‘Ultimo’ ch. 0 by Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei

I do remember this blog!!! Sorry for the delay, things got between me and manga, and I’m terribly behind on everything. So I’ll catch up by writing about something recent: ‘Ultimo’, the collaboration between Hiroyuki Takei and Stan Lee, is going to start as a series in Jump SQ in February.

In other words, now is the best time to look at the prologue – Chapter 0 – which was released back in April.

‘Ultimo’ starts out simple enough: a certain Dr. Dunstan creates two artificial, doll-like, boy-shaped robot creatures: Ultimo, who is goodness incarnate, and Vice, who is pure evil. Both have arms that can transform to copy any weapon. One thousand years later (from our pov, in the future), they suddenly show up above a city and start battling… I wonder what Dr. Dunstan’s motives were. Two creatures with superhuman abilities whose whole nature dictates that they must forever fight one another, that sure sounds like a particularly nasty thing to unleash on the world. Indeed, the man mentions that the creation of Ultimo and Vice is his “curse” for the world, and he wonders aloud how the people of the world will react to this.

At worst, this will be a series about two superhumans with one-dimensional personalities fighting each other with increasingly insane weaponry. At best, it will be a story about how ordinary people react to the presence of such beings and such powers. A social experiment, if you will. An exploration of human nature.

The prologue sets up a couple of things that might work in that second direction: Vice loses an arm, which is recovered by a soldier – a soldier who is very thrilled to get his hands on such a powerful device! (He wears glasses, too. Allow me to rely on broad manga stereotypes, but that means he is intelligent and possibly a scientist; someone who could study the technology of the arm to develop high-tech weapons! Oh no.) Meanwhile, a simple policeman is fascinated by the two robot boys and decides to investigate their existence… And there is also a group of monks setting out to rid the Earth from Vice and Ultimo (who, they believe, really shouldn’t be there at all), and there is even an ominous business man who seems to have been anticipating the incident, and plans to exploit it in some way…

The  battle between Vice and Ultimo ends with an extremely powerful attack that seemingly catapults the two right into space. But Ultimo at least remains on Earth: he is found unconscious by a hiker on Mt. Fuji.

The prologue is written in a particular style where the action is overlaid with a narrative text in text boxes – the way Yoshihiro Togashi had been doing for a couple of the more recent chapters of ‘Hunter X Hunter’. The effect of that technique is to give the story a sense of fatefulness. It’s a dramatic voice-over narration which illustrates one thing first and foremost: ‘Ultimo’ isn’t modest. This series wants to be epic. Look at how many conflicts are set up!

Apart from that, I’m undecided. Cautiously optimistic, maybe. ‘Ultimo’ has received a lot of flak, and it is true that this chapter isn’t particularly impressive all by itself. Since it concerns itself with foreshadowing and introducing the story’s setting, the characters – the meat of any story – remain anonymous. And Ultimo and Vice themselves are problematic the way they appear in this story: purposely one-dimensional and impossible to relate to. But there’s the chance that this will change for the actual series: Ultimo is discovered unconscious by a hiker; if we are really lucky, he’ll have lost his memories, become more human and only gradually rediscovers all the big, fateful things we see hinted in the prologue.

I believe it’s definitely too early to judge ‘Ultimo’ for its narration style, characters and story, the way a lot of people are doing. It’s a prologue, it’s likely that there will be a change in tone and approach for the actual series.

Additionally, a lot of the negativity aimed at ‘Ultimo’ stems from bias towards their authors… Stan Lee is an American comic legend, but a lot of manga fans don’t like American comics and see this collaboration as some sort of hostile take-over. And Takei? He’s a Shonen Jump author and his most famous work is a long-running battle manga with a long drawn-out tournament arch… which lost so much popularity in the end that it was cancelled. Takei’s next series, ‘Juuki Ningen Yumbor‘ was cancelled after a mere ten chapters. So you have people who think that it will be the American superhero influence ruining ‘Ultimo’, and others who think it’s the fighting/shonen influence, or specifically Takei (who could get called a one-hit wonder by the people who like to do so). Whatever ‘Ultimo’ does, I doubt it will manage to overcome all of that bias. But as long as it’s decent and does its own thing well, I am sure it can find its audience. I do wish Takei well. 2009 could be his year: he will get to finish ‘Shaman King’ and he will start a new prestigious project, a collaboration with someone he admires. Good luck, man!

My biggest personal issue will be with the artwork. I had read ‘Shaman King’ from the beginning to around volume 22, and while I was never a big fan of Takei’s drawing style, I sort of liked it. It’s unique, and looks particularly smooth and neat in ‘Ultimo’. But I always had trouble following the fighting sequences in ‘Shaman King’, and this could definitely become a problem again here. It remains to be seen, though.

Tags: hiroyuki takei, stan lee, ultimo