Recently we have been getting a lot of shot Marvel titles from Japan. It’s been fun to read adventures with Spiderman in all kinds of situations. This latest title has him meeting up with Ultraman and the series lasted longer than I had expected. It’s a pretty fun crossover all the way through and I’d definitely like to see more of these. The timing is also pretty solid with Dr Doom being the main villain here. The guy has really been making his rounds among the different titles. You don’t need to be super familiar with Ultraman in order to understand the story as we get enough exposition in the series but it’ll probably help give the series an extra boost for you.
The series starts with Spiderman and the Avengers fighting against Dr. Doom and the battle gets really explosive. Spiderman is stopping to help every civilian that he can but gets thoroughly chewed out and even hit by Iron-Man for this. The armored Avenger states that taking out Doom comes first and you can’t save every person. Spiderman disagrees but this does lead to his death as he is hit by a train. Fortunately it was an Isekai train and he is warped with Dr Doom to Ultraman’s universe. Dr Doom quickly sees this as an opportunity to gain unlimited power and take over the universe while Spiderman decides to team up with Ultraman to save the day. Can he discover what it really means to be a hero?
The whole crisis of faith for Spiderman is an interesting plot point. This feels like a younger version of the character so it works well enough. I’d say it actually makes the Avengers look worse in comparison because Spiderman was right during the initial battle. Protecting the bystanders must always come first. It is his manga of course so you’re expecting Spiderman to look good but fans of the Avengers may not love their portrayal here. It would be one thing if it really wasn’t possible to save the civilians but the 3 that Spiderman saved would have been 100% dead otherwise. That would have completely been on the Avengers heads for allowing that to happen. Definitely not the plot point you may have been expecting going into this one.
Spiderman looks consistently good during the adventure. He gets to help out as both Peter Parker and as Spiderman. He’s essentially starting from ground zero in this new universe and it allows him to really decide what kind of hero he wants to be. You may find it to be a bit of a stretch on how he’s able to handle the various monsters but I guess we can just say that the ultra verse isn’t one of the stronger ones. The normal agents are able to handle quite a lot of them as well after all.
Hayata is the main host of Ultraman so he gets a big role as you would expect. He believes in a similar sense of heroism as Spiderman. He always aims to save whoever he can and wants to protect all life. Unfortunately Dr. Doom and Mefilas make that difficult with their brainwashing so at one point he is forced to destroy one of the monsters. It was a pretty somber chapter but sets up the tone for the series. It is mainly a hopeful manga series but one that isn’t afraid to really get into the deeper themes. Hayata has to make his own sacrifices as well during the adventure but never shrinks in the moment. He is determined to do whatever he can and that’s always important. Hayata would fit in well as the main character for any Shonen title. He may be a bit old school but it’s all in the right ways. His fellow teammates at the SSSP mainly don’t get as much to do. You have the gruff captain who means well and plays it by the book. The heroine who is always looking after Hayata but doesn’t suspect that he is secretly Ultraman. And of course you have the comedic best friend who means well but is usually well out of his depth. This time he actually gets a pretty big role with his super weapon near the end of the series though. I get the feeling that the author really liked his character from the TV show.
In a sense this whole manga feels like a crossover since the characters are ripped straight out of the original Ultraman series. The bigger a fan you are of the classic show, the more you will get out of this adventure. From the classic Ultra villains, a good number of them show up. The biggest one would definitely be Mefilas who acts as one of the big bosses of the title. He represents the Ultra verse while Dr. Doom represents Marvel.
Both of them definitely get a lot of hype but I think it’s fair to say that Dr Doom tends to come out on top. He’s just 5 steps ahead and is quick to learn how to harness the powers of this universe. He perhaps underestimated them a bit which caused his downfall but the plan had otherwise been sound. Doom is one of those villains who really thinks that he is the hero for most of this. He takes really extreme measures with the idea that they will eventually lead to peace. There is certainly some logic there but I think he’s just way too extreme for you to be able to take it too seriously.
