Kaliman

Kalimán (in most of the comic's issues, the name appeared without an accent, Kalimán) was a radio program and then also a comic strip of Mexican origin, which narrated the adventures of the superhero Kalimán and his young companion Solín, a descendant of the pharaohs. It was in force between 1963 and 1991.

Origin

This series was originally created by Modesto Vázquez González in 1963, with characters designed by Isidro Olace and Carlos Chacón, for Mexican radio. At the beginning the character's name is Kalima and he had a girlfriend. A 15-minute program was recorded, it was written by Benjamín de la Torre de Aro, it failed, so they took it to Rafael Curberto Navarro, manager of RCN, he baptized it Kalimán, and also gave the name to Molín (before it was Olin). Victor Fox replaces Benjamín de la Torre. Isidro Olace started as a supporting actor in the radio series and then became the official narrator. After the initial success of the character's adventures in this format, in 1965 the jump to comics occurred, and it was then that he achieved his greatest popularity. Under the writing of Héctor González Dueñas (Víctor Fox) and Clemente Uribe Ugarte, who signed as Clem Uribe, the magazine was sold weekly for 26 years without interruptions, over 1,351 consecutive issues, and was distributed not only in Mexico, but throughout Central America, in some South American countries and in the Caribbean. It should be noted that, although it was Víctor Fox who bought the rights and appeared in the credits, it was nevertheless the genius of Clem Uribe who coined phrases that remained in memory: «The mind is the most powerful weapon, he who dominates the mind "He dominates everything." Plots were developed for radio and comics, which Editora K published. In 1991, the comic was definitively cancelled. One of his references was "Tamakún, the wandering avenger", a character that emerged from the Cuban radio soap opera in December 1941 and created by the Cuban writer Armando Couto.

Career

Kaliman began as a radio program on September 16, 1963. The series continue to be broadcast on XERED-AM 1110 kHz (formerly RCN (Radio Cadena Nacional)), in Mexico City and on various stations in Mexico, as well as in other Latin American countries. To date, more than 30 series with thousands of half-hour episodes have been broadcast.

In principle, Radio Cadena Nacional, S.A., under the direction of Rafael Cutberto Navarro Huerta, produced the series. The personnel list included: Luis Manuel Pelayo, on the voice of Kaliman; Luis de Alba, as Solín; Rafael Luengas, as Count Bartok; to Isidro Olace, in the narration; to Marcos Ortiz, in the direction. The scripts were written by Víctor Fox (pseudonym of Héctor González Dueñas) and Clem Uribe, based on plots by Rafael Cutberto Navarro Huerta and Modesto Ramón Vázquez González.^{[citation required] sup>}

Before they died, Luis Manuel Pelayo and Modesto Vázquez made a recording of the adventure "Nefertiti's Necklace", which has never been broadcast on the radio, but is available on CD or cassette.

In October 2015, on the occasion of the 50th. anniversary of the first published comic, began to be broadcast on MVS 102.5 FM radio in Mexico City, with production editions of the station, making a production mix of the original recording (which presents more modern technology than the first series, since it was recorded more than 20 years later), with the technology of the moment.

The character's pinnacle of popularity was in the 1970s, in both its original radio and comic strip formats. Today, Kaliman's stories continue to be in demand by the public in his homeland.

Argument

Kaliman is the seventh man of the dynasty of the goddess Kali. He is a just man who dedicates his life body and soul to fighting the forces of evil, always accompanied by an Egyptian child, a descendant of pharaohs, named Solin.

The origins of Kaliman are ambiguous, there is a myth that he would be a descendant of an ancient civilization that would inhabit the depths of the Earth known as Agharta, but it is an unfinished story. On the other hand, and for reasons still unknown, when he was just a newborn, he was found floating in a basket by a prince named Abul Pasha, who would have adopted him as his son and heir to the kingdom of Kalimantan, located in a fictitious point in the India. A mixture with notable Judeo-Christian influence of the stories of Jesus and Moses.

