My original expectation for this title was that the creators were simply going to take the title character out of his American setting and drop him in Mumbai, but they've done much more than that. Though the broad strokes of the Spider-Man icon are intact, the creators adapt it to take on a much more spiritual and mythic tone. Indian culture plays a more prominent role than I imagined, but ultimately, those cultural elements aren't enough to make this property seem new, exciting and fresh. The art is interesting, though, and I think it'll turn some heads.
Pavitr Prabhakar's aunt and uncle have saved and sacrificed to get him into the finest school in Mumbai, India, but there's just one problem: he hates it there. The other students pick on him due to his social status, and the only person who sees him as a human being is an attractive young woman named Meera Jain. Little does Pavitr know that a power-hungry businessman with an interest in the occult is about to set into motion events that will require the cosmos to select a champion... and he's going to be it.
Kang's artwork here might be best described as a cross between the styles of Jim (Exiles) Calafiore and Steve (Marvel Knights 4) McNiven. He achieves a nice balance between the modern influence of Western culture in India and the more exotic flavor the setting offers. The new Green Golbin design here is a rather generic demon look, and while monstrous, it's not all that visually exciting. The Spider-Man design is much more interesting, incorporating the classic costume with a flowing, Indian garb that reinforces the classic, mythlogical qualities of this incarnation of the character.
The effort to mirror the names of these characters' U.S. counterparts is understandable, but Spider-Man is such a pop-culture icon at this point, I really don't think it was necessary. The similarities in the names took me right out of the story, especially "Meera Jain." And while I appreciate the writers' rejection of the decompressed plotting style that's been in mode at Marvel in recent years, the main character seems to accept his new powers and his encounter with a god far too readily.
There are a number of cultural references incorporated into the dialogue in this issue, and there were moments when I was a bit lost. I wondered by the writers didn't include some sort of frame of reference for the less cosmopolitan among us. Fortunately, they did... in the back of the book in a text page that comments on the unique nature of this project and the people who made it happen. I'm pleased with the more mystical tone that defines the character in this incarnation, but I found I was wishing for more divergence from the Spidey I already know. 6/10
