India in comics,part 3- Kalimán

Kalimán (often called  Kalimán el hombre increible-Kaliman the Incredible man) , according to Wikipedia   is 


the name of a Mexican comic book hero very famous across Latin America. He was created by Rafael Cutberto Navarro and Modesto Vázquez González. The Kaliman comic depicts the adventures of Kaliman and his young companion Solín, an Egyptian boy who is descended from Pharaohs. Kaliman had his own radio show since 1963, which featured adventures that took place on exotic sites. The comic book was born due to the huge success of the radio show of the same name.
 






and-

Kaliman's origin is unknown, which adds to the sense of mystery that surrounds the character. What we know is that he is an orphan adopted by prince Abul Pasha from one of the kingdoms in the valley of Kalimantan, that he is the fifth man in a dynasty of men dedicated to preserving justice in the world, and that he is the seventh man of the goddess Kali's dynasty. He swore an oath to Kali to wander the world fighting for justice, and must return to India to renew the oath every seven years.


Kaliman wears an all-white outfit with one mark: the jeweled-encased "K" he wears in his turban. He does not use weapons, except a blowgun with tranquilizer darts and a ceremonial dagger that complements his costume. He is a master of martial arts, science and arts. He also possesses extraordinary mental powers: levitation, telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis, astral projection, control of the involuntary functions of the body (which allows him to feign being dead: what he calls "actus mortis"), hypnosis, and self-healing, among others. He makes clear that he does nothing that any other men would not be able to do through self discipline, study and hard work.


Kalimán has no superhuman powers, he is a human at the peak of his abilities, thanks to the esoteric knowledge he has. It is assumed that Solín, a common boy, will eventually take his place as he learns from Kalimán.
 Only in two adventures "El Extraño Doctor Muerte" (The Strange Doctor Death) and "El Dragón Rojo" (The Red Dragon) he gets momentary superhuman powers, thanks to the third eye, opened by the lama masters.
Kalimán never kills. He even puts his life in danger to prevent any kind of killing.


So Kalimán is a hero of Indian origin wandering around in middle-eastish lands.




Note that the name of the protagonist has an accent over the 'a' in 'man' in Spanish. So it does not translate into the English 'man' and thus the name Kalimán is not equal to Kaliman like Superman or Batman - though anyone not familiar with Spanish could easily and understandably believe so. In fact, the pronunciation would be -Kali-maan.

There are also a couple of Kalimán movies.

A scene from   Kalimán el hombre increible, 1972

Somebody has been kind enough to put the whole first film on Youtube-



Kalimán El Hombre Increible
1972 movie



Here are a couple of pages from No.5, published the 15th, June, 1983 along with the cover-


Grandes aventuras de   Kalimán
no 5
junio 1983







Comments

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