either by the great cultural differences, or simply lack of interest, in general, the west received very little informationabout what happens in other countries which also applies to artfrom those areas. while there has been considerable openness in recent decades to what has been produced in countries like japan and korea, this is partly due to a approach of their industries towards the west since they consider it as an attractive market. for similar reasons, occasionally we see productions from countries like turkey
which slowly begin to assimilateas part of western culture however, there is a country whose artistic industry is huge, and yet it is largely ignored by the west: india. to give you an idea of ​​the size of their industry, this country produces even more films than the united states every year. however there are very few that reachit was to draw attention in their homeland and if this is what happenswith its most successful industry ... it is easy to imagine how barely-knownare their productions in other media
as for example comics. for this reason it is likely that manyof those who are watching this video they have never heard of one of theirmost popular superheroes nagraj, created by sanjay gupta 1986 it is one of the only characters of comic india that have managed to stay over time and even to grow in popularity although in that country that mediumhas practically disappeared. what you see now on the screen,it is an adaptation for television
made in 1997, which was never releasedand of which only 3 chapters are made ...but that is another issue. today, we'll review one of the first issuesthe comic nagraj, marking the debut of one of his recurring villains: shakoora the magician and also is a -absolutely unauthorized- crossover between nagraj, and 3 of the most famous superheroesin the west:
superman, batman and spider-man. well, enough of introductions. this is: jadugar shakoora, or shakoora the magician our story beginson planet shakoora, a world inhabited by a dwarf and magical beigns known as "a shakooras" yeah... this is a planet where originality abounds.
at this moment an open trial is being held,against one of their most dangerous criminals i, the general trasher shakoora declare that victar shakoora is a betrayer oh, everyone has "shakoora" for last name?that surely comes very handy! especially when you are looking for a name in the phone book since victar wanted to conquer and destroy the planet... what i find quite counterproductive if i wanted to conquer it ... he is condemned to lose his powersand be launched into space to avoid this,uses his powers
covers himself with a diamond-shaped shelland launchs himself... into space! meanwhile, on earth we find superman who is chasing a villaincalled missileman which apparently only destroys thingsjust because it is enough, you devil! no more destruction,now! nothing can stop me nowsuperman!
except for the fact that you have super strengthand you already grabbed me! ugh, why are you taking me towards that volcanosuperman? of course! to hell with the over 70 years of historyand his moral conflicts about doing the right thing... everything is much easier if supermansimply kills the villains. suddenly, superman sees the diamond in which victar was travelling, coming to earth and seeing that there's someone inside decides to release him
hello !, i'm superman! thanks friend! ha-ha-ha! excuse my completely not suspicious evil laugh i'm victar shakoora! you can call me only shakoora too because for some reason i prefer to be calledby the name of the people i hate shortly after ... they travel to ... who knows where,and shakoora has an evil thought
stop superman!i am your master now. why dwarfy?what happened? i will imprison you and rule the earth. oh no!i think i should have said that after capturing you! superman seems to have the situationunder control, until shakoora decides to do the obvious:use his magical powers, which superman is vulnerable to. ha-ha-ha!now i will rule on the earth! maybe so someday i'll be well drawn.
you're wrong shakoora! there are still many protectors of earth. who are they? batman, spider-man and nagraj! and if you had given me more time, i'd give you the complete list of the justice league with addresses and personal information. next, in gotham ... it is time for the night patrol of bruce wayne,aka batman
oh !. and i hope nobody heard me say that now i see why this has been commandedbat-signal. superman !, you're here, and so helplesswho did this? i did!i am the magician shakoora! oh no! i forgot what had happenedfor 2 pages back! predictably, shakoora uses his powers andit takes 2 to capture their next target. but ... how do you know where they are? when i told him of the addressesjustice league was joking. the only explanation i can find is thatsuperman is such an idiot
that he's actually telling shakoorahow to find them the problem with that is that the next oneis spider-man, who is currently in paris ... mmm .. my spider sense tells me that something is wrong i came here as peter parker when the news that there was a bomb at the eiffel tower spread ... so it was not your spider sense it was the news by the way, you're lucky that those who planted the bomb did not explode it while you were traveling fromnew york
oh! here it is! i must be careful, it is a dangerous bomb! my spider sense lets me knowwithout even knowing its components! just when spider-man defuses the bomb,he is attacked by shakoora who paralyzes him with his magic, and takes him away. at least he learned something from the last 2 beatings. soon after, in india ... finallywe see our hero: nagraj who is enjoying a circus,with his almost-girlfriend visarpi nagraj, i liked india very much
but i'm feeling quite uncomfortablein this dress soon you'll get used to it ...now look at the circus quietly. ... lesser woman ... suddenly, shakoora appears, and since magic worked so well,he decides to do something completely different and go on elephant uff â¿what is this? who is he? who allowed toofan inside?
he is a mad elephant! now bringing it with us doesn't seem like a good idea anymore by the way, this character- at least according to the official english version - it is supposed to be lou albano known for his wrestling careerbetween the 50s and 60s in which at a certain point,he used a weird facial piercing. despite his importance iinamerican wrestling it is likely that many of you will remember him for beingthe live action version of mario in the super mario bros. super show!
