Is a sinister conspiracy about to unfold? Will Ultraman rise to the occasion? Stay tuned and buckle up for action in Ultraman #3! by Kyle Higgins, Matt Groom, Francesco Manna, Espen Grundetjern, and VC’s Ariana Maher.
Ritesh Babu: Well, Ian, we’re back once more to the realm of kaijus, and the man who fights them. We’re on #3 of 5, I believe. How are we feeling?
Ian Gregory: I really have to commend this series for keeping me on my toes. Even knowing about the source material, I’m still not certain exactly where this series is going to land. It’s a fun feeling reading something that you think you know where it will end up, but never quite being certain.
RB: I’m interested in this whole venture, of course, as a seasoned Ultra fan, but constantly I read this book, and find myself wondering about those who have no sense of the enterprise beyond a name and some imagery. What do they think? Certainly, there’s choices made here that I think do surprise (and don’t!).
Conspiracy Theory Stuff
IG: Something I think that may be easily understood to non-fans, and more off-putting to longtime Ultraheads (Ultrafans? Ultramaniacs?) is this series’ treatment of the USP. The first two issues certainly made it clear that they weren’t to be trusted, but this one really lays it on thick. Ultraman even calls the USP’s lightning guns into question, suggesting that they don’t exactly vanquish kaijus but instead do something more sinister. Dr. Ichinotani gets some time to develop a personality in this issue, but his absence from the fight scene and insistence that Shin wear a communicator is fishy at best. Not to mention whatever the doctor is planning.
RB: I imagine there are absolutely some fans who may be upset at the handling of this, but I’m personally quite glad they did this. They really go all in on the sinister organization angle, for sure, but that territory is a good space for alternate elseworlds reboot done in the west, I think. Usually the ‘sinister organization’ angle is the domain and space of Kamen Rider, more so than Ultraman, but I’m glad to see they’re really going for it here. It is absolutely the kind of choice you make for a 2020 revamp, to introduce the character and world to an audience that’s never known either.
Ichinotani is absolutely cast as a puppeteer villain figure here, but I’m also curious how Yamamoto fits into the whole situation, and where Dan Moroboshi/Ultraseven even is. They seem to be saving the big reveals for the penultimate issue, so that they can do a BIG final issue to close out the mini after that.
IG: They’re definitely walking a tightrope here though. I’m not sure if anyone is really interested in a grim take on Ultraman (I know I’m not), so they have to balance the conspiracy / dark secrets angle carefully. What makes it tick for me is my trust in the core cast of characters (Shin, Kiki, and Muramatsu) as well as the introduction of Ultraman as a reliable narrator — or at least one who really doesn’t seem to have any ulterior motives. I like how the Ultra is represented in these scenes, shadowing Shin and delivering exposition in different-colored balloons. It’s a nice touch that reflects what is essentially a voice-over part in the show.
It’s also nice that this issue is almost entirely limited to Shin’s perspective, as now that he’s combined with the Ultra I feel like we have a solid viewpoint character established. I know I harped on the last issue for the way we jumped around primary characters, but I think that gamble paid off: Shin feels like our primary character (and Ultraman gives us the necessary exposition) but I’m invested in Kiki and Muramatsu as well.
RB: This issue absolutely feels like the point the book always wanted to get to. The Ultraman (Shin/Ultra) as the central pov figure, in conflict with the USP and its realities, questioning its nature and his own faith in it, while holding its imagined ideals closely to his heart. You’re certainly right in that a grim-take on Ultraman isn’t really what one wants, but what I think works about this book is that it’s very much something else. It’s a book where the world it’s established fails to live upto the ideals of The Ultras, wherein disappointment laces the nature of things, but the actual ideals, even if they be imaginary, are held close to the chest. Their importance and value is emphasized and matters. Going back to the talk between Ultra and Man last issue, we’re not good enough, but we can be better, or at least that’s the idea. And I think that’s a good balance. It gives the characters a motive and a journey: the actual betterment of things. Things cannot stay the same or be as they have been. Things need to change. We need to change, and that’s what the Ultraman is, and always has been, a symbol of. The best that we can be.
IG: It certainly makes me think the status quo established after this series isn’t going to be one of our protagonists on the run. The mood of this series seems to be focused on redemption, like you say, “being better,” and I would be interested to see if this series ends with our main cast taking control of and reforming the USP. I definitely want to see what struggles would come with that, and how they can best try to live up to the Ultras’ standards (but not their expectations, as it has been made clear they have no expectations for mankind).
Ultra-Action Scenes
IG: Taking a bit of a left turn here, but this is the first issue where we get to see Ultraman in action. I was certainly impressed by the splash page showing his full transformation, but what did you think of this issue’s action, Ritesh?
RB: I had fun with it! I think what stood out to me most, and continually does, is Ariana Maher’s lettering work. She’s clearly having a blast, both with the Ultra-Man back and forth via thought-balloons, but beyond that, her SFX work is a constant delight. On the whole though, this is the part that I was actually getting at the most when I talked about choices made, particularly in relation to the expectations of a new audience.
I would wager if you walked up to and asked someone who had almost no experience with Ultraman about the thing, they’d maybe come up with select things, drawn from osmosis. (This is assuming they don’t totally go ‘Who?’) The look/design itself, gigantic kaijus, and that he’s the giant guy who fights said big kaijus. These are core identifiable markers of the Ultraman idea, and kind of play to expectations as well, I think. A lot of our friends who hadn’t really dived into Ultraman prior, when they got the #1, asked where the kaiju fighting was. There was an expectation of the gigantic dude beating up gigantic monsters.
