A Legend Begins Anew in The Rise of Ultraman #1!

Welcome to our inaugural Ultramania! A column about Marvel’s Ultraman books by our kaiju crew Ritesh Babu and Ian Gregory.

We are introduced to the mysterious United Science Patrol, and their war against dreaded kaiju through the eyes of Science Patrol aspirants Shin Hayata and Kiki Fuji in this inaugural look at Marvel’s take on Ultraman in Rise of Ultraman #1 written by Kyle Higgins & Matt Groom; drawn by Francesco Manna, Michael Cho, Gurihiru, and Ed McGuinness; colored by Espen Grundetjern and lettered by VC’s Ariana Maher.

Ultra 101: A Primer

So you’re new to Ultraman. You’ve never read or seen any of this thing. You’ve clicked on this. So what, or who, is Ultraman, really? Created by Eiji Tsubaraya and his team in 1966, Ultraman is part of a wave of ‘60s science-fiction. If you’re aware of Doctor Who in the UK (which started 3 years prior, in 1963), that’s a decent point of comparison.

Tsubaraya, the effects supervisor on the legendary original Godzilla, started up his own company, and voila, Ultraman! He who fights the monsters that strike Japan! Ultraman hails from The Land Of Light, and is a hero of light, an elemental figure akin to a Superman or Green Lantern, from a celestial race of super-beings, The Ultras, out to safeguard the universe. He is the hero powered by the sun, for The Land Of The Rising Sun.

Ian Gregory: Well Ritesh, looks like it’s already time for another issue of Cable – er, wait a minute.

Ritesh Babu: Hah. Well, this hero knows a thing or two about strange nonsense spanning space-time, let’s just say that.

Ultra-Expectations

Art: Manna and Grundetjern, Letters by Maher

IG: I think we both didn’t quite know what to expect from this series. Ultraman as a franchise is absolutely massive, both in length and in popularity, so this comic has a lot to draw from. On top of that, this is a Western adaptation of a popular Japanese series – something that always conjures images of jelly doughnuts for me. I’ve only seen a bit of Ultraman, but I’m familiar with the character and defining characteristics of the show. What about you?

RB: I have an interesting relationship with Ultraman. Most western comic readers, I imagine, have little experience with the character, even though he is possibly the most popular hero in Japan. He is as identifiably Japanese and vital to Japan as, say, Superman is to America or Doctor Who is to the UK. And luckily, I got to grow up with the character and show as a kid, whereas most tend to get to it as adults. I watched Ultraman (Mebius) religiously, had Ultraman schoolbags, you name it. The character’s sort of always been there in my mind, so going into this my expectations were high. There is a personal attachment of youth that is impossible to remove.

IG: When this series was announced I was both excited and nervous. I’m happy that more American readers are going to get exposed to Ultraman, but I wasn’t sure if we were going to get a heavily “Marvelized” version of Ultraman, rather than one that stays true to the series’ campy roots. Sure enough, we did get two white American writers on this series – though, if they had to pick white writers, Higgins, who did wonders on fellow-toku comic series Power Rangers, was probably the best option.

RB: C.B’s era of Marvel hiring two white men for the book, when it was as big an opportunity as there would be to get some Asian-American creatives work on this icon is…disappointing, if expected. That said, I’d agree that the pick does track. And while Higgins has been historically hit or miss for me, I think this book is certainly a hit.

IG: I’d agree that this book worked for me, but I had a moment of initial disappointment. Through no fault of the book’s, I had convinced myself that the first issue might play out like the first episode of an Ultraman show. So, when the main (ultra) man himself didn’t make a full appearance in the first issue, I was a little confused and disappointed. But rather than playing down the “giant hero” aspects of the series, I think Higgins is working on building something long-term, that will last a long time. I respect that commitment to the series, and this whole issue is loaded with so many nods to the series it’s clear there’s a lot of respect for the source material. That said, I think the second issue may be the real test for this book – how well are they going to balance Ultraman’s inherent goofiness and fun with the world they’ve built?

