Ultramega #1 (2021)
Despite leading the charge on KaiJuly 2021, I have a pretty big blindspot in the subgenre: Ultra Series. I’ve certainly seen many tokusatsu shows here and there, but not many featuring arguably its most famous ambassador—Ultraman. In fact, the only Ultraman show I watched seems to be the one that most fans/people hate, the Japanese/Australian co-produced Ultraman: Towards The Future from 1990. Still, even without that deep knowledge of the Ultra world, I do get the basic tenets of these series:
A regular human is picked by some interstellar creature/organization to wield special powers needed to fight monsters that will soon plague the world. Or that normal person accidentally happens upon some talisman that transforms them and also grants them with these super abilities to combat creatures. Usually the hero can be human-sized and have various cool karate moves and energy blasts, but also becomes giant to square off against the monsters when they themselves become giant.
Still, even with a cursory understanding of standard structure of this type of tokusatsu storytelling, I worried I would be unable to truly appreciate (or even understand) the new Image Comics title, Ultramega.
Created, written, and drawn by James Harren (with colors by Dave Stewart), Ultramega is accessible to anyone—not just the Ultra faithful. The first issue combines humor, action, pathos, horror, and much more in a fast-paced comic that is utterly engrossing.
The first issue starts off in the familiar territory of sentai-like stories where a cosmic entity (who looks like a cross between Zen, The Intergalactic Ninja and Spider-Man when he had Captain Universe’s powers) bestows an average dude (named Jason) with a weird crystal eye thingy so he may fight the coming plague where a virus turns people into rampaging, Cronenbergian/Lovecraftian monsters that are all tentacles, slime, and teeth.
Jason is one of three such warriors—the others being an enigmatic hobo and an engineering wunderkind. It seems their very presence accelerates the virus in the hosts and so the heroes often find themselves suddenly thrust into battle.
With a wife and child at home, Jason longs for the days when he can finally take some time off. Time away from the mutating creatures that are ravaging the city. Time with just his family and no longer squaring off against the occasional freakbeasts. It’s clear that the mantle of UltraMega is wearing on our protagonist, but it will only get worse when a very special evil arises. The Kaiju Prince, with ties to Jason himself, emerges to cause massive devastation and death for the city and the UltraMegas themselves.
While this is only based on the first issue, Ultramega is an incredible read. Many artists have previously tried to take on familiar tokusatsu/Kaiju tropes in new, subversive ways with varying levels of success. Harren has found a way of using a lot of the commonplace aspects of these stories to build up to something amazingly emotional and genuinely shocking. His artwork, based on classic Kaiju designs but filtered through grotesque body horror funhouse mirrors by way of Ben Templesmith, is compelling and dynamic. While Ultramega is full of genuine emotions and touching drama, it is also jammed tight with action sequences so that kinetic feeling is vital when translating from page to brain. Stewart also proves the importance of a great colorist as his blending of various hues manages to make the monsters freakier, the city more drab (despite all the fantastic events around it), and the pall of tragedy permeate many panels.
The wrinkles to designs and worldbuilding extend into a fairly daring narrative move that ends the first comic in a very unexpected place. It’s a gamble that could easily distance readers as much as it can intrigue them to follow the adventures of this world besieged by gods and monsters. There is a lot of darkness in Ultramega, but it never feels cynical or like a downer. By all rights, it should—I mean, there’s literally a part of the story where many people drown in the blood of a giant. Perhaps it’s the softness of the protagonist, who is reluctant to fight but knows someone has to; maybe it’s the injections of humor throughout (including a sweet reference to THE SHINING); or maybe it’s simply the idea that no apocalypse is too big that it can’t be countered by someone.
A true sign of an excellent artist is that the audience can pick out all the references and influences, but still find the work to be entertaining and unique.
Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, and others are able to do this with aplomb and so does Harren. There are nods to works like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ultraman, WICKED CITY, Damage Control, PACIFIC RIM, and a bunch of manga and ‘90s extreme Image titles. Despite these nods, Ultramega never feels like a rerun.
The series is still ongoing from Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment. It’s currently up to issue four, with the first collected TPB coming out in October 2021, and available from most electronic comics purveyors (like Comixology). You can even read the bulk of the first issue on Image Comics’ site to get a taste of the book and decide if you should continue on the journey. I know I will. I can’t wait to see what Harren and company will unleash in his paneled world of nightmares and miracles. KaiJuly is all about celebrating the many shades of monsters that we’ve come to love and fear over the years—Ultramega is a completely new color of Kaiju that should be sought out.