But that’s not what you get! It’s not what you get in this issue, either! The action in this issue happens with Ultraman as…a human sized individual!
IG: I was thinking essentially the same thing. This fight has all the hallmarks of a classic Ultraman action scene: dynamic, agile fight scenes, wrestling-style moves delivered with flair, and even a finishing Ultra Beam. All in all, I would consider this a great fight, and I really enjoyed it. And yet, the fight all happens at human size! It makes me wonder about why we haven’t seen any giant kaiju yet. Will something that happens next issue cause the kaiju to grow to massive sizes (like them being revealed to the public, for example)? Are the writers saving a giant-sized fight as a big way to cap off this series? The scale is something that’s so foundational to Ultraman (as opposed to something like Kamen Rider) that I’m wondering why it hasn’t shown up yet. Will that end-of-series payoff really be worth it, or is it just sacrificing a major hook for readers?
Expectations, Old and New
RB: My thought is that it absolutely is building upto the big-scale titanic kaiju fight at the end. And we might even get Ultraman vs Ultraseven. But ultimately, going back to the choice made here. It took me by surprise, I’ll admit, given this was a straight 2020 reboot of the 1960s original. And we got the big alien-sized Ultra and everything. Then I thought about it for a second, and it made a strange sense.
This is the second proper Western foray for Ultraman, following the Netflix Ultraman show. And the show is very much a sort of revamped elseworlds to all the Ultra stuff we’ve had to date, which also operates as a direct sequel to the OG ‘60s Ultraman. Both western takes are tied to the original, and they share…a commonality. The Netflix show is actually based on a new manga, which is by a team that was originally doing a Kamen Rider riff comic, until Toei (Kamen Rider’s owner) told em to shut it. Then came Tsuburaya (Ultra-Owners), letting ‘em go wild and make this Ultraman comic. And this thing pulling on the thread of that ‘60s classic? It’s WILDLY different. It’s not much like classic Ultraman, as we’ve established in previous entries. And in it, it’s not BIG GIANT Ultraman or monsters of that scale. It’s human-sized, which especially makes sense given the comic team just came off of a Kamen Rider riff comic.
In any case, most western audiences’ biggest Ultraman touchstone in the modern era? It’s likely this show. And in this show, Ultraman’s a human-sized hero. So I think it makes sense, in that sense. Although to be entirely fair, this isn’t the first time Ultraman has fought human-sized, as it’s part of his power-set. Ultraman just doesn’t use it much. It even recently popped up in the current Ultraman Z series, surprising many, because, again, it is a bit of a rare thing. So setting that up, on a basic level, as a thing that he can do, and wanting to truly build to the scale? Yeah, I suppose I get that. The question you pose though, Ian, is really at the heart of this affair. I think for the trade-buyers, this book will play great as a 101, but for the monthly folks, it will be a harder sell.
IG: I have no doubt the creative team is feeling a lot of pressure to get Ultraman over in America. That means that this book is trying to be very thorough, and really hook the readers on each and every core concept. I think the correct assumption is that pre-existing Ultraman fans will buy this book regardless, and what they’re trying to capture is the general Marvel Comics reading population. All you really have to do to make long-time fans happy in a situation like this is treat the original material with respect and throw the fans a few bones (like our good friend the Beta Capsule, appearing in this issue).
The natural side-effect of this approach is that the pacing feels very strange in the monthly format. When all five issues of this series are collected into a single graphic novel, I think it will read very nicely, like an hour-long special introduction episode. I have often wondered if Marvel might be better off doing more direct-to-graphic novel releases, but I remember seeing that this series is doing quite well in the rankings, so financially this move makes sense even if it hampers the storytelling somewhat.
These are some big conclusions to draw from Ultraman having a single fight while small, but this series runs the risk of not “getting to the good stuff” fast enough. In general, I’ve found that I’m not really hanging on to each and every cliffhanger (those this issue’s was better than average). Really good monthly series have a way of invading your thoughts, and making you crave each and every issue (this issue-to-issue suspense is the forte of Immortal Hulk). With Ultraman, I’m instead feeling like I’d enjoy this more in large chunks, and the plot doesn’t feel so urgent that I’m desperate for new issues.
RB: It absolutely skews to the Ultimate Spider-Man school style of decompression, yeah, although it’s obviously more compressed, relatively speaking, given its nature as a mini, as opposed to an ongoing. In any case, we just have the penultimate issue and the finale to go, and I’m curious as to what awaits us after.
Marvelous Musings
- Francesco Manna and Espen Grundetjern are really terrific, and keep growing on me every issue.
- I love the ‘Ultra-Ghost’ visualization done with The Ultra, it works great.
- The panel with a half of The Ultra’s face and a half of Shin’s face is maybe one of my favorite images from this book. It’s a great way of selling the thing. Alien, yet human. Mysterious, yet familiar. Ultraman
- Captain Muramatsu is a terrible liar. Come on, man, looking away while telling a lie? That’s basic stuff!
Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.
Ritesh Babu is a comics history nut who spends far too much time writing about weird stuff and cosmic nonsense.
