Shaktimaan is an Indian comics series based on the popular Indian superhero Shaktimaan which was originally launched as a television serial. The Shaktimaan comic book series was published by Raj Comics and also by Diamond Comics in several Indian languages and in English as well. The character of Shaktimaan was created by Nirmal Jani and made popular by actor Mukesh Khanna. The television serial was immensely popular in the country during the late 1990s and the comic book series of Shaktimaan further increased the demand and fame of the character. Shaktimaan is the story of a man who has acquired mystical Yogic powers which enables him to help the innocent and defeat the evil forces. He lives as a geek named Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Omkarnath Shastri in a big city and works as a journalist for the newspaper Aaj Ki Aawaz, while maintaining his secret identity as Shaktimaan.

Shaktimaan possesses various superpowers like incredible strength, ability to move fast by rapid rotation and is almost invincible. He cannot be harmed by mere mortal weapons. The character and concept of Shaktimaan is strongly inspired from the American superhero comics series Superman.

Content of Shaktimaan
Shaktimaan got his super powers from 7 spiritual gurus who had blessed him with mystical yogic shakti or power and trained him in ancient combat forms. Siddha gurus of the Suryanshi sect, who are followers of the star Sun, chose him as the pure warrior to fight evil. During his training, Shaktimaan was taught to energise the 7 chakras of body through Kundalini Yoga that will help him to get mystical and supernatural powers. He also conducted the ritual of death in order to get total control over his powers. This process, instead of killing him, made him almost immortal and stronger than any mere human being.

Shaktimaan also performed a Yagya (Yajna) through which he entered the fire and immersed his physical body in it. It was then the five natural elements of life, namely fire, earth, water, wind and sky invigorated his body and he gained further super powers from these elements. Eventually he transformed into a super human warrior in order to fight against the forces of evil in the world and ultimately became the super hero Shaktimaan.

Through the course of the story, Shaktimaan encounters his arch nemesis Tamraj Kilvish, who has immense powers of the dark forces. But Shaktimaan`s Mahaguru explained that Kilvish will be destroyed only after evil is defeated entirely. The rest of the story follows the various adventures of Shaktimaan were he protects the innocent and his friends while defeating various enemies and finding a way to defeat Tamraj Kilvish once and for all.

Powers of Shaktimaan
Shaktimaan possesses various super powers such as the ability to fly at the speed of light, ability to voluntarily change his size, powerful vision, invisibility, ability to control the 5 elements of nature and immortality. He can divide his physical body in five different bodies of sky, earth, water, wind and fire. He can also transform his body into pure light move with the speed of light. Shaktimaan also has the ability to can shoot beams of laser from his fingers, toes and other parts of his blessed body. He can also stretch his various body parts to great lengths. Shaktimaan is also an expert at different martial art forms and has the power of telepathy, teleportation, etc.

The only weakness of Shaktimaan lies in a crystal that is filled with all the evil of the world. The crystal is possessed by his arch rival Tamraj Kilvish, and is the source of his dark powers.

Publications of Shaktimaan
Various comics issues of Shaktimaan have been published by both Raj Comics and also by Diamond Comics. Some of the issues released by Raj Comics include Cacodar`s Havoc, Come on Shaktimaan, Invisible Gang, Kashtak, Mystery of Shaktimaan, etc. some other issues published by Diamond Comics are Shaktimaan and Revenge of Maya, Shaktimaan Tejabi Barish, Shaktimaan and Defeat of The Dark world, Shaktimaan and Dictatorship of Kilvish, Shaktimaan and Evil Emperor and many others.