as if this crossover wasn't odd enough... shakoora attacks nagraj with toofan, and despite his super strenght,he begins to lose the battle. then lou albano comes to the rescue! and tackling the elephan with superhuman strength he should not have, ha saves nagraj from being crushed thanks friend !,if it were some ordinary elephant i would have managed! yeah right.
toofan was an ordinary elephant yes, shakoora was riding it, but that does not make it a magical elephant or anything. both continue hitting the elephantinstead of hitting his rider until finally nagraj manages to knock the poor animal, who had no fault. if this comic book had been made today ... it would be full of lawsuits. ants are not allowed in our big game! lou albano gets knocked out but nagraj managed to reach where shakoora is
i'll kill you, brute! and by the magic of ... "we could not think of anything more decent to put hereto advance the story " suddenly a ball cage drops from the ceiling, nagraj which destroys, revealing it contained the 3 superheroes who shakoora kidnapped. so ... should we assume that hid them insidethe circus facilities? ah, yes, and the cage was notoriously emptybefore breaking ha-ha-ha! nagraj!you are seeing these omnipotent men
they are at my mercy. i can kill them with a single move of my finger. and i have not done so because ... where are you hiding?coward dwarf! come and face me! nagraj!, that devil dwarf that is not visible come, let's run away shakoora!i'll kill tortuously come out!
visarpi's feet were badly burnt. uh ... thanks for letting us know? ha-ha-ha!now i do not need to come out! i am putting this tent on fire!all of you will be burn to death! then i will rule the world. â¿shakoora can become invisible? so why bother and get exposed to all the blows he got? the tent began to fire,and nagraj decides to do the most logical thing: start a mini-trainthat conveniently was there.
ok, i will assume that the circus canhave things like elephants, which nobody seems to remember now although they knocked out only one not the rest, a steel cage, and even a mini-train. but the mini-train could never leave the confines of the circus,as it depends on rails to move, and even if that were possible, it's a circus tent no matter how big it is, it would be much morepractical take them in his arms instead of taking the time toput each one in a wagon. soon, he notes how absurdlyimpractical his decision was,
since shakoora put obstacles in the wayand the fire begins to surround it on all sides ugh! this is getting hotter. and before moving on to the next frame,i want to talk about a very old concept: deus ex machina. the term, which literally means"machine of god", originated in the greek theater where occasionally they used machines-pulleys for example- to enter characters representing gods to scene. today, it is used to refer toan event in a story where a situation with no apparent solutionsuddenly it resolves
by a factor which hasno previous build-up in the plot. next, we will see one of thebest examples of this. oh, guru goroknath!save us from this mess! get up my son. i have come. everything will all right! goroknath puts out the fire,frees the superheroes, and magically cures lou albano and visarpi praise the deus ex machina
at that moment, shakoora, who was still there becomes visible for no reasonand attacks the group with his powers i will burn you all to ashses, insects! you dare to face shakoora! you can't defeat me shakoora. we are equals in power. so much equals,that i can take you out of here with no problem! and that's how shakoora is defeated. yes, that simple.
but this is not over, because before leaving, shakoora uses his magic against lou albano again, but now becomes him into a destructive giant what would been really a good ideato do with superman or spider-man... but ok. ha-ha-ha! i will destroy the whole world!shakoora zindabad! lou albano starts killing people, and none of the attacks superman nor a web prepared by spider-man with help from batman, seem to do anything. now there's only one way to finish him.
naganand naganath! nagraj generates snakes from his hands.yes, it's one of his powers- and thousands of them enter the mouth of albano. then, spider-man tells us that in the web he planted the bomb that he brought with him which is active again somehow-and this explodes... but does nothing. seriously, why they included batman and spider-man? they have not done anything useful in history,
and with superman it was enough to make it clear that shakoora was a threat. seeing the futile attempts of his companions, superman connects a hit with all his might,and lou albano and finally falls. i wonder if it's because of my blow. some other reason is here. and he is right, because obviously, the only attackwhich affected him were nagraj's snakes,which just killed the poor lou albano yes friend!,
when i found his outer skin was impenetrable, i decided to send naganand and naganath inside himand they killed him from inside i'm a terrible human being. in the end, everyone pose for journalistsnext to the corpse of guiltless guy they just killed and i thought i killed him! the end and that was shakoora the magician the illustrations have a pretty amateur quality, with several problems in terms of proportions,and the coloring of the characters
of course, if we compare them, with issues of the golden al silver ages of comics, they aren't so bad, and although they indeed could have paid greater attention to detail several drawings are acceptable. the real problem, its the story,that in several situations lacks logical links so some events occurwith no apparent justification also, they left some events unfinished, such as elephant stampede or whereabouts of shakoora, and uses plot twists which are really absurd, even if you take into account some elementsfrom its universe that do not appear in this issue but that could complement this story.
of course, it would be unfair to criticize the entire nagraj franchise based on one of its first issues. in fact, from what i know, in the following years both the quality of the illustrations andthe stories improved a lot, similar to what happened to western comics at a point so in my opinion, i think this issue was produced during a time when the media was just developing in its country so it is not surprising that this storyseems poor, especially when compared to what the west was producing at time. to conclude, obviously this is low quality comics,
but beyond its flaws, it is pretty entertaining and taking into account the limited resourcesthey must have had, that is an achievement. i am the reviewer random,and that's all for now. see you. nagraj! don't worry about me!i am fire-proof! keep quiet superman!we have to get out of here quickly...
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