Spider-Man: India Writer Nikesh Shukla Talks About His Love for Spidey, Reading Comics, Writing Pavitr Prabhakar, and More
Spider-Man: India returns to comics with a miniseries of his own, written by Nikesh Shukla.
Editor's Note: IGN India reached out to Nikesh Shukla directly over social media for this interview.
It's been around three weeks since Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse dropped, and fans are still discussing the different elements of the film.
From jaw-dropping visuals to the nail-biting cliffhanger, the sequel to 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had it all. On top of that, the film introduces new Spider-People, one of which hails from the city of Mumbattan.
The Spidey in question is Pavitr Prabhakar aka Spider-Man: India. The character made his comic book debut with Marvel in 2004. Now, almost 20 years later, he is among one of the most integral characters in the latest Spider-Man film. Voiced by Karan Soni, the web-slinger meets protagonist Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy during the universe-hopping adventure.
Alongside making his film debut, the character also makes a major return to the world of comic books, as Spider-Man: India receives his first miniseries since the 2004 debut.
Spider-Man: India #1 is now on shelves, and ahead of its release, I had a chat with writer Nikesh Shukla to talk more about his love for Spider-Man, Across the Spider-Verse, and more. Here is our complete conversation with Nikesh.
Seeing Pavitr Prabhakar on the big screen
When I spoke to Shukla, he was a few hours away from watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The 42-year-old had huge expectations going into the film, as he already had Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in his Top 10 films of all-time list.
Shukla had an inkling about Pavitr being part of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse when the first look for the film dropped in 2021. "There was a bit in the teaser trailer, where there was just like a random tabla or something like that," he noted. "It just made my stupid brain go, 'Huh, I wonder if that means Pavitr's in this.'"
At the time, Nikesh pitched the idea of bringing back Pavitr Prabhakar in a miniseries to Marvel editorial. "When I met with them and pitched them my idea, they were like, 'Well, funnily enough, he's going to be in Across the Spider-Verse,'" he revealed.
Writing for Peter Parker and Pavitr Prabhakar aka Spider-Man: India
During our chat, Shukla dove deeper into his love for Spider-Man, and the kind of Spidey he loves reading about. "My favorite Spider-Man, be it Peter Parker, be it Miles Morales, is teenage street-level Spidey." he shared.
He further talked about how the teenage variant of Spider-Man spoke to him growing up. "There was always something so compelling about a teenager so wracked by guilt and burdened with shame and feeling like the world is against him and feeling overwhelmed with all of his responsibilities."
By the time Shukla got a chance to work on the story of Pavitr Prabhakar, it had been forever since Marvel published a story centered around the Indian web-slinger. Prabhakar had largely been a background character in stories like Edge of Spider-Verse, where Shukla wrote his story for the first time.
This allowed Shukla to put his stamp on the character while writing the miniseries. "I just wanted him to have fun because I think that's when you love the writing of Peter Parker and Miles Morales," he acknowledged. "When they put on that mask, and they are trolling their villains as they go toe to toe with them, it's fun, it's brilliant."
Shukla's version of Spider-Man: India also comes with a deep understanding of the character's iconic motto of "With great power comes great responsibility." The author of books like Coconut Unlimited and Brown Baby also married in his ideas of politics and the concept of Seva and community service for the character. Shukla stated, "I kind of approached it like, 'If I get an opportunity to write one Spider-Man comic, what's the one thing I want to say?' and it is that anyone can be a hero to their community and being a hero has to be selfless service."
Writing a comic book is quite different
Shukla later emphasized that the final book is quite close to the original pitch that he had laid out to Marvel editorial. Despite his love for comics since childhood, the British author was quite new to writing comic book scripts when he began working on the miniseries.
"Writing a comic book script is a very specific art," Shukla revealed. "You collaborate and communicate what you want with an artist and give them space to put their own stamp on it."
Shukla worked on Spider-Man: India with New Delhi-based artist, Abhishek Malsuni. The duo had previously collaborated for Edge of Spider-Verse as well.
Pavitr in his own element in Spider-Man: India mini series
The mini-series follows Pavitr Prabhakar in his home world of Earth-50101 following the events of Edge of Spider-Verse. Shukla wanted to highlight what Pavitr meant to his community through his heroic adventures.
"He's done some multi-versal adventures with Peter and Miles and he's sort of part of the extended Spider-Family across the Spider-Verse," Shukla pointed out. "But when it's just him in his world, what does that look like? And I really just wanted to show him at street level because I think that's where you kind of get a sense of who he is at his core."
Moreover, Shukla has taken references from Tom Holland's Spidey aka MCU Spider-Man, when it comes to the banter that Spidey characters like Pavitr Prabhakar have. "Tom Holland Spider-Man's mixture of humor and teenage angst is spot on," he said.
