Cricket mania in India has produced a new Indian superhero, ‘Sachin Tendulkar – the Master Blaster’:
India’s Sachin Tendulkar is set to appear as a superhero in a new range of comic books, animation and games. The cricketing legend has linked up with Virgin Comics and his character will wear body armour and wield a flaming cricket bat. [Link]
Ummmm …. guys? You’re not helping the rep of desi men any. He’s short, has a stiff bat on fire, and is associated with Virgin? Great … But wait, it gets even better:
… two years ago had a stage musical about him called Main Sachin Tendulkar [Link]
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p>Just imagine little Rajiv, playing in an American sandbox with his Sachin Tendulkar action figure.
Joe: I’ve got a GI Joe! What’s that short geeky looking thing?
Rajiv: I’ve got a Sachin Tendulkar! He plays cricket!
Joe: GI Joe has a gun. See, he can shoot bad guys with it.
Rajiv: Sachin has a flaming cricket bat! And when I play, I sing songs from his musical. Isn’t he awesome?
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p>Doesn’t Gotham Chopra know how many years of therapy poor Rajiv is going to have to pay for?
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p>On the other hand, this I think is really cool. He’s flying 115 kites, strung together, with photos of the various members of the cricket team on each one. How could you get beat up in a sandbox for this?
Who runs Bartertown?!
HAHAH! Ok, so why does the Sachin superhero remind of a cross b/w modern day comic heros and He-Man (come on, don’t tell me you forgot He-Man!). The kite is pretty cool though.
This reminds of the comic book and movie “Mystery Men” where all sorts of inane superheros existed more as a parody. If someone told me of all the super powers someone could posses hitting a cricket ball with a flaming bat would be low on my list of possibilities.
i think the comicbook is being distributed in london and mumbai. not in the U.S. these are places where GI Joe is not really that respected and Sachin Tendulkar is regarded to be on the level of Jordan and Hawk.
After the bad show at the World Cup collectors will be running to the store to buy up the comics to burn along with this effigies.
That link just says that they’re expanding corporate animation facilities in those two countries. Besides which, action figures will travel wherever children go …
Bad idea! Could have been better if came out 7-8 years back.
I can’t help but think they killed Captain American for this
Could it get any better =D
Isn’t a stiff bat on fire a good thing? I mean, I’m assuming it’s not the kind of fire that requires prescription drugs or anything, or that can be transmitted to the… um… cricket ball…
Weren’t you pseudo intellectuals purporting to follow India’s fortunes at the world cup.
Wouldn’t you be better off makin fun of this comic book character after knowing a bit about the real person on whom it is based.
Because my brethren,this guy has a bigger share in putting us on the world (The real world which is much bigger than the world of the average American)map than many of you put toghether.
I like you people for what you do.But please don’t put the “C” back into ABD.
Can’t a (desi) brother get a break? Come on – give the Master Blaster a chance. I promise you he’s no roid raging Barry Bonds…
The idea of the comic could be bad(or maybe not,depends on how its presented) but this post I felt to be probably worse and maybe not quite cricket.
A conversation between two kids comparing GI Joe and Sachin??!Which part of the world prey is this likely to happen??US? dont think so…..India??maybe, and if it does,the kid with the GI Joe is the one likely to require therapy later in life.
Also,what do you know about Sachin that makes you think an action figure based on him would be referred to as ‘geeky’….the accompanying picture in the beeb article didnt suggest anything geeky…….and if you think Tendulkar himself is geeky than you probably know as much about cricket and him as I know about cooking.
Apparently not as many as this Rajiv kid(or Gurpreet or whatever)would spend because of having a parent indulge in perpetual self-flagellation
espn pounced on this comic
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=shah/070319
IMHO the master blaster has more to fear from Super Commando Dhruv than the Joes.
I used to be a big fan of Dhruv, and embarrisingly looking down Nagraj too!
Fauladi Singh anyone….
“I used to be a big fan of Dhruv, and embarrisingly looking down Nagraj too!”
Why are you so embarrassed of having been a fan of Nagraj.Nagraj,Chacha chaudhary,Suppandi,shikaari Shambu,Phantom,Mandrake etc to us Desi kids,were what Super-extra-he-bat-ball-spider-roach-plastic-rubber-teflon-MAN to these people are. Come on!These are just comic books that kids in any country live on . I can’t believe people can be condescending about this too.. And among the majority of the blogggers here who apparently are Indian American-I have been noticing a disturbing trend. When attacked with remarks about their skin color or ethnicity, they tend to look towards the Des to bail them out and thump their puny chests proclaiming their loyalty,solidarity and all related BS.The rest of the time they are just condescenging towards the people of the land they or their folks are from.