The prime minister, knowing that Kaliman would inherit the kingdom, kidnapped the baby without anyone noticing and threw him into a river. Kaliman miraculously manages to save himself. His father, Prince Abul Pasha, goes out to look for him with some soldiers, but is murdered by some criminals to steal him. Kaliman is raised by hunters and later by a tribe of Mongols. As a teenager, he embarks on a series of adventures around the world. He then arrives in Tibet, where he is educated to develop his mind and his physique with training in martial arts such as judo, karate and jiu jitsu. Here, the mix of tributes to Mowgli, Marco Polo, Buddha and Bruce Wayne (Batman), among several others, is notable.

Now an adult (indefinite, the recorded data varies between 20 and 77 years or more), Kaliman knows his origin and returns to do justice. While already in his palace, the prime minister approaches him to stab him in the back, but his adoptive mother intervenes and he dies. Kaliman renounces the throne, donates almost all the lands and wealth to his subjects and leaves again for Tibet. Once this initiation has been completed, Kaliman decides to take a wandering path around the world, in order to do good and defend justice, wherever necessary and facing any enemy, but under the promise of never killing, no matter the circumstance.

Adventures

The adventures of the character, in his desire for justice, have taken him to travel through various regions of the planet, both in comics and on radio, facing an infinite number of dangers and misadventures, which are located halfway between inspired places and events. in real and fictional events and places.

Kalimán has had to face underworld criminal organizations, specialized in drug and weapons trafficking, mystical characters, extraterrestrials, hired killers, Nazis and even beings from beyond the grave such as vampires, the living dead and werewolves.

In all of them, he has been accompanied by an Egyptian boy named Solin, a little disciple who admires Kaliman's nobility and intelligence. Travel companion, whom he would meet on his first adventure, will be the only consistent support character in the stories, either as a help (or hindrance), but mainly as a subject of Kaliman's concern, as he gets into various messes during the development of the plots, whether due to their innocence, their innate curiosity or their closeness to the protagonist.

Kaliman's first comic book adventure, called "Tomb Desecrators," takes him to Egyptian land, where he faces a dangerous gang of criminals specialized in robbing tombs and ancient treasures. In it, he meets the one who will be his permanent adventure companion, Solín, a lively boy who presumes to be a direct descendant of an ancient dynasty of pharaohs, without considering that the last one, that of Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra, was murdered by Caesar Augustus and not He left no living descendants. In fact, Solin's story is plausible within the context of the comic, since Cleopatra Selene II, one of the daughters of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, the last pharaohs of Egypt, survives as a prisoner in Rome, and by marrying Juba II she She becomes queen of Mauretania and, thanks to her four children, manages to prolong the Ptolemy dynasty.

In the second adventure, "The Valley of the Vampires"; Kalimán and Solín travel to England, and there they will face a supernatural danger, as they will meet Count Bartok and his accomplices, of whom Yorvich, the hunchback, and Yésica, an attractive vampire, stand out; as well as Yorvich's mother, the witch Amadea. The incredible man finds himself mixed up in this adventure when he is blamed for the murder of a friend, supposedly for stealing the Romanoff emerald. In pursuit of the real murderer, an Englishman named Smith, they arrive in Rindley County, which is devastated by the presence of human vampires and the demons that serve them. There, Kaliman's problems increase as he must also help Thornell's Ruth escape from Bartok's lasciviousness; who wants to marry her, for which he has murdered her father and kidnapped her fiancé, young Jim Preston.

Kaliman, to put an end to the atrocities of Count Bartok and his accomplices, and using his powers, has managed to deceive him, posing as a human vampire.

Then came other adventures against other memorable villains, such as Humanon, the Black Spider repeatedly, Karma, and several more.

