While Towards the Future failed to muster a second season, the show did still live on in printed media. In 1993 and 1994, two different American comic book companies, Harvey Comics and Nemesis, would continue the adventures of Ultraman Great, even if the TV show and the initial marketing push had ended. Switching to comics is a common future for short-lived genre TV shows, and Ultraman had already had a long history of manga adaptations over in Japan, so what could go wrong?
Sadly, the two short lived adaptations of Towards the Future really are unable to capture the spirit of the series. Filled with lots of off-model artwork, stories with confounding pseudo-philosophical mumbo jumbo and acting as a confused and muddled sequel to not only Towards the Future, but even the original show itself, the 90’s comics are undoubtedly one of the strangest pieces of licensed Ultraman media ever made. And while the comics bring back many of the monsters seen in the show it’s based on, we do get some new creatures here, albeit they won’t be as refined as the monsters from the Australian show.
GENERIC GUDIS MUTANTS
While most of the monsters seen in this series are taken directly from the show, we do get some new Gudis mutants thrown our way. This ugly, three-eyed fella seen in the flashback is pretty grotesque, but I could see him appearing in the show.
This pteranodon monster is quite ugly as well, bringing to mind the psychic Mahars from At The Earth’s Core. This is the first monster Jack Shindo fights three years after he separated from Ultraman Great.
But in a plot twist, the monster turns out to be surprise, a revived Gudis! Gudis then takes back his spot as main baddie for a good chunk of the comic.
In another flashback, we see Great tussling with a giant shark and mosasaurus which is pretty…underwhelming, I gotta say.
THIS DEMON GUY
The villain of the Ultraman Negative One special by Nemesis, this unnamed demon character (who I’m just gonna refer to as Demon Guy for simplicity’s sake), is born from the universe’s darkness, and his manifestation causes natural disasters, plagues, famine and even causes his darkness to shroud the planet. Great shows up, but Demon Guy is too strong and traps him. Jack Shindo and the martial arts master Ace Kimura steal a UMA aircraft and Jack flies it straight into Demon Guy, freeing Great and allowing him to vanquish him, releasing Earth from his hold. Great then fuses with Ace, who then serves as Great’s host for the remainder of the comics.
The idea of an demonic entity born from the negative energy of the universe and being strong enough to seal away an Ultra, while also bringing a blight to the world is a decent concept, but Demon Guy here doesn’t really look like something you’d see in any previous Ultra show and looks more akin to a generic 90’s comic book villain. He has some potential, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark.
THE ROBEX
The next group of big bads the comic throws at us are the Robex Dynasty. The Robex were originally a group of powerful computers Earth had built located on the planet Shima 12. However, after a meteor shower damaged the computers, they had begun to self-repair, incorporating organic and inorganic components into their repairs, gaining a mind of their own.
Lead by the evil Cogem, the Robex Dynasty launches a devastating attack on the Earth. While Great makes scrap out of the aliens, Cogem reveals that he’s planted bombs in the Earth’s core, and should Great continue fighting, Earth will be destroyed.
Ace, the new host of Great, leads a one-man war against the Robex and is able to destroy Shima 12 by becoming a bizarre human-Ultra hybrid for a brief period to tear Cogem a new one. Cogem survives, but without his forces, he retreats into deep space, vowing to return.
The concept of the Robex is a sound one. I like the idea of a Earth’s computer network going rogue and becoming an army of killer robots, and it certainly feels like the sort of storyline the show would’ve tackled had it gotten a second season. Sadly, the cleverness and quirkiness of Towards the Future isn’t here, so we have some more generic comic book villains. Lastly, while I can commend the art team for giving each individual Robex a unique design (so much so that there’s far too many of them to have here), the quality of artwork as well as the messy, generic designs leave a lot to be desired. Cogem never managed to return to menace Earth again, but honestly, who is missing him?
RAPTOR
A bizarre, albino, blue-haired serial killer wandering the destroyed metropolis after the Robex invasion, Raptor gets into a bloody fight with Ace before being driven off.
Raptor soon breaks into a UMA research facility where a fragment of Gudis is kept. Said fragment turns out to be alive and impales Raptor, infecting him with the Gudis virus…
Raptor soon transforms into a dinosaur looking monster, but soon Gudis realizes something: Raptor has someone else’s blood in him. Y’see, when Raptor battled Ace earlier, he got some of Ace’s blood into his wounds…
Since Ace is now Great’s host, Gudis is able to create his own evil Ultraman from Ace’s blood that is in Raptor’s body. The Blue Ultraman and Gudis give Great quite a bit of trouble until Great manages to get the two onto an asteroid and changes it’s gravity, trapping the two on it forever.
The idea of an evil Ultraman is an evergreen concept, and the idea of a villainous Ultraman born from the union of banal human evil and Gudis feels like it would’ve made for a classic episode of the TV show had it been made. Sadly, like the rest, the execution has a bit more to be desired here, and what should be the standout arc of the comic still feels like generic 90’s comic book stuff. We don’t really get an explanation of why Raptor is so freakish (the comic mentions that Raptor is on UMA’s wanted list and has the strength of 10 men, so I guess he’s a mutant?), but I do find it funny how this forgotten comic book villain is not only the first ever blue Ultraman in the franchise, even predating the obscure Ultraman Kiyotaka, but his battles with Great eerily foreshadow the similar red vs. blue ultra formula in shows like Ultraman Gaia and Ultraman Mebius. Of course, Tsuburaya’s not going to ever acknowledge Raptor as the first of his kind, nor do I think he served as inspiration for those rival blue Ultras, so he ain’t gonna get any accolades. This is also sadly the last appearance for Gudis, as the comic folded after this issue, which doesn’t surprise me based on its quality.
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