Something
weird happened in 2016. No, besides that. I meant on Tsuburaya Productions’
YouTube channel. Ultraman’s 50th anniversary was on its way, but all they
seemed to post was this weirdo in a cheap-looking superhero costume fighting
even cheaper-looking kaiju. After a few terrific pieces of fanart crossed my
Tumblr dashboard, I decided to give it a watch.
That was all it took. From April to October, Redman had me -- and
many other tokusatsu fans -- in his grip. Like the kaiju who kept coming back
no matter how many times he stabbed them, his show had found new life 44 years
after it ended. We gifed, drew, theorized, roleplayed, cosplayed, filmed. Though the whole series had been released on LaserDisc in
1996, it felt like it had been discovered in someone’s attic after they
mysteriously vanished. There was no context for anything that was happening,
just endless brawls in the middle of nowhere, set to music that oscillated
between chipper and eerie and approximately five sound effects. The idea that
this originally aired as part of a “children’s variety show” was as
unbelievable as Tsuburaya’s claims that Redman was a hero. To any clear-eyed
viewer, he was nothing less than a kaiju slasher… except he always won.
Tsuburaya has yet to launch any live-action projects with Redman
in the wake of his unexpected resurgence, despite
having a new suit ready to go.
Fortunately, they’ve joined with Phase Six and Night Shining to publish
something even better: a graphic novel written and illustrated by Matt Frank
and colored by Goncalo Lopes. With Volume 1 of Redman: The Kaiju Hunter,
they’ve unlocked the character’s hidden potential, while teasing even stranger
stories to come.
After an introduction by Shin’ichi Ooka, Redman’s
cinematographer and the current president of Tsuburaya, the comic kicks off
with a shocker: Redman wasn’t filmed on Earth. The intended audience
wasn’t Earthlings either. There are five stories (or Red Fights) in all. In
order: Arstron learns his place in the food chain, Icarus struggles to survive a trek through the forest, Kanegon becomes trapped in a time loop, Black
King and Dorako try to form an alliance with the oblivious Zaurs, and a swarm of Big
Ligers push Redman to his limits. All the
while, a camera records the action and a group of Cicada
People watch it on TV in a dark room.
The awful truth about Redman is that when it’s not making
your jaw drop, it can be a bit boring. The fight choreography can’t help but
repeat itself over the course of 138 episodes, and there’s not much going on besides
fighting. Frank wisely offers more variety in The Kaiju Hunter: Red
Fights 1 and 5 are the most action-packed, 2 and 3 bring the horror, and 4 is
an unexpected dose of black comedy. Anyone who’s read Godzilla: Rulers of
Earth knows that Frank can draw a thrilling kaiju fight, but I’ve never
seen anything like Black King and Dorako explaining their plan to defeat Redman
through cartoon equations. The format also frees the characters from budgetary
constraints: Redman uproots a tree and summons dozens of Red Arrows, Arstron
breathes fire, Dorako and Big Liger fly.
If you’ve never heard of Big Liger before, I don’t blame you -- it
was one of three original monsters designed for Redman but never used.
(Most of his actual opponents came from the Ultra Series, plus one each from Mirrorman
and Fight! Mighty Jack.) For Redman acolytes, The Kaiju
Hunter has plenty of similar delights. Red Fight 2 riffs on one of the
show’s most memorable visuals: Icarus gamboling through the woods as Redman
looms out of the mist behind him. Red Fight 1 enhances one
of the worst action beats. Kanegon becomes
weaker with each loop, going from his gold Ultra Q appearance to the
haggard, greenish beast of Ultra Fight and Redman. The narrator
gets a bit meta as the first Big Liger hatches: “But surely there is a challenge
yet to be met? A challenge that is not merely an album on repeat? The same
handful of songs over and over?” (Redman never had a narrator, but it
feels right all the same.) Redman has the same look and powers as he did on the
show, including the death-ray that was evidently too expensive to include in
more than one episode. It’s not yet clear, but we might be reading a sequel to Redman,
not an adaptation.
The Red Phantom Killer seems to be losing his touch a little. His
customary salute after taking care of Arstron is slow, melancholic. Three of
his targets escape with their lives, which happened only once in the show.
Something is haunting him, crippling him in the woods before he can finish off
Icarus, then again after he dismantles the Big Ligers. If the comic has any
weakness, it’s that the identity of this force is too cryptic: all we get is a
biped with wings and a spike on its head. The Cicada People may be monitoring
Redman to discover how the monsters he kills are able to come back, as one bit
of narration suggests, but their connection to the specter, if any, is
unexplored. Such sequel hooks aren’t really my cup of tea; if sales don’t
permit a Volume 2, all you’ve got is an incomplete story.
There’s quite a bit of bonus content. Apart from the introduction,
you get 14 pages of additional art Frank drew for the series, including
sketches, character designs, and alternate covers. That’s followed by three
pages of publicity stills from the show, then drawings of Sadora and Gomora by
Wet Moon creator Sophie Campbell.
Oddly enough, the page of sketches offers a major clue for Volume
2, should the world be just. One of the two monsters shown only in silhouette
is clearly Bemular -- not the monster Ultraman faced in his first episode, but
the original winged hero of the show! TBS producer Takashi Kokai worried that
viewers would be confused by a good kaiju fighting evil kaiju (he had
apparently not watched any kaiju movies recently), and so a more humanoid
figure emerged. His name was... Redman! But Eiji Tsuburaya felt Redman’s design
was “too
alien and sinister.” As Tohl Narita
developed a more placid face, the character was renamed Ultraman. So it’ll
certainly be interesting to see how that little behind-the-scenes story
translates to fiction. Dammit, they hooked me after all!
★★★★★/★★★★★
★★★★★/★★★★★
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