On the radio you can quote, among others:

• "The Red Mask Killers", in which Kaliman and Solin begin this adventure in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Red Mask Assasins is a powerful world-renowned criminal organization that decides to raid a bank in Rio de Janeiro in full carnival. There they murder Luigi Geovany, a friend of Kaliman, but he was now attached to the Red Mask. Since then, Kaliman seeks to dismember the organization, both in the dangerous jungles of the Amazon (where he knows the beautiful Aboriginal Ixtakumá); and in Maracaibo, facing the shipwreck of a cruise that traveled through the Caribbean and which in turn served as transport of valuable values, victims of the ambitions of the organization through the agent of the organization, the Captain. He also lives his adventures in Mexico, the United States (where they try to assault a bank, through Black Day, but Kaliman intervenes and avoids it) and the United Kingdom (where they assault the London train to Chelsea and manage to steal 13 million pounds of sterling in solid gold that belonged to royalty, and then embark on the Queen Victoria boat that starts from Liverpool to Lisbon). On the way to Lisbon they are intercepted by another boat of equal characteristics (called Prince San Carlos) to change the routes and names of the ships and so no one suspects that they carry a lot of gold. Kaliman is always behind the evildoers helped by Greta Gary. However on the boat trip, Kaliman is captured. This way they arrive in Tangier (Morocco); but before they dock in port, Kaliman gets rid of his prison and causes the sinking of the boat, spoiling the plans of the Red Mask. In this way the hunting of the members of the organization begins through the mosques of a town known for its people of maleantes. Thus, Kaliman, after meeting again with his friend Solin who followed him, managed to discover the hideouts of the sluggards to give with the head of the organization, a highly intelligent supercomputer, built by La Araña Negra, eternal rival of Kalimán, who before being defeated, puts explosives in different places of Tangier including the prison where Kaliman, Solin and Greta Gary was in control,
• "The fantastic journey." Timeless adventure in the Greek islands. Kaliman and Solin participate in a journey through the sea of Greece in order to recreate themselves. Later they discover that the journey is intended to capture a single white shark in its species. When captured they provoke the fury of Neptune [gods of the seas] who, furious, raises a storm that destroys the ship. Kaliman and Solin are saved coming to an island. There they save Calipso [son of Zeus] and win the enmity of the evil Poseidon. This robs our hero's youth and begins Kalimán's most fantastic adventure. You must look for your enemy and fight body to body to recover your youth. In addition to this, he has to prove his innocence before all the gods that he did not rap Calipso.
• "The Vampire Valley." Sir Frederic Flagherty, an English aristocrat friend of Kaliman, decides to sell to him the last remnant of his fortune, the Romanov emerald, but before doing so it is killed and the emerald is stolen. Sir Frederic's daughter, Alice, and Inspector Douglas of the London police suspect Kaliman as the perpetrator of the crime, but the truth is that the real killer is Mortimer, an expert knive launcher who wants to sell the emerald to a third, a Mr. Smith.

Kaliman, determined to find his friend's murderer, escapes from police headquarters and meets with Alice, whom he convinces of his innocence. Carefully analyzing a number of clues that he finds at the crime scene, Kalimán deduces the identity of the murderer and discovers him in a London amusement park. Mortimer manages to escape from Kaliman, but shortly afterwards he is killed by Mr. Smith, who steals the emerald. Kaliman pursues Smith, but due to police intervention he manages to escape on a train to the town of Rindley, where he plans to sell the emerald to the descendant of one of its former owners, Count Bartok.

Weapons and powers

Kaliman carries only a dagger which, as he himself says: "It is not a weapon: it is part of my outfit." When the situation requires it, he uses sleeping darts that make an ordinary person sleep for six hours. Among his mental powers are: hypnosis, "actus mortis" (or fake death), which consists of paralyzing the heartbeat and breathing, making him believe that he is dead; "astral travel" (splitting), capable of making his mind go somewhere else and give orders while his body stays somewhere else. He can even, by seeing the pupil of a corpse, know what the last thing the victim saw was when he died. He can project his voice to another location (ventriloquism). He also, with just a few touches to his face, can change it and alter his face, body and the timbre of his voice as he pleases ("gesticulations"). He is knowledgeable in some concepts of engineering, mathematics, physics and chemistry. He knows history, philosophy, martial arts (such as judo, karate, among others), and masters all combat techniques and knows almost all the sciences of knowledge. From what is said in the comic, he has a great personality and irresistible magnetism. His favorite phrase is: "Serenity and patience... a lot of patience." Also, he masters techniques such as telepathy, telekinesis and levitation (which he almost never uses), and every time his little friend Solín asks him for an explanation, he responds with his unique phrase: "He who masters "The mind dominates everything."

