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Title: 3 Dev Adam
Director: T. Fikret Ucak
Writers: Dogan Tamer (created by Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Rodolfo Guzman Huerta)
Distributed By : Tual Film
Starring: Aytekin Akkaya, Deniz Erkanat, and Yavuz Selekman
Release Date: November 1st, 1973
MPAA: N/A

Unless you’re a complete cineaste, chances are you probably didn’t know that Spider-Man and Captain America were in a (live-action) film together. Not only that, they were in a film where they faced off against each other. This isn’t a Civil War story line or an early April Fool’s prank, this is 3 Dev Adam. Which in Turkish roughly translates to “3 Giant Men.” The third “giant man” being the most famous Luchador of all time, Santo. Which makes as much sense to have him in a Marvel rip off as much as anything else in this film.

For starters, the production values are what you might expect out of a Turkish film that was made in the early 70s and an unauthorized Marvel film. This isn’t a low budget film. This isn’t even a no-budget film. This is a below no-budget film. When the credits roll…well they don’t roll, but instead the camera focuses on some pictures and zooms out on each one. And that’s just the beginning of the budget problem. The film has an almost acid wash to it, like a forty-year-old Polaroid picture that hasn’t been taken care of properly. And if that’s not bad enough, there’s plenty of tiny film scratches and the film is occasionally undeveloped as it will turn to black and white for a quick second from time to time.

On the plus side, at least it’s been decently mixed to where the sound volumes are right and the music, voices, and sound effects don’t all blend in or drown out one another. But that’s as far as the sound compliments go. The voices sound muffled, like someone put some foam over the boom mic. But that doesn’t even compare to the music. It sounds like they were playing everything on a very old and warped vinyl record. There’s always that kind of vinyl cracking playing in the background and the music sounds wavy. Not to mention that they play the same goddamn twenty second tune on repeat whenever a fight scene happens.

Because this was an unauthorized film that did not have the proper copyrights, this never made it to the (US) States or got an authentic DVD release, and as such, never had any subtitles. So unless you speak Turkish, you’re going to have to infer what’s going on. Thus it’s hard to confidently gauge their acting skills, but I doubt any of these actors would win a Turkey Oscar. And although it is an exciting notion to see Turkish counterparts to Marvel’s most famous heroes, they’re nothing like them.

In fact, that’s the biggest significance about 3 Dev Adam. Not only are they a rip off of Marvel and Santo, they’re completely different from their real counterparts. OK, Santo is fairly close in the sense that he wears a mask (which he takes off, contrary to real-life Santo) and is a wrestler, but the Marvel heroes are different. No S.H.I.E.L.D., shield, or anything else that makes Captain America Captain America. Here, Captain America’s (or should we say…Captain Turkey) only two resemblances are his cheap cloth costume and the fact that he’s heroic (we know he’s heroic because they keep playing that heroic melody all the damn time).

But those two have nothing on Spider-Man. Not only is Spider-Man the main villain, but he’s as far removed from Peter Parker as possible. For one thing, he doesn’t have web slinging or web crawling, just the ability to kill, command a mob, and seemingly make copies of himself. Not to mention that his costume looks more like Ben Reilly’s Spider-Man (bought cheap at Party City). From burying a woman head first in the sand and running a boat’s motor into her face, to forcing a guy to look into a tube and then putting giant rodents down it to eat out his eyes, this is one unfriendly Spider-Man you don’t want to mess with.

Need I say more? Should I add the fact that it has terrible editing that abruptly changes scenes or edits fight scenes haphazardly? Or the fact that occasionally random things happen, such as when a bunch of dolls look at each other and laugh while Spider-Man and his girlfriend are making love? If you think this is absolute crap, you’re absolutely right. If superhero films had a Plan 9 from Outer Space, this would be it. But just like Plan 9 from Outer Space, this might find an audience that finds charm in its below inferior quality. Especially when you have Santo, Captain America, evil Spider-Man, strippers, karate fighters, and 70s mustaches.

Andrew Hudson
ahudson@comicattack.net
@Hudsonian