If the guy wanted to end injustice there are just so many other ways to do it. In a way the series just made him too powerful. If he was a lot weaker then it would make sense why he has to take a lot of compromises on his path to justice. That would have actually squared things away really well but it wasn’t the way this ended up going. Also he makes for an interesting villain to go up against Spiderman because realistically the hero has no shot here. The spider sense can at least extend the fight a while but Spiderman has no way of putting him down. For that reason the climax has a lot going on as opposed to trying to make this a one on one fight.
For the more street level fights, we got different enemies who shows up during the series. One of them was a kid named Onita who used to get bullied a whole lot. One day a shapeshifting Kaiju showed up and his life changed right away. Onita used these abilities to get back at the bullies and lead a more carefree life. The power absolutely corrupted him all the way but Spiderman was able to set him straight. It was a good way to show his heroics without necessarily having to beat someone up.
There were also a handful of nice Kaiju who meant well and then they get to return at the end of the series to help out. You always need to have a grand climax in a title like this one and that was no different here. Now Dr. Doom could have easily won if he had just blown up all of his opponents, but again he does think of himself as a true king. So that would be beneath him. He even sets up a system to give other people the Ultraman power which ends up backfiring. It’s all through a corrupt lens but he was sharing power and living up to his word. Any world ruled by Doom would just not be one where you are able to keep your freedom.
Could he actually keep it safe? Well, I have to admit that he probably could. In a lot of ways that is the trade off here. You are sacrificing autonomy and freedom for absolute safety. In Latveria Doom had some success with this but it’s always hard to tell how much is legit vs just classic brainwashing. In either case, Spiderman wasn’t going to let that go on here.
Mefilas gets a shoutout for having one of the worst possible plans though. He initially holds his own against Doom but then says that a battle between them could destroy the world. So what does he do? He summons a few Kaiju to fight Doom and says that the winner will be able to rule the world. The problem is that we already had established that both of them were far beyond any Kaiju. So Doom promptly beats them in a few hits with 0 effort and Mefilas is surprised by this for some reason. I think this is the one area where the author ran himself into a hole where he just wasn’t sure how to proceed. There would be no easy way to write Mefilas out so I guess he just went with this plan in the end. It may not have been very believable but it was the only option at hand I guess.
Initially I figured this was going to be a pretty quick miniseries but at 53 chapters it lasted a whole lot longer than I had been expecting. The climax is fairly long and the series got to also include a lot of slice of life moments so Spiderman could actually enjoy his time in this new world. It was handled really well and the writing was on point throughout. I would also say that the pacing was really good. The adventure went by quickly and never dragged on. Finally the series had good artwork as well which is important. I’m not going to say that it’s one of the all timers in that regard but it’s clear and easy to read. It’s also very different compared to a lot of the more standard art styles. It uses a lot of white as a way to show off the cosmic energy so the manga is very bright.
As a final note, I have to say that the 3 minute timer for Ultraman still seems like such a crazy huge weakness. It comes up in every fight during this series and makes you think that any opponent could run around to stall for time. Perhaps the Kaiju wouldn’t be thinking about this but any humanoid villain could take advantage of that. Ultraman desperately needs to surpass this weakness because otherwise it will always be looming in the background. You also feel like scoffing when it comes up in each fight because it’s not like Ultraman can hide this limitation either. He has a red orb that starts beeping right on queue which signals everyone in the area. Ultraman is written out for different parts of the manga but you always knew that the limit would return.
Overall, I had a good time with this one. Having Spiderman and Ultraman team up was a good idea. They’re both very heroic figures after all and you don’t need many more similarities than that. Crossovers are just fun in general and sometimes the more random you make the crossover, the better off it is for it. I say to keep them coming. As long as you enjoy either titles or just like a good action manga then I would recommend this one. It’s a pretty safe title to recommend to anyone because it’s not going for any grand angle. This is a classic story of good vs evil and about giving people a second chance. It embodies a kind of classic heroism hat you don’t always see nowadays. It makes for a good title and hopefully we get more crossovers in the future.
Overall 7/10
