Super Sikh is the story of Deep Singh, a super secret agent and part time IT specialist as well as being s sikh. Deep works for a spy agency in India with UN ties called I.I.I.T. And thats just the start of the jokes in this action comedy. There’s lots of little winks and nods to the audience like that as you read the comic. Deep is practically perfect but his aunt worries about him not eating enough and getting overworked and though he is the best secret agent even all of his family recommend he take a vacation. Deep’s choice is to go to Graceland as he is an enormous Elvis fan and this is where the adventure really begins.
As a character Deep is a really fun guy, he’s incredibly positive and optimistic in nearly all circumstances. He handles adversity and hardship with stoicism or outright cheerfulness always trying to finding the best way to deal with things. I suspect this is a reflection of his sikh culture. The story moves along at a pretty good clip keeping the plot moving with action and comedy and its generally a fun read. Deep and his supporting cast are charming and his villains are mostly incompetent as this book is a parody of the spy genre. Still the story admirably does have one major moment where Deep has deal with a horrible situation and we get to see that he isn’t perfect all the time and that even he can suffer emotional distress. It’s a good character moment in a mostly lighthearted book.
Unfortunately the series is not without its share of problems. The story gets quite political as it goes and paints America as semingly the most racist country in the world and white people in general as stupid, ignorant and racist. Initially this was used very effectively in a hijacking scene with people on the plane mistaking Deep for a terrorist. The situation made this joke work out quite well but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The story takes pains to remind frequently that America and white people are mostly deplorable and it quickly becomes tiresome. What I would have preferred would have been to learn more about the sikh culture as I know a bit about Indian culture and religion but know nothing about the sikh in particular. The sikh principles are touched on only very briefly wich was a real missed opportunity in my opinion. Instead I get a comic that keeps grinding my enjoyment to a halt by telling me that my country and race suck regularly. What a shame. I will give the author a caveat for eventually using the perceived American racial paranoia to foil the terroists in a clever way, a payoff set up in the very first issue.
ART
The art is mostly quite good, characters, backgrounds and items are rendered extremely well. The artist is very good at making each character look like an individual with good expressions and body language. The page layout and panel flow is good, Colors are crisp if slightly muted choosing a palette that is not oversaturated.
My only criticism of the art is that the action all appears to be rather stiff. It almost looks as if characters are posed using photo-reference or 3D models. Its quite precise but feels a bit lifeless because of this. It doesn’t ruin the book but in a comic with such an over the top James Bond flair I would have enjoyed it all the more if the action appeared qually over the top.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I really wanted to like this book more, I enjoy the character of the Super Sikh and the set up for his own secret agency, Its a nifty and original idea that I haven’t seen explored outside of Bollywood its just too bad that so much of the book wants to put in so much social commentary that Im constantly taken out of the story. 3 out of 5!
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
SUPER SIKH
Writer: Eileen Kaur Alders, Supreet Singh Manachanda
Art: Amit Tayal
From Rosarium Press
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