Kaliman frequently uses other phrases, and among the most popular, apart from those already mentioned: "Only the coward dies twice", "There is always a way when the path of intelligence is used", "Courage consists in overcoming fear. Also, one of his best-known phrases is: «Kaliman, seventh man of the dynasty of the goddess Kali of justice and revenge. Kali has a thousand eyes to discover lies and evil, a hundred arms to punish the guilty", which is her motto and she rarely mentions it: she quotes it in chapter 4, "The terror of the gray planet", of the radio soap opera.

Main enemies

His main enemy, always defeated, apparently dead and never completely defeated, is the recurring Black Spider, named Martin Lucker, a former circus acrobat who over time becomes the most wanted criminal in the world, never leaving. see his face completely since he always has a black mask and a hat of the same color, he uses all kinds of weapons, but the favorite is his spider-shaped ring that has a high-power poison that, just by touching it, causes immediate death; The Black Spider does not feel hatred towards Kaliman, he simply wants to eliminate him to have the satisfaction of having defeated the world famous Incredible Man.

Other famous enemies are: Karma, a Tibetan monk aspiring ―together with Kaliman― to the degree of Red Dragon, who betrays him by not obtaining this rank that for the lamas symbolizes maximum wisdom. That of his "evil twin" Namilak (Kaliman spelled backwards) who has his same powers, created with magic (it is never clarified who or how they did it) to destroy him. The White Witch, a beautiful sorceress who is ruler of a kingdom of intelligent gorillas; the aforementioned Count Bártok, who had his own title of horror comics, among others. It should be noted that in the "Fantastic Journey" adventure Kalimán wins the enmity of a Greek god called Poseidon - in Greek mythology, the god of the underworld is not called Poseidon but Hades -, where Kalimán must fight him in a race against the time to regain the youth that he loses second by second due to a spell from Poseidon. (It is worth clarifying that Poseidon steals Kaliman's youth by riding on his back after saving him minutes before from a well.)

It is also worth highlighting, in the list of villains, Burna, "the strange Doctor Death", the first rival physically and mentally comparable to the hero, who masters the technique of transmutation and stars against Kaliman in one of the most famous battles when the The villain mentally transforms into a horse, then a leopard and other wild beasts.

Adventures of Kaliman in comics

Mexican edition

The first publication went on sale in November 1965. This magazine was sold weekly for 26 years, over 1,351 consecutive issues, of which 1,308 were originals and the rest were reprints.

Later it was published by Corporativo Mexicano de Printing, S.A. de C.V., in a reissue of 355 issues, from 1998 to 2005.

Since its inception and until 2006, Kalimán has been presented in several different versions.

Kaliman, in its comic format, has captivated readers mainly for its epic, mysterious and exciting, although implausible and inconsistent, adventures. But the lines, inking and covers of the artists who have drawn the character have also played an important role.

The original magazine had its interiors in sepia, as did most of the other versions, such as the Kalimán Book, Great Adventures and the reissue. Some of its presentations have been in color, but the magazine's fans did not accept this change, mainly due to the mediocre inking.

Colombian edition

In 1965, the Todelar radio circuit acquired the first episodes of the famous series purchased from Victor Fox, immediately becoming a resounding success throughout Colombia. But the Mexican company Editorial Novaro, owner of the reserved rights to the work, warns that Fox was not authorized to sell these scripts, therefore they could not be exploited on Colombian radio. But the fever for the superhero throughout the nation was so great, and Todelar's commercial commitments so powerful, that the series could not be suspended. That's when Álvaro Ruiz Hernández appears and takes the lead of the project, taking charge of creating new scripts and adventures for the great Kaliman and his inseparable companion Solin. The character of Kaliman was played by the first radio theater and television actor Gaspar Ospina, and Solin was played by the female voice of actress Érika Krum (1932-2013). During the seventies and eighties they became famous, the novel was broadcast in the afternoon, chapters were broadcast until 1995. In 2000, Todelar broadcast two series of the legendary character, and another actor in the cast also distinguished himself. like Iván Cañas, who many times personified villains who were obviously enemies of Kaliman. increasing the popularity of the radio program.

