San Diego Comic Con is about halfway over, and the Ultraman Series has been all over this incredible event, with meet-and-greets, artist signings, and even portfolio reviews. However, when Ultraman Connection shows up at an event, there’s one thing they do better than anyone, and that’s a panel. Of course, SDCC is no exception, and tonight featured one of the best we’ve ever put on. Read on to see what happened!
As with previous panels, Producer Jeff Gomez and editor-in-chief EJ Couloucoundis were our hosts, welcoming longtime Marvel Ultraman artist E.J. Su, modern Deadpool artist Reilly Brown, and JW Starrett from Mill Creek Entertainment.
The panel started with a discussion of what the Ultraman Series has done in the recent past, focusing on the Marvel comics, as well as the incredible releases from Mill Creek — in fact, JW made his appearance here to make a big announcement: Ultraman Blazar is finally coming to Blu-ray!
After that, the group had plenty to chat about regarding the upcoming Ultraman X Avengers crossover series, talking about its primary villain, Galactus — and even revealing the being serving the World-eater: Alien Zarab!
After discussing Su’s work on the covers for this and previous Marvel Ultraman stories, Reilly joined in to discuss the biggest reveal of the convention — that both artists, and several others, are doing exclusive American artwork for the Ultraman Trading Card Game! The two showed off some of the works they had put together — we’d love to show you those, but they’re top-secret until the cards come out next year!
After that, the discussion turned to the newly-revealed Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man co-production between Marvel Comics, Tsuburaya Production, and Shogakukan. To further match with Ultraman X Avengers, the first two chapters of Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man will be releasing on the same day of August 14th on the Viz Media app, with new chapters coming weekly on Tuesdays. With the story written by Duel Masters mangaka Shigenobu Matsumoto, and the art by Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization artist Tomo Hirokawa, the story promises to be a perfect collaboration between two titans of storytelling!
Eventually, the fun had to end, but not before Ultraman and Ultraseven themselves made an appearance to greet the fans! The panelists even got together with them to throw up a quick pose for posterity.
If you were at the panel, we were happy to have you, but make sure that you don’t miss the special screening of Ultraman Blazar the Movie: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown at 9:15 PDT in Room 6DE. If you’re not here, don’t worry — we’ll talk about that shortly after! And for more info and picture from SDCC, stay close to Ultraman Connection!
