Dressed in a flowing dhoti, or a sarong, pointy shoes and a familiar red mask, he will swing between three-wheeled motor rickshaws and scooters down crowded Indian streets to take on the evil Rakshasa, or demon.

Creators of India's Spiderman, who is called Pavitr Prabhakar, hope he will soon be as well-loved as the original one, Peter Parker.

Gotham Entertainment Group (GEG), based in Bangalore and New York, has launched four issues of the comic in the United States and will introduce the first of the four-part series in India next month, in a deal with Marvel Enterprises Inc.

"The culture of India and Asia is increasingly finding an audience in the West," said Gotham Chopra, president of Gotham Studios Asia and son of feel-good guru Deepak Chopra. "The superheroes of tomorrow will be cross-cultural."

Like Parker, Prabhakar is an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle in Mumbai, India's answer to New York City.

And like many residents of India's film capital, he dreams of becoming a movie star. The source of his powers is a yogi, or an ascetic, not a radioactive spider, and his enemy is a business tycoon who turns into a rakshasa, or demon, with a magic amulet.

Gotham Studios, a joint venture with Deepak Chopra and film director Shekhar Kapur, will create original Indian properties based on mythology and folk tales, which it hopes will influence popular Western culture much in the same way that Japan's manga comics and anime animation style have.

"As Asia flexes its economic and cultural muscle, when some of the superheroes take off their masks, they may have Indian or Chinese faces," said Deepak Chopra, who has successfully marketed an Eastern brand of spirituality in the West.

Publishers in India have found comics based on mythology and religion typically outsell Western fare.

The market for English-language comics in India is a niche one, with publishers often unable to land lucrative merchandising deals because of a thriving grey market in books, toys, and bags.

But GEG, publisher of Marvel, DC Comics and Warner Brothers Publishing titles in India, aims to tap a market where nearly half the billion-plus population is below the age of 25.

"It may take some getting used to -- seeing Spider-Man climbing the Bombay Stock Exchange, rather than inching up a New York skyscraper -- but some will think it cool," said Murali Gopalan, a comic book enthusiast.