope with the weight of being a Spider-Man, it was an odd way to get things rolling.

Because this isn’t Spider-Man India’s first rodeo, having starred in a mini-series over a decade ago and recently partaking in the End of the Spider-Verse story, we don’t get an ounce of backstory. Instead, every obvious parallel between Patvir and Peter, from their aunt and uncle to MJ, is meant just to fill in the blanks. This works really well at first. I appreciate skipping past some of the obvious origin recapping that anybody vaguely aware of Spider-Man should be familiar with. But the rest of the comic doesn’t do a whole lot to stand this hero out for the countless other Spider-Men before him. His personal struggles seem the same, he’s targeted by a nefarious lizard-obsessed professor, and there’s an evil corporate regime lurking in the background that overlaps with his personal life substantially.

It’s well-worn Spider-Man ground and never once offers a distinct raison d’etre? What makes this Spider-Man different than any of the other endless Spider-People? It’s especially disappointing that the Indian-set universe barely comes into play beyond characters’ names and some food references. Some of the greatest potentials of a Spider-Man character with a distinct and different cultural background can be the ability to meld familiar story beats with specific cultural identity to create a unique character and experience for him. Hopefully, future issues take up this opportunity rather than merely retreading overly familiar ground with a character whose costume doesn’t even look distinguishable from Peter Parker’s if aren’t viewing him from the waist down.

A lot of the visuals in Spider-Man: India #1 struggle to impress. Miles and Peter look odd, drawn with the same sharp, angular faces that works well on Patvir. It comes off as if the artist spent a lot of time practicing drawing the main characters but was forced to include a connection to the ongoing storyline and therefore rushed to put those two on the page. There are also basically no backgrounds of note to help set the scene for the comic, aside from one full-page image that’s washed over in a sandy yellow and, like most of the comic, undersaturated. The commas are also hard to distinguish from periods in the lettering, making a lot of sentences hard to read at first.

Spider-Man: India #1 is an overly familiar and fairly disappointing start to a new adventure for a character who had so much personality and visual distinction on-screen only so recently.

Spider-Man: India #1 is available wherever comics are sold.