The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

Mentioned Shakti, an Indian superheroine, in another thread. For anyone interested, here's some of her covers: Everyday housewife, Chanda, is transformed into Shakti by the goddess Kali whenever there's danger. (It's a kind of She-Hulk thing, minus the ripped clothes, were Kali will fight to take control of Chanda's body, and Chanda has to quickly find somewhere to transform.) In her first few adventures she restricted herself to defeating violence against women -- Kali being a goddess protector of women -- but after a few appearances she starts to function a bit more like a regular superhero, and frequently teams up with other heroes.

R5

Plenty more where these came from, if anyone is interested.

R5

Looks cool !

Sort of a Sheena type with mystic influences

Thanks so much for the scans, five_red! It's especially attractive that she is a normal-looking housewife who transforms into the powerful superheroine. There's been a Wikipedia page on this character for quite a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti_(comics)

What baffles me is why their comic book company, which has been around since the 1980s and is quite successful in sales in India,
hasn't converted their characters to any movies yet (although it looks like they've been trying, with Nagraj and Aadamhkor etc) and
why Shakti can't be part of that push, when she has had 97 issues come out of her comic. I would imagine it would be a fantastic character for any major Indian actress to play.

It also says on the Raj Comics Wiki page that only a very few titles and collections have been printed in English. I wonder who printed them and how hard those might be to find..and whether they would consider printing more them, knowing that the sales for English-language Indian comics in the West (namely from Virgin Comics, and the more recent Graphic India - I just got all the volumes of
Grant Morrison's 18 Days from 2016..which is a retelling of Indian mythology) have been rather mediocre, with very few Indian-Americans or British Indians really championing comics the way they should.

Raj Comics Rises is a pretty informative Youtube channel which consistently showcases their upcoming comics series. If you check it out, you'll notice that there are very few prominent superheroines in their lineup...basically only Shakti. They also don't have many videos about their heroines. But here are a couple. (sorry, they're in Hindi but you can look at the pretty pictures)

Here's the origin video for Shakti that Raj Comics made a couple years ago:



And here's a video about the various Raj Comics female characters. The narrator lists 20 of them. Many of them look very hot!

Dazzle1 wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Sort of a Sheena type with mystic influences

Her powers are a bit more like Spider-Woman from the DePatie–Freleng cartoon of the 80s. She can fly, throw energy blasts from her hands, and that mark on her forehead is her link to the goddess Kali, giving her a kind of sixth sense. I have about 90% of her comic appearances (as well as a few other Indian superheroine comics), but not in English. Google Lens can do crude translations of Hindi, enough to get a basic idea of the general story line, but a lot of the nuance is missing.

Because Shakti is fuelled by violence against women, a few of the issues have Bixby/Ferrigno Hulk style scenarios were the bad guys attack or menace Chanda (in one comic they even run her over in a car IIRC), triggering her transformation into the all powerful Shakti. The stories vary between fighting fantastical monsters, and regular human thugs / low-life, and can (by Western standards) actually be quite graphic in terms of the violence they show, particularly towards abused women.

I'll post interior story pages if anyone is curious -- let me know. I'll avoid the harder stuff, and stick with the fantasy villains and mafia bosses.


R5

For some reason cover 8 (the last one) raises my interest
Looks like some Batwoman (even with wings) as the villainess(?)

Guess it may become difficult to get the actual comic....

five_red wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Dazzle1 wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Sort of a Sheena type with mystic influences

Her powers are a bit more like Spider-Woman from the DePatie–Freleng cartoon of the 80s. She can fly, throw energy blasts from her hands, and that mark on her forehead is her link to the goddess Kali, giving her a kind of sixth sense. I have about 90% of her comic appearances (as well as a few other Indian superheroine comics), but not in English. Google Lens can do crude translations of Hindi, enough to get a basic idea of the general story line, but a lot of the nuance is missing.

Because Shakti is fuelled by violence against women, a few of the issues have Bixby/Ferrigno Hulk style scenarios were the bad guys attack or menace Chanda (in one comic they even run her over in a car IIRC), triggering her transformation into the all powerful Shakti. The stories vary between fighting fantastical monsters, and regular human thugs / low-life, and can (by Western standards) actually be quite graphic in terms of the violence they show, particularly towards abused women.

I'll post interior story pages if anyone is curious -- let me know. I'll avoid the harder stuff, and stick with the fantasy villains and mafia bosses.


R5

I think we might have actually found the unicorn that is right up my alley (and probably those of several others on this forum) -
the sexy social justice warrior! (which, until the recent Woke Era, simply went under the name "superheroine")

The closest analogue in comics might be 1980s/1990s characters like Typhoid Mary (Marvel) and Elven (Malibu), both of whom are
triggered by violence against women.

We have at least a couple of these in our series..the most obvious one being Red Gina, who Shulks out when she gets angry about domestic violence or sex trafficking. And of course Gardenia, who fights for the environment.

Sounds like a perfect mix of villainy in these Shakti comics too. Yes, please, post whatever images you can and fill
up this thread with Shakti goodness. Anything you can find on the lesser-exposed Raj Comics heroines would be great as well.
They all pretty much have that classic 1980s Bronze Age superheroine look, like from the pages of X-Men or Teen Titans.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxgxh75lc ... s.zip/file

Included in the linked archive are scans of eight Hindi comics. Six of them featuring various examples of Shakti stories, with a mix of story type. Two further comics guest star Lomdi, Black Cat, and Chandika; all masked heroines who are supporting characters to some of the male characters.


R5

I'd love to see some story pages. Many of the covers are quite perilous.

five_red wrote: ↑

3 years ago

http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxgxh75lc ... s.zip/file

Included in the linked archive are scans of eight Hindi comics. Six of them featuring various examples of Shakti stories, with a mix of story type. Two further comics guest star Lomdi, Black Cat, and Chandika; all masked heroines who are supporting characters to some of the male characters.


R5

Did anyone try the download? Did it work?

R5

five_red wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Did anyone try the download? Did it work?

R5

Yes it worked fine - thanks! Shakti is by far the best heroine..although Chandika is pretty good, too.
These stories have a lot of action!

Comic Tropes just posted a hilarious video about the history of Raj Comics!
He mainly uses an example of how the company blatantly stole DC and Marvel characters to use in their story without
any permission whatsoever, to team up with Nagraj. And the style of English writing is also very funny.
Not much about Shakti in this one, unfortunately. But you get the definite flavor of how goofily bootleg Indian comics were.

shakti is very hot and sexy.perfect SHIP bondage mate slave for us all ha