This week has been a major step in the evolving legacy of the Ultraman Series — We’ve had two different Ultraman comic stories start, on the same day no less! While we’ve made our thoughts on the start of Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man known, we have not yet gotten a chance to talk about the other story that has just begun — Marvel’s official crossover between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and, well, Space’s Mightiest Hero!
Ultraman X Avengers picks up where The Mystery of Ultraseven left off — well, almost. Before anything else, we get, much like previous entries, a story taking place far away from Earth — in this case, the planet Zarab, on the cusp of ruin. A lone Zarab finds himself at the feet of his world’s destruction, Galactus… and he is offered a choice. Serve as herald, and preserve his world, or perish alongside it. Zarab, whether an opportunist or simply desperate, agrees.
This moment is a bit of a cipher for the Marvel Ultraman comics as a whole. Consistently, the story of this world, of this Ultraman, is of having to reckon with bad options. Kaiju Limbo, the artificial Kaiju, leaving the USP, Ultraseven — Every one of these stories has revolved around a threat with no simple solutions, navigated by making a hard choice and following through with it, despite the pain. Zarab has made his choice, and we can only wonder where it will lead.
Where the story leads, of course, is back to Shin Hayata, Kiki Fuji, and the rest of the newly-formed Ultra Guard. Our two heroes (and science genius Mitsuhiro Ide) are approaching the site of a multiversal incursion, ready to battle whoever — or whatever — pops out of the dimensional gate. Luckily, rather than a foe, it’s a friend — a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!
This moment is a fascinating parallel with Along Came a Spider-Man, because, well, it forms a common point of contact for both stories. Miles Morales may not be Peter Parker, but when you get right down to it, the similarities between both Spiders, especially considering Along Came a Spider-Man portrays the young high-schooler Spidey that Miles is in the current Marvel canon, mean that both creative teams get to let their personal voices shine more clearly when showing what is essentially the same moment.
Tomo Hirokawa’s Peter is a fish out of water, expressing wonderment (and a bit of stereotyping) when exposed to this brand-new world as a kid from Queens transplanted by a mystical train into the middle of Japan. Miles? As Kyle Higgins and Mat Groom write him, this is practically just a tuesday for the poor kid. Going so far as to take continuity from Miles’s origins in the Ultimate universe (that’s 1610, not 6160, for modern Marvel fans), Miles is a real bridging point in the story, his explanations truncating a lot of the potential culture shock that would come from introducing the two settings together.
And it is the settings that get introduced together, since Miles is only the first Marvel hero to show up. Our Avengers lineup is more of a Greatest Hits lineup than any specific roster happening in the current comics, with Sam Wilson’s Captain America leading Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and the Wasp. Also, Spider-Man is there! Not Miles, Peter. Double Spiders, folks. (And then they make a Tetsuya Yamashiro reference, who I’m not even sure I’m allowed to discuss on this website…)
If there’s anything I can say against this story, it’s that there’s just so much happening in only 31 pages. There’s so much compressed storytelling, so many jokes, references that the issue feels double-sized in the space of a single. Not that that’s a bad thing — we at UC do love our multi-layered references…
If you want to check out Ultraman X Avengers yourself, you can pick it up at your local comic shop now, and we certainly hope you do. And for all the Marvel and Ultraman mix moments you can handle, stay close to Ultraman Connection!