A villainous Lizard, a Kingpin figure and internet trolls
As seen on the covers and the synopsis of the miniseries, Spider-Man: India will battle it out against the Lizard. Shukla revealed that his version of the Spidey villain, "sees the world in a very flat way, isn't interested in the idea of collective spirit, prioritizes individualism over everything else."
Shukla divulged that the antagonist aims to access the reptilian brains of humans to make sure they operate on their primary instinct. Lizard also believes that it is the next step in the evolution of humanity. The story also sees Spider-Man face internal battles about the individual versus the collective. Shukla stated the story features his take on how collective spirit and community is more important than individualism.
The author also indicated that the miniseries further explores the themes of capitalism, gentrification and evil landlords. He even mentioned that a Kingpin-figure makes an entry during his run. "I also wanted to talk about internet trolls and troll farms because that's something that has been very prevalent in my sort of writing life as a political writer," added Shukla.
Building the Mumbai of Earth-50101
Despite sharing the same name of Earth-50101, the home world of Pavitr Prabhakar differs massively from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the comic books. Shukla disclosed that he and Malsuni had no idea about how Mumbattan of Earth-50101 looked in Across the Spider-Verse.
Considering the limits, Shukla stated that he wanted to honor the original Spider-Man: India miniseries from Sharad Devarajan, Suresh Seetharaman, and Jeevan J. Kang in his 2023 miniseries. This inspired Shukla and Malsuni to reference panels from the original comics.
The writer also conveyed that he wanted Mumbai to look alive and feel like it's a living and breathing city. " I really wanted him (Pavitr) to be rooted in his Mumbai of Earth-50101," noted Shukla.
Growing up with Spider-Man
During our chat, Shukla also took a trip down memory lane to talk about his affinity for comics. He opened about how a trip to India as a six-year-old led him to notice his cousins' obsession over Archie comics. " I always felt a little bit left out," he said. "They all felt like these Archie comics were perhaps too old for me, which of course they were."
Luckily, his sister handed him a Spider-Man and Batman comic, which opened the doors to the world of comic books for him. Years later, he and his friend Junaid continued their comic book escapades with trips to Calamity Comics in Harrow, UK. "We had no money, but we could afford one comic each. So, what we would do is we'd sit at the back of the comic shop and read all of the comics and then we would buy our one comic," he said.
Shukla shared more about his devious plan to collect foil variant #1, #25, #50, #75, and #100 comics, and later sell them for a fortune. However, as pointed out by Shukla, since this was during the heyday of comics in the 90s, most of these books aren't necessarily seen as the most valued items in the world of collecting.
Seeing Spider-Man: India for the first time
Shukla also shared how he saw Spider-Man: India for the first time. In 2005, while hanging out at London house of his friend Kunal Anand, a Mumbai-based artist, Shukla noticed sketches of Spider-Man wearing a dhoti. To his surprise, Anand notified him that it was indeed real, and proved to him by later showing him the original Spider-Man: India miniseries at Orbital Comics in London.
"It was a big full circle moment for me because I was in India when I was first brought into the world of Spider-Man, and now there was an Indian Spider-Man," said Shukla.
Manifesting it into existence
Later on in our chat, Shukla admitted that writing Spider-Man might be the biggest highlight of his career. " I've written novels for adults, I've written novels for teenagers, I've written for television, I've written for panel shows, I've written everything I've ever wanted to write," he said with a gleaming smile. "But writing a Spider-Man comic, that cannot and will not ever be beaten, ever."
His boyhood dream of writing Spider-Man manifested into existence, when fellow Marvel comics writer Jamie McKelvie of Young Avengers-fame messaged him on Twitter, upon seeing Shukla's tweet about his desire to write a Spider-Man comic. "Jamie messaged me and was like, I could introduce you to some people if you're serious," Shukla reminisced.
Nikesh has shared his love for Spider-Man in interviews, his memoir Brown Baby, and several other written pieces. His dream finally became a reality after meeting with the editor for Spider-Man comics at Marvel. After pitching his story idea, his dream has now turned into Marvel canon.
A future featuring Daredevil and Marvel Champions?
With Spider-Man, Nikesh Shukla has ticked off a major checkbox in his bucket list. However, he is not looking for it be a one-off, as he is interested in writing for characters like Daredevil. Furthermore, he also shared his love for Ms. Marvel, and the Marvel Champions team, which features teenage superheroes like Kamala Khan alongside Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, Sam Alexander variant of Nova, and more.
For now, Shukla is focusing on Spider-Man: India, and after writing for characters like Peter Parker in the upcoming miniseries, he sure is living out his dream.
Spider-Man: India #1 released on June 14, with subsequent issues arriving in the coming months.
