This August, Japan’s greatest superhero, Ultraman, and iconic Marvel Super Hero Spider-Man unite for the first time in Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man, an epic serialized Japanese manga from Shogakukan. Part of a major cross-cultural event set to take the global comics scene by storm, this news follows the recent announcement of Marvel Comics’ Ultraman x Avengers series, debuting on the same day this August 14.
Japanese publisher Shogakukan, in collaboration with Tsuburaya Productions and Marvel Comics, is releasing Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man, marking the first time that Ultraman and Marvel’s most renowned character Spider-Man join forces in a Japanese manga. Written by Shigenobu Matsumoto and drawn by Tomo Hirokawa, the manga features one of Marvel’s greatest supervillains of all time, Doctor Doom, who joins forces with Ultraman arch-nemesis Alien Mefilas and his cadre of destructive Kaiju, with cameo appearances by The Avengers. Marvel Comics Executive Editor Tom Brevoort and Tsuburaya Fields Media & Pictures Entertainment’s Transmedia Producer Jeff Gomez served as creative consultants for the series.
Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man will be distributed in the United States by VIZ Media, kicking off with chapters 1 and 2 on August 13 in the US (August 14 Japan time), making for a truly global event. VIZ is launching the manga series digitally on the VIZ Manga app, with new chapters released every Tuesday. The latest chapter each week will be available for free, and readers can subscribe to VIZ Manga to read the full series. VIZ will also publish a print edition of the complete manga in the United States, set to hit retail in Summer 2025.
On Marvel Earth, Spider-Man joins forces with the Avengers to battle Doctor Doom in New York City, but when several civilians are killed in a building collapse as a result, Spider-Man becomes demoralized and finds himself whisked away in a strange spacecraft called the Interdimensional Train. Doctor Doom stows aboard and both find themselves in the Tokyo of the Ultraman universe! Witnessing Ultraman battle a giant Kaiju, Doom craves the Giant of Light’s power and joins forces with Alien Mefilas and his army of Kaiju from the Monster Graveyard to steal it.