Ultra-Marvel Setting

RB: It’s a slow start, for sure, but on the whole, I did come away really positive and generally pleased, especially given it also came with an Ultra Q backups (drawn by the fantastic Michael Cho) as well as Gurihiru one-pagers interspersed throughout.

For those unaware, Ultra Q was the predecessor show to Ultraman. It was basically Japan’s answer to The Twilight Zone, wherein people dealt with strange occurrences every episode. There’s an almost X-Files quality to it. And that the creative team revitalized that as back-ups, to establish and lay out this new rebooted world they’ve built? That’s fun.

IG: Love to see other call-outs in that Ultra Q backup too – the monster they’re fighting is Bemular, the inaugural Ultraman kaiju, and one of the monster hunters is Ichinotani – the scientist from Ultra Q. What I was most interested in with this setup was how they built up the United Science Patrol to be untrustworthy, and hint that they’ve been exploiting the power of kaiju and perhaps the first Ultraman (from the 1966 flashback) to their own end.

If you’ll permit me to do something cursed, I need to bring up Neon Genesis Evangelion – or more specifically, its director, Hideaki Anno. Anno has long had a fixation on Ultraman (now, after several decades, validated by his new project Shin Ultraman) and once said in an interview that, if given the chance to work on Ultraman, he would want to focus on the Earth Defense Force, and to “put them through all sorts of situations.” He sort of got this done with NERV (a moral inversion of the traditional Science Patrol archetype) in Evangelion, itself an Ultraman pastiche in many ways. Higgins and Groom seem to be doing something similar here, by setting up a conflict between Ultraman (and by extension, our main cast), and the broader USP organization.

RB: Absolutely. Ultraman, typically, always tends to work with some kind of government organization in almost every incarnation. It’s a classic trapping of the whole enterprise, which is why one of my favorite takes in recent years was Ultraman Orb, which instead had its lead work with a ragtag group of ordinary people. So that this book, which is very clearly a reboot of the original 1966 Ultraman, is immediately casting suspicions and doubts on The United Science Patrol, is exciting.

The USP stuff is the big hook right now, I think, and is what the team’s using to establish its big Ultra-universe here. The Ultra Q backups essentially lay out the big ‘secret history’ of the world, as we’re learning about this universe’s S.H.I.E.L.D.-esque secret organization’s roots, while the main comic builds off that. Cho’s classical style, evocative of that 1950s and ‘60s era of work, delightfully retro, really helps here, as the tone, and the vibe really shifts.

You feel like you’re in a different comic, because you are, as Espen Grundetjern’s explosive colors vanish, and you’re in the realm of black and white comics, like you’re now in a classic serial of the old. The only color you see is from the SFX in the lettering for just the kaiju (props to the excellent Ariana Maher on that one). And Franceso Manna’s work, which feels like it’s straight out of that Immonen-school of comicking, fitting in with the likes of Pepe Larraz’s work and many others’, is so different from Cho’s, which really helps here. It feels like a big, wide, varied world.

IG: I think the S.H.I.E.L.D. comparison is really apt. When I think of modern Marvel, both in the comics and the movies, I think of a militarized aesthetic, with lots of padded leather and handguns. I was worried we would end up with that sterilized look, but we still got our lightning guns and monsters that are clearly drawn from the Ultraman school of design. We’re getting a little bit of both here, where the USP is being presented with complete optimism, but we haven’t given way completely to modern high-tech military superhero imagery.

RB: Yeah, and a thing I should mention, which I love, that the team does, which is so unmistakable Ultraman, is those Gurihiru pamphlets with PIGMON, which are spread throughout the issue. They’re just lovely 1-page gag comics, and they’re in-universe, handed to cadets of the USP, to teach them rules. It’s the kind of delightful little touch, the texture, that really makes it work. The people making this aren’t ashamed of what this thing is, so much so they’re happy to throw a Pigmon gag comic at you every few pages to remind you.

