What You Didn’t Know About Turkey's Unlicensed Marvel Movie ‘3 Dev Adam’
It was 2013 that saw the explosive debut of Captain America: The First Avenger. The titular hero had never had a “proper” film outing before this, only a rather loosely adapted serial by Republic Pictures and a couple of TV and direct-to-video movies. However, there was one theatrical film released before this, but it’s not usually counted for two major reasons, it was an unlicensed bootleg, released only in Turkey, and it also featured two other heroes, also unlicensed, making it more of a crossover picture. This week, we are looking at 3 Dev Adam, in English, Three Mighty Men.
Superheroes had been appearing in Turkey for quite a while, with many famous heroes getting multiple unlicensed films, with The Phantom even getting two movies released around similar times. Director T. Fikret Uçak, who already had experience with the Turkish comic Tarkan, had decided to take things a step further by incorporating multiple masked heroes in one movie. Incorporating at least two favorites from his childhood, 3 Dev Adam was the result of this concept, featuring three superheroes… At least, that’s what it looks like at first glance, for when you start to watch the movie you notice something strange about the main villain.
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3 Dev Adam brings not only Captain America to Turkey but also El Santo, a famous masked luchador who had a similar place in Mexican pop culture. Fans will notice the absence of Captain America’s helmet wings and signature shield, but the real aberration, and arguably the most infamous aspect of the film, is the third Mighty Man, the evil self duplicating Spider-Man? With two mighty heroes on the case, Uçak turned another superhero into a supervillain to have a powerful foe that could oppose both of them. Since Turkish audiences were largely unaware of Spider-Man he got away with this; compare Toei’s officially licensed Japanese Spider-Man, which made changes to his identity and even gave him a robot, albeit keeping most of his powerset and alignment.
The film’s plot revolves around Captain America and El Santo heading to Turkey to stop Spider-Man’s international counterfeiting ring. The film is somewhat similar in style to Golden Age film serials, and the two heroes spend a lot of time out of costume, even El Santo, who never went in Public without his signature mask. Limited budget and resources also meant that special effects had to be built from the ground up, including a scene in which the bad guys try to shoot him, only for the bullets to bounce off his exposed costume.
Despite this, the film proved to be a hit with audiences, and the film became famous overseas for its unlicensed use of characters, its plot consisting of the four basic features of a Turkish superhero story, “Violence, Sex, Sadism, and Heroism”, and it’s rather in name only version of Spier-Man who seemingly makes a clone of himself every time his is killed. The film is one of the most infamous bootleg movies to come out of Yeşilçam, along with the likes of Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam, better known as Turkish Star Wars, so it’s not disappearing from the internet consciousness any time soon.
Well, that’s all the time we have for this article, true believers. We’ll just have to leave you with these thoughts, and next week we’ll show you something from the distinguished competition that’s sure to put a smile on your face, whether you wanted it or not.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll be seeing you later.
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