Later on, the graphic editions of this particular superhero appear in the format of comics or comics, complementing the radio success and immortalizing it in the Colombian market.

The numbers overlap because each new adventure was started in the final chapters of the last adventure in edition. Therefore, when finishing reading one adventure, the reader was already started on the next one. These editions began the new adventure by dividing the magazine into two equal parts, in the first part the end of the adventure is presented and in the second part (from the middle of the magazine) the first chapters of the new series are presented. that will remain once the previous one ends.

Ecuadorian edition

From September 17, 2010 to January 27, 2012, the newspaper El Comercio of Quito, with the respective copyrights, published the adventure The Mysteries by Bonampak, numbered from number 1; The big difference is that the page numbering goes from p. 1 and the next copy continues the numbering with 32, and so on. Another detail of this edition is that the entire magazine is printed on newsprint, including the cover, that is, it does not have that cover on glossy paper; Furthermore, the magazine does not have a back cover. He went out every Friday weekly.

• «The Mysteries of Bonampak», villains: Captain Scott
• «The triangle of death», villains: Black Spider, Dr. Tamaro, Mr. X

List of publications

Between 1989 and 1990 Kaliman de Lujo was published. The format in which it was printed, almost square, was similar to other contemporary collections, and it is estimated that it was not as successful as the character's other collections, which is why only 17 issues were published.

01. Nefertiti's Necklace

02. The Human Snake

03. The Scorpion Menace

04. The Dragon of San Francisco

05. The Eyes of the Blind Serpent

06. The Empire of Lunatik

07. Satan Worshipers

08. Nuclear explotion

09. Death for Planet Earth

10. The Monsters of Jurunai Island

11. The Mystery of the Lake

12. The Death of Kaliman

13. The Blood Pearls

14. The Jackal of Taiyuan

15. The Valley of Terror

16. The Legend of Can Chac

17. The African Mummy

Cinema

As happened after the transition from radio theater to comics, thanks to the popularity of the character, it did not take long to consider adapting one of his adventures to the cinema in a version with real characters.

Kalifilms, S.A. of C.V. It was created exclusively for the foray into cinema of the character created by Modesto Vázquez and Rafael Cutberto Navarro. Two films were filmed, both directed by Alberto Mariscal.

In 1972 the first of two films was shown, titled Kalimán, the incredible man. For his script, the character's first story, called Grave Desecrators , was used as a basis; During its filming, locations were occupied in both Mexico and Egypt.

For the role of Kalimán, the chosen one was the Canadian actor Jeff Cooper, and for the role of Solín, the Spanish Nino del Arco. Actors of the stature of Susana Dosamantes, Adriana Roel and Carlos Cardán participated in this film.

The film was well received in its country of origin, which was reflected in its box office success in the theaters where it was shown.

In 1976, the second film titled Kalimán in the sinister world of Humanón was released, an adaptation of the series Cerebros infernales, set in locations in Brazil and Mexico.

Once again, Jeff Cooper was chosen for the leading role, but for Solín a new actor called Manolo Bravo (alias Manolito) was chosen, Humanón was played by Milton Rodríguez, and Lenka Erdos also participates.

Although it was well received again in Mexico, it did not achieve the box office success of its predecessor, in addition to closing the character's passage on the big screen to this day.

In 2003 Vanguard Cinema reissued the second film, which it put on sale in the United States, and it can be purchased through Amazon.com. In 2012 the first film went on sale, this time republished by the Mexican company Óptima Films. With this, the two films are available to fans in DVD format. Both reissues do not contain extra material and only the one released by Vanguard Cinema contains English subtitles.