Ultra-Revamps

Art: Manna and Grundetjern, Letters by Maher

RB: This is very clearly a labor of love, through and through. It is very much Ultraman, different as it is. My comparison point is probably something no one expects. This is the Ultimate Spider-Man of Ultraman. It’s very much a total full-on, from the ground-up reboot of that original ‘60s work, asking the question ‘Okay, how would we do that now?’

And by and large, the choices it makes really work. Ichinotani from Ultra Q, who you mentioned, Ian, is not only in that backup, but is in the main story. He’s the link between the past of Ultra Q and the present of Ultraman. We’ve also got Akiko Fuji, Captain Toshio Muramatsu, and of course, our lead, the very ‘first’ Ultraman, Shin Hayata.

Akiko and Shin’s relationship is reconfigured here, which I’m really enjoying. And Shin, rather than already being a member of the USP, is a failure, who didn’t even pass the USP test, while Akiko did. That creates tension, with envy, jealousy, guilt and a dynamic I’m digging, as they try to maintain their sincere platonic friendship. And Muramatsu we only get a bit of, but he’s got a fire in him that should be fun to see as the series progresses.

IG: I think it was smart to start at the very beginning. The first Ultraman series is pretty straightforward, all things considered, and unlike Power Rangers, you can’t assume that your American audience will be familiar with the source material. I think they’ve made the smart decision here to hit the recognizable elements of the classic series, to convey a distilled essence of Ultraman, and expand later into the more confusing (and yet, still fun) parts of the universe. Grounding that in these three characters is a smart call, and being able to refer back to them will keep the reader grounded even as the stranger elements come into play.

I think Ultraman has always faced a bit of an uphill battle in America because, to many people, the appearance of the monsters and a giant man in a suit is inherently ridiculous. This series undercuts that by building to it slowly – the monsters are only slightly bigger than humans, for example, and we only see the light spirit version of Ultraman in this issue. The “suspicious paramilitary organization” aspect too helps build credibility with American readers, who are intimately familiar with that plot device. However, we’ve been given enough signs that say they aren’t afraid to go for the campy classic elements of Ultraman, and when it does finally show up I think it’s less likely to turn off readers than just diving right into the action.

RB: The key is also the fact that all of this stuff looks way cooler on page than it might on screen. The suspension of disbelief is bigger, and you can sell people on things that might be harder in live-action.

On the whole though, I’m glad this kicks off the way it does. The opener with the sphere-fall is straight out of the classic ‘66 show, where Shin Hayata is struck, and becomes the first Ultraman. But the 2020 reboot here does something interesting. It’s not Hayata in that ‘66 crash, it’s a man named Dan Moroboshi. And he is considered the USP’s best, to the point that they build a monument to him. This is super, super interesting to me.

For those new to Ultra mythology, Moroboshi is the human name taken by Ultraseven, the most popular of the classic Ultramen, who is teased in the big Ed McGuinness spread. We see Moroboshi interact with an Ultra and be considered dead, but all it means is a) Ultraseven is the ‘first’ Ultra of this world, as far as we know b) Ultraseven is coming!

IG: It’s this attention to detail that makes me really optimistic about where this series is heading. Every page is loaded with lots of little details that will come up later. This won’t just reward fans of the original series, who are getting lots of little easter eggs, but I suspect that new readers will pick up on lots of these hints as well. Rise of Ultraman isn’t a cash-in, or thoughtless adaptation. Instead, they’re gearing up for a long and involved series that will appeal to anyone interested in science fiction secret histories and giant monsters.

Marvelous Musings

Pigmon is amazing, and I hope we get those Gurihiru one-pagers every issue. Cadet Pierre’s failures delight me. Gag comics are terribly underrated.
Look folks, Alex Ross is still good at covers. I love his commitment to making heroes appear as if they’re wearing actual clothes, and that works doubly well on his version of Ultraman.
If you’ve never seen Ultraman, the 2016 series Ultraman Orb and 2017 series Ultraman Geed are good starting points. Alternatively, you can jump in with the current 2020 Ultraman Z (airs every week for free on Youtube!), which is also a good place to jump in. The Netflix show is a good ‘Elseworlds’-esque fun alternate take you can enjoy as well.