Shaktimaan

Real Name: Pandit Gangaadhar Vidhyadhar Mayadhar Onkar Nath Shastri

Identity/Class: Superpowered human

Occupation: Newspaper worker

Affiliations: Unknown

Enemies:  Kilvish and his followers

Known Relatives: Ranjeet Singh (father, deceased); Kausalya (mother, deceased), Arundhati Devi (adopted mother, deceased), Pandit Vidyadhar Mayadhar Onkar Nath Shastri (adopted father, deceased)

Aliases: None known

Base of Operations: India

First Appearance: Unknown

Powers/Abilities: Shaktimaan is superstrong, can fly, and is invulnerable, except to Paap Punj, which can drain his life (effectively being his version of Kryptonite). His powers come mainly from panchamahabhutas like earth, fire, wind, water and sky.

History: After his parents were slain by Kilvish, the child who would become Shaktimaan was found by a Guru of Shaktimaan of the Suryanshi creed, who gave the child to Arundhati Devi to raise until he was old enough to be trained. When that time came, the Gurus of Suryanshi sent one of their number for the boy, but this alerted Kilvish to his existence, and he murdered the boy's adopted father, Pandit Shastri; Arundhati was left to raise her adopted son alone, while the gurus trained him to use "yogic shakti" and the panchamahabhutas, granting him superhuman powers which he used to become a defender of truth and justice. His first case involved stopping bank robbers.

Comments: Created by Mukesh Khanna, who also plays the character on television. The series was extremely popular in India, virtually from the moment it first aired on September 13th, 1997, so much so that the media reported children injuring themselves trying to imitate the lead character. This led to a court case which gave the show a clean bill of health (and actually praised it for its message of good moral values), but there remains no question of the show's impact in India.

Thanks to Jannat and Nachiket Nitsure for additional details about the character. Thanks to V. Vivek Ranzan for informing me of a missing portion of his real name and the Paap Punj weakness. Thanks also to Abhishek Mittal for likewise pointing out that I'd missed part of his real name.

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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