The booth that I’ve gravitated towards the most on the SDCC floor (when I haven’t been working or interviewing) is the Ultraman booth. Anyone who knows me shouldn’t be surprised: I grew up watching the original series via videotapes, and followed it on and off over the years. In fact, if I were to make a list of constants in my pop culture diet, Ultraman would be at the top with Spider-Man, the Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
So naturally, I went to the Ultraman panel on Friday night. It featured a pair of underrated Marvel artists in E.J. Su, who did covers for The Mystery of Ultraseven and co-created Image’s Tech Jacket with Robert Kirkman, and Reilly Brown, who’s drawn multiple Deadpool comics.
Brown even joked that he was drawing Cable and Deadpool before the Merc with a Mouth blew up in popularity.
“I was doing it because no one knew what to do with these guys,” he laughed. Su also talked about how when he was a kid, he asked his parents to buy him Ultraman merch as he grew up watching multiple Ultraman series.
The panel kicked off with an overview of the Ultraman universe, and the more recent projects: the Ultraman Arc series, which is available with an English-language dub on YouTube, and Ultraman Rising which skyrocketed to #2 on the Netflix charts. (It’s well deserved; Rising is a good film.)
A young adult series of novels, titled Ultra Academy, is slated for release with Rebecca K. Reynolds writing. Tsuburaya Productions is also developing an Ultraman card game! Demos will be held all throughout SDCC, with Su and Brown both providing illustrations for certain cards.
Mill Creek Entertainment’s J.W. Barrett also revealed the upcoming Ultraman DVD releases. Ultraman Blazar and Ultraman Taiga will be collected for the first time, along with the long-lost animated American film Ultraman: The Adventure Begins. Barrett also let fans know that there would be an official screening of Ultraman Blazar: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown with Johnny Yong Bosch (Bleach, Power Rangers) providing Blazar’s English voice.
The biggest reveal, however, came with the comics section. While the news that Ultraman X Avengers is coming this August was already on Ultraman fans’ radar, the panel officially revealed that Ultraman and the Avengers will be battling Galactus! The Devourer of Worlds will also be transforming one of Ultraman’s foes, the shape-shifting Zarab, into his newest herald. Su is once again providing covers for the series, with one featuring Ultraman tangling with Fin Fang Foom.
In short, Ultraman isn’t going anywhere. And that’s the way I like it.
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