Chill man..my embarassment has nothing to do with desi videshi or whatever. I think i will be equally embarassed today (and its just me!) thinking of myself running around acting like spiderman instead of nagraj and throwing my “web” everywhere :D.
And I think you are bit harsh on the bloggers. Its there opinion and you dont have to agree with everything. I agree with a lot of there stuff, and I disagree with a lot too. I am not a big fan of some of the use (or threat of use!) of banning policy, but still there is a lot of good stuff here, and its a great place to be for us South Asians.
(I hope i don’t sound too sanctimonious!)
I enjoy Nagraj, Chacha chaudhary, Suppandi, shikaari Shambu,Phantom, Mandrake all as well. If you look in the first line of my post, I have a link to a previous article about them. Master Blaster, on the other hand, with his flaming cricket bat, is a pretty lame superhero. The action figure would be geeky because he’s in cricket “armor”, which is geeky. It would also be geeky if he was a superhero called “The Catcher” who dressed like a baseball catcher, and caught bad guys in his giant laming catchers mitt.
Virgin comics has a list of comics books coming out based on Indian mythological figures (which we’re also blogged). That sounds quite promising. But the “Master Blaster” ? Not so much.
There is nothing geeky about this😉
off-topic: anyone in Austin – my friend’s looking to watch the World Cup, does anyone know what the scene is?
oh no. you did not just bring up nagraj. my mommy wouldn’t buy me his comic book when i was little. and since it happened right before we emigrated from india, i made her feel guilty about it for her whole life.
i think i’m going to pull the nagraj card and get some good home cooked meal tonight.
All Superheroes look like Liberace-esque clowns. Why would this one be any different? OTOH, real Sachin has done more than most for the rep of Desi men.
Virgin has come up with some really interesting “India” centric comics Especially, Ramayana 3392 AD,which has the basic Ramayana theme although it’s based in the future..And I must say I was pleasantly surprised with what I read . Virgin is also breaking new ground by bringing in Comic Writers like Garth Ennis(Preacher,Hitman), to work with Indian Artists like Jeevan Kang (the comic in question being John Woo’s Seven brothers) More info over here —> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Comics
This effort although, seems to be a bit OTT 🙂
Which is why I am slightly miffed at the post……this is not the first action figure to come out of the india….this is not even the first ‘superhero’ action figure to come out of india……..so the only reason that must have inspired the author for this put-down post is that its an action figure based on a cricket player…….maybe at a sub-conscious level but it does appear still an effort to put down the game and its heroes…….
God only knows why….
You never know, the “catcher” might become quite popular in some demographics 🙂
What inspired the author to post on this topic now was that it was in the news. As I said before, I’ve linked in the first line to a previous post on Indian Superheroes, and my perspective wasn’t negative about them.
What inspired me to put it down was that this is pretty lame, and I’m speaking as a male who spent a lot of my childhood playing with comic book and other action figures. This one takes the cake. Can you imagine a Babe Ruth comic book where he has a flaming baseball bat? C’mon. Just b/c you like the sportsman doesn’t mean he’d make a good superhero. And before you say it’s just an ABD thing, read this.
Why can\’t superheroes be short? Should kids, esp short kids, be taught being tall is cool and conversely being short is shameful?, imagine the self esteem a short kid will have when he grows up if he is fed these kind of ideas. Indians don\’t associate men doing musicals to homosexuality, they are used to seeing their heroes do song and dance sequences in movies. The more I observe the more iam coming to beleive that american men are sexually insecure who try to be careful not to do, say or wear anything that may be considered even remotely gay. Whatever happened to \”be yourself\”.
Dhruv had an antagonist duo who used a cricket bat and a ball as weapons. It didn’t seem to work, the entire setup was too awkward, and I believe they appeared in only one issue. OTOH, I can imagine some of my young cousins in India getting worked up over a Tendulkar action figure:I can see it finding a niche in the cricket-crazy 7 year old crowd.
Upbhransh:
You should be embarrassed. Nagraj sucked. Dhruv kicked ass 😉 .
Now now..be nice to the poor snake boy. Also do you remember some of the comics in which both of them were together and kicked some major ass together.
I remember reading a series of comics with Gavaskar (“Sunny the somethingortheother”) as the hero when I was a kid. Someone looking like Amrish Puri in Mr India used to be the villain in those comics. Gavaskar used to make all sorts of horrible puns while doing his shtick. I wonder if anyone else read these comics. This one looks much more slick though 🙂
I remember one, subtly named ‘nagraj aur super commando dhruv’. 😉 Ah okay, forgive and forget. And certainly glad to connect with old Raj comics fans 🙂 .
Ahh… Why can’t all our men look like GI Joe? Some bleach, regular Fair and Lovely.. You never know…