Retelling Goddesses: The Devi Graphic Novels of Virgin Comics

Puranic mythologies and iconographies have served as important sources for both retelling and inspiration in contemporary South Asian popular literature genres, including classic novels as well as more visual formats such as comics and video games. While popular Indian publications such as Amar Chitra Katha have issued these kinds of textual and visual adaptions for decades, graphic novels are increasingly doing the same. The array of how original narratives and iconographies are adapted, content-wise and aesthetically, are multifarious. They often reflect the respective artists’, companies’ or producers’ value systems and aims; and they range from transformative to consolidating. In some cases the storytelling remains extremely close to the original; elsewhere, highly innovative reinterpretations and patchwork designs make use of isolated strands of Hindu mythologies that can be blended with any given narrative context. Equally diverse are the ways in which certain aesthetics are used to visualize material that we often think of as “textual.” In practice, this means that Hindu goddesses’ fights against demonic (male) forces are frequently blended into contemporary urban settings.

In particular, this paper focuses on the Devi graphic novels (Virgin Comics 2006-8). How does this series—which is aimed at a global audience—transmit, popularize, (re)interpret, and consolidate earlier goddess narratives? How does it remold earlier (textual) visualizations of goddess figures? How are Puranic narratives retold or embedded for audiences who have little or no prior knowledge of them? Are specific ways of storytelling and visualization needed in such cases? Can we pinpoint specific features of how Puranic narratives are culturally translated (so to speak) and popularized beyond South Asia? In order to answer these questions, the paper will look into the graphic novels themselves and also beyond them, at their larger reception. Hence we discuss reviews and debates around the Devi graphic novels in India and beyond. How have the creators’ narrative and visual strategies landed with audiences?

The series’ attempts to appeal to audiences across cultural and religious contexts are visible in several ways. For example, marketing strategies make strong use of internationally acclaimed figures with a background in India, figures relatable for South Asian audiences and beyond. Devi is consistently linked to its main creator: the title line of every single cover of the altogether 20 volumes reads “Shekhar Kapur’s Devi”. As an established film director, Kapur was already well known to global audiences across nations at the times of the series’ release. He had been successful in both Bollywood and Indian film, as director of Masoom (1983), the superhero story Mr. India (1987), Bandit Queen (1994) and others. In Hollywood, he was well known as the director of Elizabeth (1998) which was nominated for several Oscars, The Four Feathers (2002) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). While Devi, of course, is the product of a large team of writers, artists and others, it is no coincidence that the series is marketed as the brainchild of a director who had already reached large international audiences. The actress Priyanka Chopra, a superstar in both Bollywood and Hollywood, is another example for a figure employed as marketing booster by the series: she is cited on several covers and opening pages; she wrote an introduction that was published as the opening page in the first volume.

The narrative and visual content of the series centers around a fictional young woman, Tara Mehta, who lives in Sitapur—all set in a futuristic India. Openly inspired by the goddess Durgā and the clash between deities and asuras, Devi in the graphic novels needs to battle evil male forces. In particular, her fight against the demonic Bala is based in Puranic mythological stories around Durgā’s battles. Tara, in the beginning an unawakened form of Devi, navigates life with her nightclub-owning boyfriend among criminals, police inspectors and gangs; later, she is awakened as Devi. Portrayed as an affectionate and reflective being, an “all-too-human Goddess,” she then encounters Bala and other evil, demonic forces.

Overall, the series has been well received—arguably more so by readers from South Asian backgrounds. It is the Indian elements in Devi that are praised in reviews; readers seem to appreciate the attempt to create a modern and timely female superhero with South Asian roots. Additionally, readers frequently comment on the settings of the novels, which are clearly inspired by South Asian mythology but incorporate other elements of global fantasy genres. What dominated the public debate around the Devi series was positive feedback. A number of subsequent adaptations of Puranic mythology in popular literature and media genres have been criticized for their alleged misportrayals of characters (or the misuse of Puranic narratives for entertainment purposes in general)—but these kinds of critiques were absent from appraisals of the Devi series in 2006.